Crohn's Disease
Also known as regional enteritis, Crohn's disease is an intestinal inflammatory disease which might affect a patient along any part of their gastrointestinal tract ranging from their mouth to their anus. The symptoms of Crohn's disease can be widely varied but primarily cause diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, or weight loss. The disease can also be responsible for symptoms that are not a part of the gastrointestinal tract such as tiredness, lack of concentration, arthritis, skin rashes, and inflammation of the eyes.
Affecting a significant portion of the population, there are reports of anywhere between four hundred thousand and six hundred thousand people in North America alone, suffers of Crohn’s disease will generally have symptoms stretching over the course of years before they are properly diagnosed. Typical onset comes between the ages of fifteen and thirty years old with men and women affected equally. There is a second peak in manifestation during the ages of fifty to seventy, but the disease is not confined to those age limits and can occur at any age.
Initial symptoms can be quite subtle, more so than those found with ulcerative colitis. The differing attribute is the chronic recurring fare ups found in those suffering from Crohn’s disease. It is typical that abdominal pain is the first symptom to show itself and is quite often accompanied with diarrhea. If the volume of the diarrhea is large and it is watery, this signifies that the small intestine is involved. If the feces are in smaller volume but come in higher frequencies than it is the colon that is involved.
Crohn’s disease considered to be an autoimmune disease, by which the immune system of the sufferer begins to attack its own gastrointestinal tract which will begin causing inflammation. The disease has links to genetics, so siblings and the offspring of sufferers at a much higher risk than would typically be found. Studies have shown that smokers run a risk that is two times more likely to develop Crohn’s disease than that of a nonsmoker. With over half a million people in North America affected, the estimates for the number of people affected in Northern Europe range from twenty seven to forty eight people per every one hundred thousand.
Currently, there is no known surgical or pharmaceutical cure for Crohn’s disease. Those undergoing treatment are unfortunately restricted to controlling their symptoms, maintaining remission and relapse prevention; this is achieved with a change in lifestyle. Adjustments to diet and proper hydration can help with managing symptoms. There are several medications that one who has been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease might go on. Antibiotics are often prescribed to reduce inflammation. When symptoms have gone in to remission the treatment will enter a maintenance goal to avoid reoccurrence.
Crohn’s disease was named after Burrill Bernard Crohn, an American gastroenterologist. In 1932 he and two other colleagues documented several patients suffering from inflation in the small intestine, most commonly affected by the disease, for this is why Crohn’s disease also carries the name regional ileitis or also regional enteritis.
