Is medication necessary?
Thu, May 13, 2010 2:37 PM
Diagnosed in Jan. after losing 10 lbs in 1 week-no appetite, and excessive diarrhea. Diagnosed with irritabel bowel 15 years ago-never had an experience like this-caused rapid hip joint degeneration and subsequent hip replacement. Taken off ASacol during preop tests as liver enzymes went wacky-haven't been on any chrohns medication for 3 months now and Dr. wants me to go back on Asacol with weekly liver testing required. I am considering no medication and when I have another episode, then getting on some to level me out. What are the chances that this disease could cuase more joint degenration?
grapesandlakesJoined May 13, 2010
Sun, May 16, 2010 12:00 AM
Reply posted for grapesandlakes.
You have a tricky question! I can understand where you are coming from. I was diagnosed with colitis when I was 16 years old. I am now 33 years old. I had a period of about 5 years after my initial diagnosis where we struggled to find a medication I was even able to get to work (I am severely allergic to Asacol). After that first 5 years, I gave up on taking medication because it seemed not to work anyway and did not go to my GI doctor. Eventually, the colitis symptoms went away and I was thrilled! However, I started having other cases of widespread inflammation thru my body in my joints and my eyes. The doctors tried to treat the joint and eye inflammation but it proved almost impossible. I have permanent vision loss and chronic pain in my joints from the havoc the inflammation caused. One of my doctors during this time thought that the eye and joint inflammation could be caused by the colitis. I thought she was nuts because I was having zero bowel symptoms. She had me take a blood test that came back 99.94% positive for colitis. I went back to my old GI doctor. He said that the blood test was probably wrong and we probably wouldn't find anything but let's go ahead and do a colonoscopy to be sure. Well surprise surprise my colon was a big mess of inflammation. The GI doctor thought it looked moderate to him, but the biopsy said the inflammation was severe. I guess to make a long story short, even if you don't think you are currently having any symptoms of your disease, you might very well be and it could lead to other problems such as permanent vision loss. Make sure you have a doctor who knows what they are doing and you can trust, and listen to the advice that they have to give because you don't want to end up with chronic joint pain, blind and having IBD!
fruitloop614Joined May 16, 2010
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