Claire's page

Claire with her car 'The Beast'!

Hi, my name is Claire and I am 23 years old (but feel about 73 sometimes!!!!) I have had crohns disease for 2 1/2 years now. It came on practically over night when my son was 3 months old. I put off going to the doctor for 5 weeks as I was scared and didn't know what was going on, I had barely heard of Crohns before.

I lost 3 stone in this time and could hardly stand because I was so weak so I HAD to go to the doctor. I was very lucky and was diagnosed very quickly. They did a sample to rule out an infection and did blood tests which showed inflammation. I saw my gastroenterologist on an emergency referral from my doctor within 2 weeks and was put on a gluten and wheat free diet and dosed up on immodium until I saw him. I had a sigmoid and colonscopy which showed inflammation and ulceration in my large bowel and was put on a high dose of steroids for 6 months. Luckily the steroids worked brilliantly - I soon packed that 3 stone back on - and the rest! However they made me really, really depressed and I felt suicidal on them. I wouldnt go back on them unless I was dying! As soon as I tried to taper off them the Crohns started to rear its ugly head again. I was also on Asacol. I was put on Azathioprine, 125mg, and after about 5 months it started to show a real improvement.

I have 2 kids - Ryan is 3 in February and Emma is 10 weeks. Unfortunately my husband died last November and a few days later I found out I was pregnant with Emma. We had only been married for 3 months so its been a VERY stressful year. I've been for counselling and I'm slowly getting there I think. I have never felt so terrible and it was the worst time ever. I was so worried about losing the baby due to stress that I came off all my crohns pillls for fear it would harm her. Luckily the pregnancy kept the Crohns in check. I developed IBS though!! I am now back on the Azathioprine and Asacol and the Crohns is ok...ISH. I have good and bad days really.

We live in Nottingham in England,UK. We have a lovely little house, 2 cats called Buffy and Mia (Mia is Buffy's kitten) and 2 rabbits called Jerome and Dylan who have a HUGE run at the bottom of our garden.