This disease is often one crafty and wicked little bugger! Diagnosing Crohn's Disease can be a tough one to make since it acts like so many other gastrointestinal (GI) diagnosis. All too often, patients suffering with Crohn's are misdiagnosed with other GI ailments multiple times before the true culprit is discovered.
A battle... Read more
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A disease in disguise, one that mimics other gastrointestinal diseases and a difficult challenge for healthcare providers, diagnosing Crohn's disease is most certainly a difficult task for healthcare providers. Become it mimics so many other diseases, Crohn's disease may initially be misdiagnosed as another G.I. ailments.
A battle of the wills... who is going figure it out first...the symptoms of Crohn's disease vary from person to person and naturally that does not make diagnosing it any easier. There is not one absolute test that your health care provider can use in diagnosing Crohn's disease definitively and so diagnosing Crohn's disease becomes a bit of a puzzle. So you think you have Crohn's disease? First thing is to get yourself to the doctor! One of the very first tests that your doctor will probably elect to perform is a simple test of your stool sample. It is a cheap and and easy to perform test. Your physician can take a look at your stool sample and determine whether the bowel issues you are experiencing are because you have a raging gut infection or if instead you are experiencing an inflammatory response in your bowel. Either way, this simple test can tell your health care provider a lot about your GI tract. In the case of Crohn's disease, inflammation of the G.I. tract presents itself as if there is an infection but there is no infection present. So you can see by obtaining a simple stool sample several possibilities can easily be ruled out. Your health care provider may also select to do a group of standardized blood tests such as a complete blood count to check for signs of infection and anemia related to blood loss, a colonoscopy, a barium enema, a flexible sigmoidoscopy, a small bowel x-ray study, a capsule endoscopy, or even a CT scan of the abdomen. Once your test results come back, your health care provider will review them thoroughly before discussing them with you. One of the key things to remember is that if your additional blood work indicates that an infection is present then it is less likely that you have Crohn's disease. However, if your blood work shows that anemia is present, then Crohn's disease is more of a possibility. So don't give your doctor a hard time if she is struggling a bit to figure out what is going on with you. Getting this diagnosis right, isn't easy. It is a bit like a big puzzle that has to be put together one piece at a time. Crohn's disease symptoms can be a bit tricky and yet one of the commonly seen symptoms is bloody diarrhea or rectal bleeding. This bleeding is what can lead to abnormal lab work that beings to paint a picture of anemia because of the blood loss. These two pieces of information are important in getting the diagnosis right. So don't be embarrassed if you are experiencing rectal bleeding. For goodness sakes, tell the truth! A colonoscopy may be helpful in getting to the bottom of your symptoms. Generally performed by a gastroenterologist, a colonoscopy can only be performed after you have completed a rigorous bowel prep so that your colon is thoroughly clean out. If there is still stool in the colon then your physician cannot see your colon. Make sense? So once you've completed the bowel prep, after mild sedation your physician will insert a flexible lighted tube that has a tiny camera attached to it through your rectum and into your colon. With the lighted tube and tiny camera your physician can see the colon and can assess for the presence of Crohn's disease. It is important to remember with any medical procedure and there are risks associated with it. Risk associated with a colonoscopy include G.I. bleeding and perforation of the colon wall. There are a few downfalls with a colonoscopy, though. It is not a perfect test. Remember that Crohn's disease may only be found in the small intestine and so if that is your story then a colonoscopy simply won't do you any good. When diagnosing Crohn's, your doctor may decide to take a look inside your colon by ordering a flexible sigmoidoscopy. With this exam, after a stringent bowel prep, your physician will insert a flexible scope through your rectum to take a look at the last two feet of your colon. Again, a visual look can tell the whole story if the those last two feet of colon show signs of Crohn's disease. Just like the colonoscopy, the flexible sigmoidoscopy has its limitations too. If the disease is up higher than the last two feet of the colon, then this exam is not going to catch it. So diagnosing Crohn's disease is much like putting the pieces of a giant puzzle together, but your physician should be well trained in the research and proper placement of all the puzzle pieces so that you can get a quick and accurate diagnosis. Because it mimics so many other diseases diagnosing Crohn's disease can be a challenge. However, it is a challenge that is certainly worth undertaking so that you can get back to being a healthy you.
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