Chrones Disease in Children

A large percentage of those people who have Chrones Disease are children, as well as a high percentage of people with Ulcerative Colitis are also children and it is not that uncommon to see an example of a child with Chrones at only 7 years old and it is thought that in all Chrones Disease cases, 20% are affecting children under 15.

Chrones can have different problems for children, like Nutritional deficiency this is especially seriouse for children as they are still growing and Crohn's disease in children can actually lead to stunted growth. If you are a child with Chrones, your doctor may recommend nutritional supplements. There has also bee some recent research where children with Chrons disease have been helped with a growth hormone, this research is still in it's infancy, but the initial findings have been encouraging.

There is no difference in the number of boys or girls that get Chrones Disease, but children who are born into a family with a history of the disease are far more likely to develop Chrones and possibly at an early age.

Apart from the growth problems faced by children with Chrones disease, it is also very important to remember that a child with Chrones disease will have to face certain self image issues which can be particularly important for them at this time in their development. Chrones disease will separate them from normal child activities and therefore,these children will need a strong support base from their family, friends and doctors to help them not only with their physical health , but with their social and mental well being.

A great book for any family who has a Child with Chrones disease is Managing Your Child's Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis by Keith J. Benkov (Author), Harland S. Winter (Author)

USA: Amazon.com
Managing Your Child's Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis


UK: Amazon.co.uk
Managing Your Child's Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis

Chrones Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are they different?

The simple answer is, yes. Chrones disease is different to ulcerative colitis although in many ways they are quite similar and it is quite common for an incorrect diagnosis to be given.

In which ways do Chrones Disease and ulcerative colitis differ?

Ulcerative colitis causes an inflammation only in the colon (which is called the colitis) and or the rectum. On the other hand Crohn's disease can cause inflammation in your rectum, colon, small intestine and sometimes even in your stomach, mouth and oesophagus.

The actual inflammation in Chrones disease is also different from ulcerative colitis because except in the very worst cases, the inflammation of ulcerative colitis only seems to affect the superficial layers of the inner lining of the bowel, whilst that of Chrones can be much worse. The inflammation of Chrones disease tends to be concentrated in some areas more than others and affects layers of the bowel that are deeper than the superficial inner layers. Therefore, the affected areas of the bowel in Chrons disease often has deeper ulcers with normal lining between these ulcers.

So as you can see whilst the two diseases are similar in many respects, they are also different.

Newish Drug Could Help Chrones Disease Patients

Naltrexone in the past has been used to treat people who abuse drugs and alcohol, but now it could also be helping people with Chrones Disease. That is according to some recent research.

the research was conducted by Doctors in the USA and involved a small number of chrones patients, their findings found that some peoples symptoms of Chrons Disease actually went into remission when they took the drug (Naltrexone).

So what is Naltrexone?
Naltrexone is an opioid or narcotic antagonist and what it does is it blocks narcotics. The good news is that the drug Naltrexone has approval from the FDA to ease drug and alcohol withdrawal symptoms, and so because of this it could also be used to help people suffering with Chrones disease.

Dr. Smith who was working on the research commented: "We don't understand the mechanism of how it works in Crohn's disease, but there are opioid proteins on inflammatory cells, so by using Naltrexone it does reverse the inflammation and it also causes healing of the ulcers in the intestine"

The patients took one low-dose pill at bedtime and showed minimal side effects. There was about About 89 percent of patients showed some sort of improvement with Naltrexone and 67 percent had total remission of their symptoms. With these positive findings, the ideas is conduct larger scale studies which can only be good news for people suffering with Chrones Disease.

Amazon.com for the USA
Crohn's & Colitis Diet Guide: Includes 150 Recipes

Amazon.co.uk for the UK
Crohn's & Colitis Diet Guide: Includes 150 Recipes

What to expect if you are diagnosed with Chrones Disease

I feel that with anything in life and especially an illness like chrones disease, it is important to get all the facts, some of them may not be pretty, but for me at least if I have an idea of what to expect, I can then prepare myself for it. So here is what to expect if you are diagnosed with Chrones disease, warts and all!

