i've been having major digestive issues for about 4 years - constant diarrhea, cramp etc, and i've been having to take around 2-4 imodium (anit-diarrhea) tablets every day to combat it. apart from being not healthy, this is really expensive! also, i'm beginning to find i'm immune to them, they just don't work as well.

i went to a doc and had some tests for this about 3 years ago but nothing showed up - they couldn't work out what was wrong. so the problem's been going on ever since, with the odd break of about 1-2 months where i'm ok.

in the meantime, my little brother has been diagnosed with crohn's disease, which is an inflammation of the gut, which leads to diarrhea, major tummy cramps etc etc. he has to take steroids for it. crohn's isn't hereditary, but it can run in families.

on friday i went to the hospital again, because i'm sick of living on diarrrhea tablets and not being able to go out for lunch or dinner without silently panicking that i'll get caught short. this problem has ruined many a day/night out.

when i said my bro was crohn's the doctor's ears pricked up, and he said he's going to run loads more tests. the main one i've had before, which is where they put a camera in you to take pictures, but i'm being put in for zillions of blood tests and so on. the doc said that my brother having it makes it much more likely (as the website said): "About 20 percent of people with Crohn's disease have a blood relative with some form of IBD, most often a brother or sister and sometimes a parent or child."

i have just been reading about crohn's online and came across this:

Quote:
Crohns can and often does, in more severe cases, cause other symptoms and affect other parts of the body. Crohn's can cause arthritis-like symtoms, with swelling and pain in the joints

People with Crohn's disease tend to have abnormalities of the immune system, but doctors do not know whether these abnormalities are a cause or result of the disease

could this be the answer? my immune system's been down for ages, as you lot know, and my joints are soooo bad at the moment, it's constant pain.

does anyone here have crohn's or know how it can affect people? any first hand advice would be really appreciated.

i did some more digging and it turns out that suppressed immune, constant aching, joint issues, inflammation and bowel disease can frequently all come under one heading: autoimmune disease" - basically where the immune system attacks the self rather than the foreign bodies. this is what CFS and ME are, as well as fibromyalgia which my mother had and the rheumatologist has said i don't have but do have something similar (as yet unspecified).

it looks as tho all these issues are linked, which would explain the frequent infections, the swollen joints, the perma-ache, the tension headaches, the tummy upset, the exhaustion and just about everything, so i'm amazed i'd not thought of this before.

and what's really interesting, is that all can be linked to depression. i'm bipolar but my rheumatologist has admitted that my aching is down to over tight nerves, and says this is partially due to depression, which is why it's hard to treat. (i'm not depressed at the moment, but it's caused it and now it's stuck!)

i bloody hope something can be done cos at the moment i feel like i'm on the way to the flu, everything's aching like mad