How would you handle this? My son with Crohn's disease

Mitzvahmom

Thu, Dec 30 2010, 9:12 pm

freidasima wrote:

MItzvahmom he needs a different therapist I would say. these are serious issues and healing is great but it sounds like he would need someone to talk to to open up and work them out.
Crohns affects everything, watch out for fistulas if it is perianal, and of course methotrexate has its side effects (how are his liver functions?) but what is the powder that is helping him? You have to beware of all these natural things, there are many who take probiotics and they don't help just the opposite, if they help him you are lucky and there are different things which on the one hand help protect the liver and on the other hand give gas.

He MUST become physically active to build up his body. Even if it means that you get him an exercise tape to work with, either audio or for the computer and you stand there and be his coach. Get him small weights for him to lift at home, get him to run up and down the stairs or whatever.

It will change his life to the better. Good that he doesn't have regional ileitis but he might have absorption issues and then his growth, bone structure etc. are questionable and for that exercise will only help. These are important years and although ten is very young it's also the time he can begin to build up his strength.

I assume he has been definitively diagnosed with crohns and don't believe all the narishkeit about emotional this that or the third thing. Today they know that it is a Jewish (unfortunately) eastern european genetic disease, and there are genetic defects that predispose people to it, and it often runs in families if you check back on one of the two sides. Often in previous generations it wasn't diagnosed as such, but you will hear stories about this or that with a stomach problem.

What we do know is that emotional distress exascerbates crohns and that therapy can help sufferers to cope with emotional stress in the present and/or in the past.

I know crohns well, a close family member of mine has had it for almost 45 years and I know from them what it is like to live with the ramifications of it daily.

I monitor him constantly for side effects, B"H none so far..

It's definitely crohns, they did a colonoscopy.. Barium x-ray scan to find the part that was inflamed.
They did cultures on the swabs taken from the colonoscopy and it was diagnosed as Crohns..

Once he was diagnosed I called all of my family members to see if was something from the family line.
My father has something, but he's not sure if it's crohns or IBD (similar). My son's father has issues with eating, and typically eats things that are easily digestible like baby food (yes I said baby food). But his father has not been diagnosed.. It's not something I would jump to say my son has crohns w/out a diagnosis.

I am very careful with probiotics, I only use it when there is a flu or something coming around and I need to bump up his immunity. The medication he is taking from australia is specifically for crohns and has slippery elm, aloe, and I cannot remember the other ingredients but it's nothing that would hurt.