When I was first told that I had Chrones disease the idea was very frightening, especially as there were so many unknowns. Even the doctors could not be totally sure of everything that was going to happen to me! So what can you expect? Well here are a few of the facts:

People with Chrones disease often go through periods of improvement which are then followed by deterioration and the experience increased symptoms again sometimes these periods of remission can go on for years. If you have chrones, you have an increased risk of small bowel or colorectal carcinoma.

Complications associated with Chrones Disease

You can get fistulas in the following areas:

• Bladder
• Vagina
• Skin

• Bowel obstructions
• Abscess
• Nutritional deficiencies (commonly vitamin B12 deficiency)
• Complications of corticosteroid therapy
• Erythema nodosum
• Pyoderma gangrenosum
• Inflammation of the joints
• Lesions in the eye
• Impaired growth and sexual development in children

Many of the words above are rather big and frightening, don't worry we will go through them over time in this blog. remember with chrones, knowledge is power!

Obviously if you have chrones, like me this list can be very frightening. Just remember: I don't think anyone has had ALL these complications with Chrones. This is almost the total worst case scenario. But as i said earlier I feel that it is important to know the facts about Chrones, but it is also important to know that there is also a whole life to live EVEN if you have Crohn's Disease. That is what this blog is all about, passing on the facts about chrones disease, the new treatments for chrones disease and as well showing you that there is also a whole life for you to live out there, so go and enjoy it.

I have had chrones for almost 6 years now and sure there have been pretty bad times, but I have also had many great times to that I wouldn't swap for anything.

Books on Chrones Disease
For more information why not try some books on chrones disease, there are people out there that are way better writers than I am!:

For people form the USA (Amazon.com)
Books on Chrones disease


For people form the UK (Amazon.co.uk)
Books on Chrones disease

Treatments for Chrones Disease

One of the first thing that you may be wondering if you are diagnosed with chrones disease, is what kind of treatments are available ad what to expect. I am sure that your doctor will go through most of this with you, but here is what I found from a little research for both you and myself:


If you have Chrones disease you could be given medications like 5-aminosalicylate this will be to control the inflammatory process.

If the treatment of 5-aminosalicylate is not effective or if your case of crohn's is very severe, you may require corticosteroids and immunomodulators such as azathioprine or 6-mercaptopurine.

If you have any fistulas or abscesses you may be given antibiotics to fight against it. Infliximab which is an antibody to an immune chemical called TNF-alpha, which promotes inflammation. This treatment can work for people with fistulous disease.

If medical treatment and the drugs above have no effect, or do not work, you may need surgery where the segment of your bowel which has the Chrones disease will be removed. Unfortunately though, unlike ulcerative colitis the removal of a diseased portion of the intestine does not cure Chrones disease.

Up to this point in time, there has been no concrete evidence that a specific diet has been shown to either worsen or improve someones Crohn's disease. But as with everyone and probably more so with people suffering with Chrones disease, it is very important that you maintain a good intake of calories, vitamins, and protein is important. The foods that make your diarrhoea worse should be avoided and specific food problems may vary from person to person.

For people form the USA (Amazon.com)
Books on Chrones disease


For people form the UK (Amazon.co.uk)
Books on Chrones disease

Chrones Disease Symptoms

Diagnosing Chrones Disease is often very difficult, as chrones disease symptoms can vary from person to person and is also pretty similar to the symptoms of Ulcerative colitis. Chrones disease can also begin at any age, but it does seem though that the times of the highest risk are between adolescence and a persons early adulthood.

The current thinking is that there is a genetic link to Chrones disease and it seems that people with a Jewish ancestry seem to have a higher risk of developing Crohn's Disease.

Smoking and Chrones Disease
Smoking also seems to increase the risk of Chrones.

