I was diagnosed in November 2006. I'm flaring pretty bad right now. Lots of joint and muscle pains and having more and more trips to the restroom and lots of bleeding. Very tired. Still working a 40 hr/week job, but it is really hard to get up in the morning and get moving. I don't "LOOK" terribly sick, so it's hard for people to understand. I've tried different medications, but have not had much luck with them. They tend to give me worse diarrhea.
I also have Type I diabetes, and the prednisone and entocort make my bloodsugars uncontrollable, so I can't take those. Remicade has been mentioned many times by multiple docs (Gastro, Rheum, and Endocrinologist) but the side effects scare the bajeezus out of me. I saw that there is concern from the FDA now for young people and lymphoma as a side effect from Remicade. While I'm not a young person any longer (33) I have to think if its bad for young people that it can't be all that hot for anyone really. I have also read multiple accounts of people GETTING joint pains from Remicade. I already have severe joint pain, so I don't want it to get worse. I've had very bad experiences with doctors in my area so far. I had them wheel me into surgery for one thing, only for them not to perform the surgery and tell me I had Crohn's. Didn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in the med field for me.
There has also been a lot of "trial and error" prescribing of drugs as well. I had my ankles swell to the size of softballs from Cipro. The doctors said that the drug couldn't possibly cause that. Just a week ago, I saw the FDA has blacklisted Cipro due to complications with the drug which cause tendon ruptures, specifically in the
ankles. So I feel like the docs didn't care, were covering their asses, or are just generally clueless. Big phram scares the hell out of me now.
I hadn't given MJ a thought for many years, but saw that the MN bill was supposed to go up for a vote, and the local paper had an article. It mentioned Crohn's disease in the article, and it made me curious. I smoked recreationally back in the day and never had any physical problems with it, which is more than I can say of these drugs I've tried from the docs so far. I have a bag of MJ now and have tried it a few times. I have no tolerance any more, and it really makes me hella high. Its almost too much for me. Helps the pain in my joints a great deal. Being I have to get up every morning for work, I've also tried to limit how much I do. I probably need to smoke more to see if it will really benefit me. I think I need different MJ though, as this stuff makes my heart race something fierce. I sure hope the MN bill passes in 2009 so I can have access to different strains to try.
Sorry that was so long. I'm not "anti-doctor" or anything, and don't mean to scare people off from trying the different treatments. Just giving my story and why I am interested in trying MJ for my Crohn's. Glad to hear from others out there!
