CROHN’S DISEASE IS CURABLE

DESCRIPTION

Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It causes inflammation of your digestive tract, which can lead to abdominal pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss and malnutrition.
Inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease can involve different areas of the digestive tract in different people.
• The inflammation caused by Crohn’s disease often spreads deep into the layers of affected bowel tissue. Crohn’s disease can be both painful and debilitating, and sometimes may lead to life-threatening
complications.

CAUSES

The exact cause of Crohn’s disease
remains unknown.
Previously, diet and stress were suspected, but now doctors know that these factors may aggravate but don’t cause Crohn’s disease.
SYMPTOMS

When the disease is active, signs and

symptoms may include:

• Diarrhea
• Fever
•Fatigue

Abdominal pain and cramping

Blood in your stool

Mouth sores

• Reduced appetite and weight loss
• Pain or drainage near or around the anus due to inflammation from a tunnel into the skin (fistula)

Other signs and symptoms

People with severe Crohn’s disease also may
experience:
• Inflammation of skin, eyes and joints
• Inflammation of the liver or bile ducts
• Delayed growth or sexual development, in children

PREVENTION

Learn which foods and drinks can make your symptoms worse.
This is especially true during flare-ups. Avoiding foods that have caused you trouble in the past may be helpful in reducing
symptoms in the future.  
Are you unsure which foods are contributing to your symptoms? Keep a food diary and track what you’re eating, how each food
makes you feel, and if eliminating that food from your diet reduces your symptoms.
You’ll likely be able to identify troublesome foods by doing this. Eliminate those foods from your diet.
If your symptoms decrease, you’ve found the offending foods. Some of the most
common foods that make symptoms worse include:
• carbohydrates
•dairy
• high-fiber foods
• low-fiber foods
Many doctors suggest using an elimination diet in which you remove certain types of foods from your diet and then slowly add
them back one at a time to figure out what causes your symptoms.

TREATMENT

There is currently no cure for Crohn’s

disease,

and there is no one treatment that

works for everyone.
The goal of medical treatment is to reduce

the inflammation that triggers your and symptoms.

signs

It is also to improve long-term prognosis by limiting complications.
In the best cases, this may lead not only to symptom relief but also to long-termremission