Daves Story and how he won
Hi, my name's Dave. I'm thirty two and I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease in September 1990. I started this site to catalogue my battle with crohns a...
Hi, my name’s Dave. I’m thirty two and I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease in September 1990. I started this site to catalogue my battle with crohns and how I have overcome it.
Crohns disease can be a very dibilitating disease and in extreme cases it can be life threatening. Some people suffer severe symptoms which may culminate in major surgery. Other’s are affected to a lesser degree. To every sufferer, what ever the severity, one fact remains; Crohns Disease changes your life, and very often that of your family, for ever.
It all started way back in 1990 …
| 1990 | Started to loose weight during this year. From 11 stone to under 9 stone. |
| 1990, June | Sat my A-Levels |
| 1990, July/August | Stomach pain ever increasingly painful and continued weight loss. Passed my A-Levels, 2 A’s and 2 B’s. |
| 1990, September | Rushed to hospital after blood tests and diagnosed with Crohns disease and prescribed several different types of medication including prednisolone. |
| 1990, October | Got out of Hospital to Start University in Southampton (I read Mathematics with Physics). I didn’t even consider not going. At that time I didn’t really know what Crohns Disease was or how debilitating it would be. Still felt pretty ill though. Returned home at the weekends to rest. Also went home for regular check ups at the Hospital. |
| 1990, October | Grandad died at the age of almost eighty – bloody good timing. |
| 1990, December | Rushed back to Hospital two weeks before the end of term – blood loss. Spent about a week having further medical tests and alterations to my medication. |
| 1991, January | Started back at University with a bit of catching up to do. |
| 1991, April | Back to Hospital for a blood transfusion. During this time I was taking prednisolone, pentasa and cimetadene. Although I soon stopped the cimetadene as the doctor didn’t think it was doing much. None of the medication seemed to really help and the cramps continued. |
| 1991, May | Sat and passed my first year exams. During the next two years I had regular check ups at the Hospital. Continued to show symptoms of Crohns Disease. Stomach cramps – sometimes severe to the point of doubling up in pain. My time at Uni was mostly spent either at lectures or at the house I was renting with four other blokes. Didn’t get out much as I didn’t have the energy. Had several courses of a special "Elemental Diet" – which consisted of 5L of this horribly tasting liquid. Didn’t stop me from going to lectures though. Never contemplated not passing my degree. Although not the happiest time of my life and I missed out on the social side almost completely. It was during this time that I started to be able to control the pain. I watched a TV program where some wacko talked about ‘pain as part of what you are – not something you should fight against but embrace’. Funny it may sound, but I actually tried it and I was able to control some of the pain. When pain struck I became tense, fighting it – by embracing the pain I could reduce the tension and the pain was reduced. It is difficult to explain. Even today if I bash my toe the instant reaction is to tense but by immediately embracing the pain the pain is reduced within seconds. |
| 1993, April | Finished my three year course at Southampton University and passed with a 2:1. |
| 1993 – 1994 | Started teacher training but dropped out as it wasn’t for me. Still suffering pain and sickness but not much diahrea ( I never really suffered with that luckily). I was still weak and unable to do much socialising. It was around this time that I put my back out. I sneezed and that was that. The X-rays showed that a couple of vertebrae in my lower back were eroded. The doctor said it could have been a result of the Prednisolone. At this point I changed to a new type of steroid – ‘Predocol’ (Prednisolone metasulphobenzoate). This stopped the back from getting worse and over time my back healed completely – I have no problem with it today. The new steroid also helped to reduce the puffiness of standard prednisolone. Looking back I must have really unwell. I was painfully thin and anaemic – but from the inside looking out I never really saw how bad I must have looked. |
| 1994, April | Started work at Trumax Ltd, a screen print manufacturer. I did (and still do) the computer, electrical design side of things together with export paperwork and accounting stuff. |
| 1995, May | Had a pretty bad flare and had to miss my first significant time off work. A full week. Even when feeling not so good I still generally made it in to work. The worst thing about Crohns was the unending tiredness and lack of energy to go out and enjoy life – not that I felt like enjoying life at that time. |
| 1995, June | Started having iron injections in the arse to try and boost my iron level. Haemaglobin and all that jazz. I never really had a normal full blood count/iron level since first diagnosis. This was the turning point. I turned the corner. Although still suffering from the symptoms of Crohns, I decided something had to change. I decided not to give in any more. I took the fight to the disease. The iron injections had given me an slight increase in energy level so I went out and bought an exercise bike. Once a week I sat on and cycled. I started with just five minutes and after a while I was able to go for over half an hour. It was a kind of paradox, although I was still pretty low on energy the exercise helped boost my energy level. You would think it would wear you out even more but it didn’t. |
| 1995-1996 | Continued to have iron injections at intervals but they didn’t really seem to help much. Continued with the exercise bike and increased the number of days I went on it. My visits for check ups at the hospital were becoming less and less frequent. Although I was obviously still suffering from Crohns the condition was stable. |
| 1996, August | Made another decision. This was probably the most important one of all for me in the battle with Crohns. I Joined a gym, paid up for a year and forced myself to go twice a week – even when feeling less than chipper. I had paid the cash so I was bloody well going to use it. My parents (I was still living at home) didn’t really want my to because I was still pretty ill. I Started to look on the bright side for the first time in a long time. |
| 1996-1998, July | Started to reduce my prescription drugs and put on a bit of weight. I continued to become more and more optimistic. |
| 1997, December | Bought a house and moved out from the family home. Didn’t move far but I had made the break to become more independent. The symptoms of Crohns at this time were reducing with only the occasional stomach cramping and very occasional spell of diahrea. |
| 1998, July | It was at this time I stopped all of my prescription medication – nearly all the cramping and symptoms of Crohns had gone. Still had the occasional cramping but nothing compared to the past. I turned to alternative types of medication. I started taking a vitamin pill a day and also Yakult or Probiotic yoghurt. I don’t know whether this really helped the Crohns but it did not harm. I like to think the idea of tiny little friendly bacteria giving some stick to the nasty ones is a nice one. So even if the result is placebo I’ll stick with it. |
| 1998-2000, October | Continued to put on weight. Now getting fitter and fitter. In October I watched a news item on TV about a local half marathon (13.1 miles). The seed was sown and within a month or two I had decided to run it in 2001 and to raise some money for Crohns research for a doctor who is researching at the local University hospital. |
| 2001, February | Started serious training – running on the treadmill. At first 10 minutes was bad. Running is so much more difficult than cycling. As the weeks and months wore by I was able to run for longer and longer. |
| 2001, July | I eventually started to run for real. Away from the safety of the treadmill stop button. The kind of stuff where once you’ve run a distance away from your home you have no choice but to carry on to get back again. |
| 2001, October |
Completed the Bristol Half Marathon in just under two hours and raised £600. My story continues here together with some thoughts about this disease. Some Thoughts… |