Chrones disease is fairly common with about 7 people in every 100,000 developing the disease.

Below are some of the main Symptoms of Chrons Disease:

* Fever
* Diarrhea
* A Loss of appetite
* Weight loss
* Abdominal sounds (gurgling or splashing sound heard over the intestine)
* Fatigue and tiredness
* Bleeding from the anus
* Gastrointestinal bleeding
* Tenesmus - which means pain with passing a stool
* Stools that are Foul-smelling
* Pain in your Abdomen

Some of the less common chrones disease symptoms:

* Blood in your stools
* Skin ulcers
* Rashes
* Pain in your joints
* Anal Incontinence
* Swollen gums
* Constipation
* Abdominal fullness and gas

Please note: If you have these symptoms, it does not mean that you have chrones disease as mentioned before chrones disease can be pretty hard to diagnose and the best advice as always is to go and speak to your doctor.

(Chrones Disease Symptoms: Date First Published: 21 September 2007)

A few Causes and Facts of Chrones Disease

In my post today I have decided to go over a few more of the facts, causes and symptoms of Chrones Disease.

What exactly is Chrones Disease?
Chrones disease is defined as a chronic autoimmune disease which can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract but most commonly occurs in the ileum, the ileum is the area where your large and small intestines meet.

Chrones Disease are there other names for the disease?
Firstly the correct spelling of Chrones Disease is actually Crohn's Disease, I use Chrones every time im when im not really thinking about it, and have found that so do many other people and so this blog is really for people who like me keep forgetting how to spell it - now it has just stuck! Other names for chrones are: Inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, Regional enteritis, Ileitis and Granulomatous ileocolitis. Chrones disease is similar to ulcerative colitis but is not the same. (more of the differences between Chrones disease and ulcerative colitis later)

What are the causes of Chrones disease?
Chrones is an autoimmune disease, which means that your immune system attacks your body's own cells. In the Autoimmune disorder in Chrones disease, these 'bad' immune cells attack the gastrointestinal system. The actual cause of why this happens is still not known, but there seems to be some sort of a link to genetics.

In Chrones disease this often happens in the ileum, where the end of the small intestine joins the large intestine. But chrones can also affect any other part of your digestive system. What happens is the wall in your intestines thickens and deep ulcers often occur well as your digestive system chrones disease can also affect other organs in your body and may cause, Skin rash, Fistulas which are abnormal connections between your digestive system and adjacent organs or skin, Liver inflammation, arthritis, your eyes can become inflamed, kidney stones and deep vein thrombosis.

About Chrones Disease - Some Facts

I have had a few queries from people asking what is Chrones Disease? (which is correctly spelt Crohn's disease)

Basically Chrones disease is a chronic and debilitating inflammatory disease of the
gastrointestinal tract that is incurable. Chrones disease usually occurs in people between the ages of 18-25, but can begin much later in life as well.

Because Chrones disease is chronic, patients often go through unpredictable periods in which the disease flares up and the symptoms of the disease re-appear. Then these periods are followed by periods of remission where the symptoms disappear or decrease and the person with chrones appears to be in good health.

Throughout the world, the west has the highest percentage of chrones disease sufferers, with Canada having one of the highest rates in the world.

The cause of Chrones disease is not really known but it is believed to be an autoimmune disease that has links to genetics. The condition occurs when the immune system contributes to damage of the gastrointestinal tract by causing inflammation.

As mentioned earlier, there is currently no known medical or surgical cure for Chrones disease, unlike the other major type of IBD called ulcerative colitis.

Many people live with Chrones disease for many years and dont know that they have it until the usual onset of chrones disease between the ages of 15 and 30. There are no difference in numbers or chances of getting the disease between men and women.

Chrones disease can cause a variety of symptoms that include Growth failure which is common in children who have Chrones disease. Infact many children are first diagnosed with Chrones disease based on inability to maintain normal growth.

