By Jen Nelson
Many have it, but few who don’t have ever heard about it. It is most commonly diagnosed in young adults between the ages of 15 and 30.
About a half million men and women in the United States, many of them college students, deal with it each year.
Crohn’s Disease is a form of inflammatory bowel disease that causes inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. It most commonly affects the small intestine or colon.
The cause of Crohn’s Disease is still unknown. While it has not been proven to be hereditary, “It’s been estimated that 10 percent of patients may have a close relative with the disease,” said Rodger DeRose, president and CEO of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).
Symptoms may vary, but most often include “cramping, abdominal pains, fever, rectal bleeding, loss of appetite and subsequent weight loss,” DeRose said.
“The symptoms fall into a spectrum of very mild to severe,” said Dr. Scott Fulford from Northeastern’s Lane Health Center.
These symptoms can potentially cause difficulties for college students with the disease, since Crohn’s forces the patient to require the use of a bathroom “sometimes 15-20 times a day,” DeRose said. With a college student’s busy schedule, frequent bathroom trips can be a near impossibility.
“It causes emotional challenges that every patient faces in saying, ‘How do I deal with this?'” DeRose said. “It’s not a disease that’s easy to talk about.”
Crohn’s is often seen in people with previous abnormalities of the immune system, according to an article on the disease published by Healthlink at the Medical College of Wisconsin. These “abnormalities” may or may not result from the disease. The only insight into a cause of the disease is that in most cases, the body’s immune system reacts to a virus or bacterium, resulting in ongoing inflammation of the intestine.
The diagnosis of Crohn’s can sometimes be difficult, as many who experience symptoms may not in fact have the disease. “Of all student with these symptoms, probably less than 50 percent have Crohn’s,” Fulford said.
Although Crohn’s has no cure, it is possible for patients to experience periods of improvement where symptoms lessen or even go away completely. Medic-ations and other options such as surgery all provide paths for recovery.
The newest medication for Crohn’s Disease, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2001, is Entocort. Entocort is a form of corticosteroid that suppresses the immune system in moderation to severely active Crohn’s disease.
What makes Entocort different from other medications for Crohn’s disease is the fact that it provides fewer side effects than most other corticosteroids, which often have significant short and long-term side effects. Entocort controls the symptoms of Crohn’s Disease even though 90 percent of the drug does not go into the bloodstream, lessening the number of side effects when compared to other corticosteroid treatment, the Entocort Web site (www.entocortec.com) said.
Side effects still associated with the use of Entocort include headache, infection of air passages and nausea, according to Entocort’s Web site.
Another option for those with Crohn’s is surgery.
Erica Tochin, a freshman journalism major whose mother was diagnosed with Crohn’s in 1989, said her mother underwent surgery to remove a particularly infected part of the colon.
While surgery can alleviate some symptoms of the disease, it isn’t a cure and flare-ups may still occur.
“Sometimes it’s scary when my mom has a flare-up. She’s usually in a lot of pain, sometimes she has to go to the hospital,” Tochin said.
While flare-ups of the disease are often inevitable, prevention methods can be taken to keep them at bay.
“Proper nutrition is essential in any chronic disease,” DeRose said.
“It’s especially important in this illness which is characterized by poor absorption and poor appetite. All of these symptoms sort of rob the body of essential nutrients,” DeRose said.
“We just need to make sure my mom watches her diet a little more carefully than usual,” Tochin said.
For college students who often have to rely on a meal plan, choosing foods that won’t irritate their disease can sometimes be a little more difficult.
Some students think the dining halls at NU could improve when it comes to catering to students with special dietary needs.
“They don’t do a horrible job, but they could probably do better,” said Brenna Werme, a freshman exercise physiology major.
Although some people with Crohn’s stuggle with the changes they are required to make in their lifestyles, research is currently being done “in an attempt to establish a link to specific genes that might relate to this disease,” DeRose said.
