After recovering from my surgery I felt pretty good. No pain, no discomfort, I didn't need to think about bowel movements, or whether or not I was going to stink out a public toilet. This was not to be a long term feeling it seems.
Just before Christmas, I noticed a small red mark on my right shin. I recognized what it was immediately. Erythema nodosum. It's not a brilliant image, but below is a picture of it. This is an extra intestinal manifestation of crohns disease that I have posted about before. They are inflamed areas just under the skin, usually appearing on the shins. I tend to get them when my crohns is active. I couldn't believe it when I saw it there. I hoped I was wrong, and so for a day or two I did nothing. It steadily grew bigger, and was hot to touch, then it began to get itchy. At first I thought that I wasn't experiencing other symptoms, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised, I'd just been ignoring it. I got on to my ibd nurse to tell her about the Erythema. I also told her that I was sometimes getting loose bowels, had an aching knee joint, and a little acid reflux. The nurse was great. She immediately got on to my GP, to ask him to prescribe some steroids, and brought my next check up forward.
I have now been on prednisolone for two weeks. My Erythema is clearing, and the two or three others that were just about becoming visible have disappeared. This is great, but the other symptoms don't seem to be going. In fact they seem tho be coming more pronounced. Loose bowels are once again the norm, and yet again, I'm back to worrying whether my next public toilet stop is going to be embarrassing.
Ho hum, I have my appointment with my consultant tomorrow. I guess I can talk about other treatment then.
No comments:
Post a Comment