Crohn's disease is a chronic specific inflammation of the intestine, more often - the area of the small intestine before it passes into the large. It is one of the most dreaded diseases and is often quite difficult to diagnose; it is characterized by an inflammatory process of the intestinal wall, which causes ulcers, fistulas, perforations and internal bleeding.
Causes of Crohn's disease
No specific reason has yet been found. It is believed that such intestinal damage may occur due to infection with a measles virus (the role of other viruses and bacteria, for example, pseudotuberculous mycobacterium, is also not excluded); the occurrence of an abnormal immune reaction in response to a food or some other antigen. It is possible that some of the proteins that make up the intestinal wall cause an abnormal reaction of the defense system, as a result of which antibodies recognize their own intestine as a foreign body and begin to attack it.
What are the symptoms of Crohn's disease?
The disease is recorded more often in children andyoung people. His “favorite” age is from 12 to 30 years old.
Describe the three main symptoms of this disease: abdominal pain, diarrhea and weight loss. But in Crohn's disease, these symptoms have several distinctive features.
Diarrhea (diarrhea) can look different depending on which parts of the intestine are affected. So, it may be a plentiful stool containing the remnants of undigested food, which is poorly washed off the toilet, or it may be a denser stool, mixed with blood and mucus. But, unlike other diseases, this is not a permanent symptom. The act of defecation may be accompanied by pain, but there is no painful urge to empty the bowels.
The main symptoms of Crohn's disease are abdominal pain, usually localized in the lower abdomen and on the right, resembling signs of appendicitis. Pain can be located in the area around the navel, and on the left lower abdomen. Cramping, they increase, as a rule, after eating, weaken after defecation. If at first such pain was noted, and then it became constant, while the temperature rose, this may mean that an abscess is forming at the site of inflammation of the intestine.
- The body temperature rises, usually to low numbers.
- Weakness, fatigue.
- Loss of appetite up to its complete disappearance.
- Weight loss to catastrophic levels, due to the fact that due to intestinal damage, there is no absorption of nutrients.
- Sometimes the first evidence of Crohn's disease issymptoms from the rectum and anus: cracks, fistulas, inflammations can form there. This is due to the fact that poorly digested food is an irritant to this area.
- If Crohn's disease appeared in childhood, such a child lags behind both in physical and sexual development. Moreover, this may be the only symptom: the baby’s stomach does not necessarily hurt, there is almost no diarrhea, or it is periodic and not particularly pronounced.
- The acute form of Crohn's disease is very similar to acute appendicitis, which is why such patients are operated on, and this diagnosis is made only intraoperatively.
- There is also such a form of the disease - stenosing. At the same time, the pain in the abdomen is unstable, it can be localized each time in different places, sometimes there is an increase in body temperature, which is difficult to find the cause. Occasionally there are pains in different joints. After a while, it becomes noticeable that the child is lagging behind in physical development, besides, he begins to complain of pain in the abdomen, more often on the right and below, which are accompanied by rumbling, bloating, gas and stool retention.
The primary chronic course is characterized by recurrent diarrhea, a person becomes pale, swollen, if this is a child, then he lags behind in development.
If you think you have Crohn's disease, a diagnosis should confirm the symptoms. The following events are usually held:
1. X-ray examination:
a) barium enema, when radiopaque bariumadministered through the rectum;
b) study when a person drinks barium.
2. An endoscopic examination, when a small-diameter fiber optic probe is inserted into the intestine, and an image of the intestinal walls is visible on the monitor. During such a study, a biopsy of suspicious areas for this pathology is taken.
How is Crohn's disease diagnosed? Symptoms, photos of the endoscopic picture of the intestine are the fundamental criteria on the basis of which the diagnosis is established.