Older people who have Chrones disease may show weight loss coupled with decreased food intake, since individuals with intestinal symptoms from Chrons disease often feel better when they do not eat and might lose their appetite. This is often one of the fist signs that a person has Chrones Disease.

Chrones Disease Books

I found that books about Chrones Disease a great help to me when I was first diagnosed, some really helped and some left me with more questions than answers! That is why I thought it's would be a good Idea to create a post about some of the books that are available and then possibly in the future write a sort of Chrones Disease Book review.

Also just to let you know I will try and find links to the books for both USA and UK book sites as well as many other countries that I can find, if any of you are from any other country and know where you can find them online please let me know and I will add them. I have also where possible linked to sites that offer 2nd hand books as this is greener (save the trees!!) and cheaper too :-)

The Chrones Disease and Ulcerative Colitis Fact Book
Taken from the back cover: "Crohn's disease nearly took my life and dream of running in the Olympics. This book is helping me control my disease and stay in training." --Rene Felton, Track and Field National Record Holder"

"This text gave me a better insight into my illness. I have found that knowing what to expect makes coping with the disease easier." --Rolf Benirschke, Placekicker, San Diego Chargers

Where you can buy The Chrones Disease and Ulcerative
Colitis Fact Book:

Amazon USA:

USA: AbeBooks.com Used: $1.00!!

UK: Amazon.co.uk New £10.99
UK: AbeBooks.co.uk Used: £1.00

Australia: AbeBooks New A$27.73

Canada: AbeBooks Used C$10.67

France and Germany: The Chrones Disease and Ulcerative Colitis Fact Book is also available from any of the AbeBooks links above.

Australians with Chrones Disease to get further help

People who suffer with Chrones Disease in Australia are to receive more help
There has been some excellent news for those of you with Chrons disease, an inflammatory bowel condition (IBD) and who are living in Australia as it has been announced that sufferers will be able to receive susidised treatments.

Remicade
Remicade (infliximab) will be added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme in Ausralia (PBS). The Minister for Health in Australia, said Chrones disease has a huge effect on the professional, family and social life of sufferers and that the Australian Government would do what it could to help.

Chrones Disease Symptoms
The main symptoms include fever, weight loss or even anorexia, tiredness and joint pain. An people with active Chrones disease, sometimes called a flare up often experience chronic abdominal pain, diarrhoea and bowel movements that conain blood.

An expected 2,000 people will probably start on Remicade for the treatment of Chrones disease in Australia in the first year of its listing and this inclusion of Remicade to the PBS will probably cost around $53.9 million Australian Dollars over the next four years.

Chrones Disease Beaten by Diet in Bible

Florida man says that by following scriptures from the bible, he was able to beat Chrones Disease.

Jordan Rubin who now lives in Florida and the author of "The Makers Diet" says that out of the many thousands of diet books being printed every year, the oldest one is the the best. He goes on to say that by eating "whole, living and nutrient-rich foods" that are described in the bible he was able to overcome Chrones disease.

Almost a decade ago the doctors told Jordan that his chrones disease was incurable, but according to him, he has manage to beat his disease after researching the Bible's "4,000-year-old health plan." It must be noted that he has used these ideas to found a health company, Garden of Life Inc.

So has Jordan Rubin rediscovered something that has been missed by modern Western medicine? Or is he just using conventional wisdom by not eating pork and red meat and eating plenty of natural foods?

If you are interested in this form of treatment he has a book as I mentioned earlier that is now for sale and can be bought from many good bookshops. I have also placed a couple of links to Amazon if you are interested:

If you are from the UK:


If you are from the USA:

Chrones Disease Video

I found this video the other day, it is a touching story of a guy with Chrones Disease. The backing music is by Perl Jam - the reason for this and is not something I knew until now is that the Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready suffers from Chrones Disease.

