crohns

What is Crohns Disease?
Crohns Disease is a chronic inflammatory process involving the intestinal tract. Unlike ulcerative colitis, crohns disease can affect anywhere from the mouth to the anus. Some people with Crohns disease experience long, hard to manage flare ups, and other people experience mainly remission and only some minor flare-ups.

In the picture below, you can see all the different parts of the bowel. Crohns disease can affect any of it.

What are the symptoms of Crohn's Disease?
The most common symptoms of crohn's disease are the following:

                             Abdominal Pain
                             Diarrhea
                             Fever
                             Weight loss
                             Bloating
                             Skin lesions
                             Rectal abscess
                             Joint pain

How is Crohn's Disease diagnosed?
There are many tests that may help in the diagnosis of crohn's disease. Some can be very costly and others are not. Some are also pretty unpleasent but may be vital in the course of testing.

Some diagnostic tests to help with the diagnosis are barium x-rays, where a chalky white substance is either put through a catheter up the rectum, or drank, and x-rays are taken. An upper endoscopy or colonoscopy might also be done along with biopsies to test for definative crohns.