Flare Up's & Chrones Disease

Often when we hear people speak of Chrones disease, the term Flare up is also used, so what exactly is a flare up and what can be done to help?

What is a Flare-up in Chrones Disease?
Chrones disease is described as both a chronic and relapsing condition.

• Chronic: means that the Chrones is ongoing
• Relapsing: means that every so often the symptoms associated with Chrones disease will relapse, return and this is know as a "flare-up."
• Remission: This is the time between flare-ups when you don't show and Chrones disease symptoms.

The time spent in remission or between flare-ups varies form person to person, but often your very first flare up is the worst, so atleat things should get better once you get through the first flare-up.

Help with getting through a flare-up
If you experience the return of your Chrones symptoms, I would first of all immediately seek medical advice as they can make you very ill and should not be taken lightly.

If you can't get to see a doctor for any reason, the first thing you need to do stop what you are doing and get into a bed! This is realy important as your body needs rest to recover, get friends to help with the house chores, this is very important.

You will also need to start on a clear liquid diet, again you are going to have to be strict with yourself. ilke the rest of your body, your stomach needs the rest in order to recover from the chrones flare-up and go back into remission.

Clear liquid diet?
This means Non-carbonated drinks. Fizzy carbonated drinks can agrivate the stomach and intestines. During the recovery, it is vitally important to keep your body well hydrated at all times so drink plenty of water, a good idea is to sip water all through the day. On top of this you should at least once and preferably twice a day drink an energy drink. Something like Gatorade, Energade or Propel as these enery drinks will help your body replenish electrolytes.

You should also try and take Soup Broths, Jelly (Jell-O) and Popsicles (lollies). Don't eat pudding or ice cream.

Even now when you are in bed and on a clear liquid diet, it is important for you to get some sort of medical attention as you may need antibiotics and other medication.

Chrones disease can and is often very difficult to live with and manage and because you have an chronic, relapsing autoimmune disease, your life may and often will have to revolve around the disease. Whist in remission try and maintain a healthy body and stomach by eating correctly. It is also important to maintain a positive state of mind as this will help keep your chrones disease in remission.

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)