He announced this news way back in 2003 and said that he has had the stomach ailment for the past 15 years, so 20 years now. The reason he decided to go public with the news was because of the strength of a young teenager who'd suffered through 6 surgeries because of chrones and still had a long way to go.

During his speech, Mike McCready recountered a particularly embarrassing incident to demonstrate how Chrones can strike at any time. He said that whilst playing onstage, he is always aware of where the bathrooms are "When Crohn's hits, I have to run, or it won't be pretty. It happened when we opened up for the Rolling Stones in 1997 in Oakland .

"It was our first show with them," McCready continues. "Five minutes before we went on, I went up to (Pearl Jam front man) Eddie Vedder and I said, 'Look man, can we play 'Sometimes'? — which is a slower song that I'm not really on. I was in pain. I went running offstage looking for a bathroom, and there wasn't one. Then, all of a sudden, there was one. It was a honey bucket. I heard my band play that song from inside a portable toilet!" something every chrones disease sufferer knows all to well!

Tysabri Approved for Chrones Disease Treatment

People with Chrones Disease have some excellent news in that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a drug called Tysabri (natalizumab) to treat people with chrones disease who have not yet responded to other forms of treatment.

Tysabri has potentially some pretty serious side effects and because of this people with chrones disease who are using the drug Tysabri will also be enrolled in a program that restricts distribution called Crohn's Disease-Tysabri Outreach Unified Commitment to Health (CD-TOUCH). Some of the possible side effects of Tysabri include anaphylactic reactions,possible liver injury, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (a viral infection that affects the brain. This viral infection could cause severe disability or even death.)

The CD-TOUCH program will allow physicians to check people with chrones disease that are using Tysabri after three months, if there is no sign of improvement Tysabri will no longer be perscribed.

Tysabri was approved way back in 2006 for the treatment of patients suffering from elapsing multiple sclerosis and now has to go ahead to be used on Chrones Disease sufferers. It is produced by Elan, a company based in Ireland as well as Biogen Idec in the US and will used on patients with chrones who have yet to respond to any other forms of treatment


What is Chrones Disease?
Chrones Disease affects the bowel. It is incurable and the symptoms include diarrhea, fever, rectal bleeding, malnutrition, narrowing of the intestines, cramping, and abdominal pain. More than 1 million people around the world have chrones disease.

The disease can also lead to abnormal connections in the gut which are called fistulas these connections grow from the intestines to the skin or internal organs.

Details of the Drug
Drug Name: TYSABRI (Brand Name Drug)
Company: BIOGEN IDEC
FDA Application No. (BLA) 125104
Active Ingredient: NATALIZUMAB
Original Approval or Tentative Approval Date: November 23, 2004

Do Additives Cause Chrones Disease Problems ?

In Australia, some research has found that infant milk formula containing added fruit sugars could be the cause to some stomach disorders like Chrones disease, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis in children.

Apparently, some of the new children's milk formula, including big brands like Nutricia and Aptamil contain prebiotics which are supposed to improve the digestion such as fructose could actually be doing more harm that good. This is especially the case for children who may already be susceptible to diseases like Chrones disease.

A Gastroenterology expert, Prof Peter Gibson is concerned about the trend towards adding prebiotics to children's formula. He says that "Excessive intake of sugars that escape digestion and absorption in the small intestine contribute to susceptibility and symptom generation in Chrones disease, irritable bowel syndrome and ulcerative colitis."

In the Western diet, The excessive intake of these sugars is common, This could possibly be one of the reasons why Chrones disease is so uncommon in places like Africa?

People with Chrones disease or IBS who remove these foods from their diet seem to get allot better. Prof Peter Gibson's team measured the prebiotic contents of food in the Australian diet in order to generate a nutritional database. The study found more than half of the 52 patients with Chrons disease who removed prebiotics from their food improved their symptoms. So it seems that prebiotics which provide good bacteria to maintain good digestive health but are likely to make Chrones disease and IBS symptoms worse.

A link between Farm Animals and Chrones Disease?

