Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease(IBD) causing inflammation of your digestive tract. It involves different areas of the digestive tract of different people.
Causes of Crohn’s Disease:
Age: Crohn’s disease is usually diagnosed at a younger age i.e., before 30 years.
Family history: If any of your family members like your mother, father or siblings are suffering from Crohn’s disease then in such cases you’re more prone to be affected.
Smoking: Cigarette smoking increases the severity of the disease and develops a greater risk of surgery.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs(NSAID’s): More use of NSAID’s may cause inflammation of the bowel worsening the Crohn’s disease though it doesn’t cause Crohn’s disease.
Symptoms:
- Abdominal pain and cramping
- Diarrhea
- Weight loss
- Bleeding from rectum
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Mouth sores
- Joint pain
- Eye inflammation
- Skin affections
Tests:
Blood Tests: Blood test is done to check for infection or anaemia.
Colonoscopy: This test will allow our doctor to view the interior of your entire colon.
Flexible Sigmoidoscopy: This procedure enables our doctor to examine the sigmoid, the last section of your colon.
Capsule Endoscopy: For this test, you swallow a capsule containing camera which takes pictures of the interior of the colon to confirm the signs of Crohn’s disease.
Double Ballon Endoscopy: In this test, a longer scope is used to look into the small bowel where the normal scopes cannot reach. It is useful to check abnormalities.
CT Scan: This gives a more detail than a standard x-ray. This test looks at entire bowel as well as tissues outside the bowel.
Statistics:
In 2009, the prevalences of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in children were 58 (95% confidence interval (CI 55-60) and 34 (95% CI 32-36) respectively. In adults, the respective prevalences were 241 (95% CI 238-245) and 263(95% CI 260-266). Data analysis revealed that IBD prevalence has slightly increased over time.