More on the Personal Side of Crohn's

I am a 44 year old female with a 16 yr. old son, a 5 yr. old daughter and a wonderful husband. My parents are in their 70s, retired and enjoying a healthy and happy life. My prayer is that I out-live them. My illness has really caused them much pain. My kids and husband and his parents and sisters are very supportive. They actually try to do too much for me, if that's possible! I had my appendix removed when I was 6. I have been anemic all my life. I was a sickly child, mostly upper respiratory type infections. I took a lot of penicillin until I had an allergic reaction once. Then took lots of antibiotics for various and never ending infections. Did this contribute to the Crohn's? Who really knows. I was always athletically inclined. Always thin and a 'picky' eater. To this day I hate to hear parents who worry that a child won't eat. An otherwise normal child will not starve. Don't force a child to eat. Mealtime for me as a child was a battle. Took B-12 shots regularly. I don't remember any significant health problems in high school. I was diagnosed once with food poisoning. I was very active, marched in the Color Guard and played basketball when I wasn't marching.

In my adult life, I had frequent bouts with different things like UTI and prone to have diarrhea. Had my first child by C-section in 1981. Gallbladder out in 1983. Felt really good after that for a while. Started having frequent infections again, common to have bouts with diarrhea several times a month, lasting a day or more. Normal weight. Got pregnant in 1991 (age 38!) Lost a lot of weight, felt like I had a UTI the whole time. Lots of diarrhea off and on. I successfully delivered a little girl April, 1992 (not by C-section) Could not seem to get my strength back. Still losing weight. Frequent UTIs and diarrhea. Beginning to affect quality of life. Missing work, declining invitations. Still losing weight. After 2 years of 'doctor hopping' I finally found a GI doc at the Kirklin Clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center who knew before he saw the upper GI results that I had Crohn's. Pentasa helped for a while. Seemed to have plateau-ed. Never in remission. January 1997 started going downhill. My wonderful GI doc is gone to Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris for a year! My internal medicine doctor is tired of me. Still losing weight, vomiting, incredible pain. Finally broke down and started Prednisone. 60 mg a day at first, down to

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