Some recent research suggests that Early exposure to farm animals lowers the risk of Chrones Disease or ulcerative colitis (IBD)

The conclusions of a German study published in the journal Pediatrics say that if you are exposed to farm animals often when a child or baby you are less likely than others to develop Chrones disease or ulcerative colitis during your childhood. This is according to the findings .

Chrones Disease in Germany
In Germany there are over 10000 children and young adults who suffer from either chrones disease or ulcerative colitis (inflammatory bowel disease / IBD) according to Dr. Katja Radon at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.

Chrones Disease in the first world
In industrialized countries like the UK, Germany and the USA, there has been a recent increase in Crohn's disease (a type of inflammatory bowel disease) suggests that there are environmental factors that contribute to chrones disease.

The German team examined the link between contact with farm animals as a baby and the development of Chrones disease or ulcerative colitis in childhood. The findings were analysed for 748 people with IBD, 444 with Chrones disease, 304 with ulcerative colitis and 1,481 healthy children who were used as the control.

The restults showed that the children with inflammatory bowel disease were more likely than the control children to live in urban areas and regular contact with farm animals during the first year of life was inversely associated with IBD, the investigators report.

The children with chrones disease or ulcerative colitis were about 50 percent less likely to have regular contact with farm animals in infancy compared with the healthy children.So these findings seem to indicate that contact with farm animal during infancy is one of the major factors protecting children against allergies and might also decrease the risk of Chrones Disease or ulcerative colitis in children Radon's team concludes. The findings also back up the theory that allergic diseases and IBD might have similar paths of development.

Chrones Disease source: Pediatrics, August 2007.

Chrones Disease: It is still a mystery but can be controlled

When Jessica Leach was only 12 when she started having frequent attacks of painful abdominal cramps and was only later to find out that it was Chrons disease, she is now 19 years old and initially, she didn't tell anyone about the pain or the diarrhea.

Jessica would often respond to her parents questions by saying that it was somethiong in the food that didnt agree with her. She could hide it for a while, but soon she began to loose a lot of weight and that was when her parents realised that there must be something really worng and so decided to take her to the doctors.

Initially the doctors first thought that she might have anorexia, which only led to frustration on the behalf of Jessica and her mother. The just goes to show how easy it can be to give the wrong diagnosis of Chrones Disease. After some more blood work and a visit to a gastroenterologist, the family finally got the right diagnosis: Chrones disease.

Jessica's chrones is currently in remission for the second time, the first time lasted for three years and she is hoping like most people who suffer from crohn's disease that her symptoms will never appear again. What ever happens Jessica is adiment that Chrones disease is not going to get her down and want to live her life to the full. She has been working two jobs this summer and she is looking forward to college.

We would like to wish Jessica all the best in the future...

Gene variant raises risk of Chrones disease

At a children's hospital in Philadelphia, Pediatric researchers in a have identified a gene variant that raises the risk of Chrones disease amongst Children.

Some German researchers had also previously found the same gene variant in the adult form of Chrones disease and this new research backs up their findings.

"Because Chrones disease is complex, with multiple genes interacting with each other and with environmental factors, it's important to sort out specific genes and to replicate previous findings," said the study's first author, Robert N. Baldassano, M.D., director of the Center for Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease at Children's Hospital. "There are different types of Chrones disease, so classifying types by genetic profiles may help us select the most appropriate treatments for each patient."

The comprehensive study compared the genomes of One hundred and forty three children with Chrones disease to genomes of 282 children who did not have the disease. In the results, they discovered that Sixty four percent of children with Crohn's disease had a specific variant form of the gene ATG16L1, compared with 52 percent of the healthy children. The odds ratio for children with the gene variant was 1.62 compared to control children, all this means that children who have the variant are 62 percent more likely to have Chrones disease than children with the more common form.

I guess the more studies done like this will all lead to more understanding of Chrones disease and hopefully lead to better treatments and possibly a cure one day.