Saturday, June 24, 2006

Ring of Fire

How my Crohns manifests itself has changed over the years, here is how it affects me currently.

I go to the toilet frequently with diarrhoea, sometimes up to three times a day. This has been happening for such a long time, that on the odd occasion when stool is solid I have been known to celebrate after inspecting the toilet bowel with a quick punch in the air and a muttering of "yes". I can sometimes go months on end without a poo of solid consistency.

The lack of proper digestion of my food leaves me lacking energy. When I have been really ill I have found myself failing asleep whilst driving to work in the morning and then find it hard to concentrate all day.

Occasionally I get some stomach pains in the lower gut. This is always concerning and alerts me to the fact that I am having a flare up of the illness internally.

The constant trips to the toilet leave me feeling shore. The diarrhoea can burn, which is very painful and un-comfortable. Often there will be blood on the toilet issue, either from the constant wiping, or from internal bleeding causing by the Crohns disease.

Recently I have had frightening moments when there is blood all over the toilet tissue. This has to of come from internally, which leads me to believe that the Crohns is affecting the lower half of my digestive track.

When I was younger my Crohns symptoms where different. This shows that the illness can developed and change the way it inflicts itself upon you. Perhaps in another post I will talk about how Crohns affected me as a teenager.

Monday, June 19, 2006

So it Begins

For a while I have been contemplating the blogging of my Crohns disease experiences. Recently I had been feeling quite well, but the inevitable relapse hit me hard yesterday, and I jumped out of bed at 3 in the morning to start this Blog.

The vast amount of quality blogs about Crohns surprised me, and I had second thoughts about starting my own. After a long period of thought I decided that I would be able to bring something different to the Crohns blog scene. So here I am!

The aim of this blog is the share my Crohns experiences with others. I was diagnosed with Crohns nearly a decade ago and have experienced growing up with the illness. Luckily I am not half as ill as some of people with this horrible affliction, but I have had my low moments.


Recently, I had been feeling good. I was on a slightly modified diet, had started talking some new Aloe Vera pills (which I was super sceptical of), was goning easy on the drinking, and stopped smoking. After a couple of weeks of smoking again, a hard weekend took its toll. I hit the toilet three times yesterday, and could hear the noises of any angry gut reeling back at me as I tried to sleep. Time to get back on it and look after myself!