Crohn's Disease is Idiopathic.

I had my colonoscopy and endoscopy today. They found mild patches of inflammation (erythematous) in my upper GI tract. This is significant for two reasons. First, there are only two inflammatory bowel disorders (IBD), and of the two, ulcerative colitis affects only the colon/large intestine. So it cannot be ulcerative colitis. Second, the only disorder which involves patches of inflammation separated by healthy patches of intestine is Crohn's disease.

This is bad on a number of levels.
1. There is no cure for Crohn's disease.
2. They don't know what causes it (idiopathic), but it is an autoimmune condition, and is often associated with other autoimmune conditions. This means there's still the possibility that I have an underlying, undiagnosed autoimmune disease, in addition to Crohn's disease.
3. The drugs which are used to treat Crohn's at this stage are ASA's (aspirin-related drugs). Why is this bad? I'm ALLERGIC to ASA's and all related non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen).

One other thing you should know - it's not official until the biopsies come back. But there's also nothing else it could be.

I'm so angry. I told myself that at least if they found something, I would know something. But, had it been ulcerative colitis, they could've cured it. Instead, I'm set up to go through a slew of tests, which may all be for nought, to try to find the underlying cause of the disease. Crohn's disease is a ravaging disorder. All they can hope to do is slow it down.

It's been readily apparent to multiple doctors that I have an autoimmune disorder. I don't feel like divulging the details at this juncture, but suffice it to say that every primary care physician I've seen in the last 10 years has tested me for various autoimmune conditions. One of the main reasons was chronic sinus infections and ear infections with no known etiology (...idiopathic).

The digestive issues started when I was 19/20.  In 2006, I was having severe diarrhea, could not digest dairy products or eggs, had severe abdominal pain, and I lost 15 pounds (from 160 to 145). The  colonoscopy didn't turn up anything at the time. The doctors were worried I had cancer, and they finally did an exploratory laparoscopy, and found endometriosis. Although endometriosis could not explain my symptoms, I did improve after the surgery. Since then, I've had intermittent problems with diet, have progressively cut out all dairy, eggs, salicylates, sulfites (preservatives) and gluten, and still, obviously, have problems.

In case you missed my earlier posts, I had a bowel obstruction in June, which resulted in urgent surgery. They didn't find anything, which led to the colonoscopy I had today.

The good news is I'm not crazy. The bad news is it's as bad as I thought it might be. I'm going to have to find a support group, a rheumatologist (autoimmune specialty) and a good nutritionist. The list of foods I'm not supposed to eat is ridiculous, between the salicylate allergy and the Crohn's Disease.

~Alison