3 ms·

This was a good read. I have Crohn's disease and in 2015 had 5 ft of small intestine and half of the adjoining colon removed. Unfortunately my insides were so

by _0o6v 6y ago

This was a good read. I have Crohn's disease and in 2015 had 5 ft of small intestine and half of the adjoining colon removed. Unfortunately my insides were so fucked up that they had to properly open me up (i.e. not keyhole, more doorframe). Then I got sepsis after the operation and was in the high-dependency unit (US equivalent is ICU I think?) for a bit. That was fun. I was there for a few days, but remember about 2 hours of it. My family visited apparently, I had no idea, but I was talking to them, so I'm told. I couldn't walk for weeks, other than staggering around (which they encourage you to do otherwise the scar tissue will heal too tight). The wound took about 3 months to properly close up, I had a nice deep hole in my abdomen for much of that, you get used to the gory stuff. I'm generally better now though. Crohn's still dictates much of my daily life though, but you learn to live with it.

fakedang 6y ago
Similar situation here. I was traveling, which made it even worse - I literally collapsed at the airport out of fatigue, which turned out to be severe internal bleeding. Thankfully didn't get any further complications although if I had delayed, it would have definitely put me at risk for colon cancer. It's actually funny that the doctors in my case actually detected polyps in my intestine when I was 18 (showed symptoms since I was young, but all the doctors in India just waved it off as stress - for a 14 year old!). But again, they just waved it off for a long time and gave me meds that suppressed the symptoms. It was only when I was on work travel that the wonderful folks at the Zurich university hospital pinpointed it. Got a second opinion, and indeed it was Crohn's. Indian doctors just kept discounting it because Asians have a lesser tendency to get it, but recent research shows that your diet factors more than where you're from. My only advice to anyone in my position or similar would be to take full control of your health and try to get the best possible treatment, instead of trying to reinforce your biases. Had I not been able to get checked at a much better facility then, I might have been in a far worse position now. Don't count on family to be of help as much either, unless it's a spouse. For what it's worth, around the same time as that incident, my grandfather passed away at a ripe old age of 94. He previously complained about stomach aches and toilet issues, often getting grumpy af, but family members just brushed it away as signs of old age (including my parents). In the end, when he was shifted to a proper hospital in India during his final hours (quite literally), the doctors surmised that it might have been stomach cancer all those years. But of course, by then it was too late to take a biopsy and he passed away with the next couple of hours. That advice about recording your family health issues in a notebook is spot on.

by _0o6v 6y ago

fakedang 6y ago

Similar situation here. I was traveling, which made it even worse - I literally collapsed at the airport out of fatigue, which turned out to be severe internal bleeding. Thankfully didn't get any further complications although if I had delayed, it would have definitely put me at risk for colon cancer. It's actually funny that the doctors in my case actually detected polyps in my intestine when I was 18 (showed symptoms since I was young, but all the doctors in India just waved it off as stress - for a 14 year old!). But again, they just waved it off for a long time and gave me meds that suppressed the symptoms. It was only when I was on work travel that the wonderful folks at the Zurich university hospital pinpointed it. Got a second opinion, and indeed it was Crohn's. Indian doctors just kept discounting it because Asians have a lesser tendency to get it, but recent research shows that your diet factors more than where you're from. My only advice to anyone in my position or similar would be to take full control of your health and try to get the best possible treatment, instead of trying to reinforce your biases. Had I not been able to get checked at a much better facility then, I might have been in a far worse position now. Don't count on family to be of help as much either, unless it's a spouse. For what it's worth, around the same time as that incident, my grandfather passed away at a ripe old age of 94. He previously complained about stomach aches and toilet issues, often getting grumpy af, but family members just brushed it away as signs of old age (including my parents). In the end, when he was shifted to a proper hospital in India during his final hours (quite literally), the doctors surmised that it might have been stomach cancer all those years. But of course, by then it was too late to take a biopsy and he passed away with the next couple of hours. That advice about recording your family health issues in a notebook is spot on.