vividsailor7 said:I’ve honestly never even heard of Crohn's disease before—talk about a learning curve. From what I gather, you’ve got Crohn's, Ulcerative Colitis, and then a whole handful of even rarer conditions lurking out there. It’s quite the medical rabbit hole, really.
Where on earth did this pneumonia come from out of nowhere?!🤷
Just give me a quick rundown—maybe two or three lines—of what symptoms you're actually dealing with right now.
Honestly, if you ask me—and I know, I know, my unsolicited medical opinions are a staple around here—the CRP is a much more responsive indicator than the SE. It just climbs faster. It’s a far better way to track what’s actually happening in the body when things start going sideways.
So, I just got my PhD results back from the EGD—duodenitis... and if you look at the fine print, the histological picture apparently matches "mild chronic non-specific changes" (duodenitis grade 1). This diagnosis originally popped up late last April. Since then? It’s been an absolute marathon of testing—celiac disease, various parasites, you name it—and everything came back negative. Nothing. Zilch. Now, from what I understand, duodenitis in the small intestine usually happens as part of gastritis; it’s rarely a standalone thing unless we're talking about celiac, Crohn's, or UC—none of which apply to me, thank God—but it can also be triggered by drug allergies, H. pylori, or certain parasites (I can't recall them all right now). Basically, it's often just a side note to gastritis because it rarely causes symptoms on its own... yet, in my case, it was causing total gastrointestinal chaos. Anyway, after all that diagnostic madness, the latest word from the doctors earlier this year was that I have food intolerances and should start cutting things out one by one. But then—and this is where it gets complicated—I found out there’s actually a specific food intolerance test. We spent months scraping money together to afford it, and I was finally set to go last month, but then some gynecological issues cropped up and—well, nothing happens until I resolve that first. The reason I pushed for the testing is that I absolutely refused to spend six months guessing and cutting foods out blindly, only to find out I was wrong. I mean, the sheer logistical nightmare of switching diets—not to mention the cost and the time—is enough to make anyone lose it. So, while waiting for the official test, I tried a little DIY experimentation at home. My doctor suggested dairy might be the culprit since that's the usual suspect, and honestly? When he said "milk," my world just collapsed. I couldn't deal with that reality yet, so instead of waiting for the test, I just cut out all flour from my diet—because, deep down, I suspected it was wheat/gluten anyway, given how much trouble bread, pasta, and snacks cause me. I lived without flour for four months, and for the first time ever, I actually felt good. Then, over the next two months, I tested the waters by eating flour just once to see if I'd crash—and yep, I did. So, I think I’ve basically cracked the code myself, but—as a cautious person—I’m still going to go through with the official testing just to be absolutely certain.
As for this whole idea that chronic inflammation isn't mentioned in the textbooks—well, it’s actually true. I mean, I’ve practically scoured every medical library from Boston to San Francisco, and honestly? You won't find a single mention of it anywhere...
But anyway—I won't drag this out any longer... that’s a whole different story entirely.
I know that CRP tends to spike way faster—it’s basically the sprinter of inflammatory markers—but I was digging through my OB-GYN textbook (V. Šimunić) and found something interesting. Apparently, when it comes to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, doctors aren't even looking at CRP much anymore. Instead, they're leaning heavily on ESR. The reasoning provided—which, by the way, matches what I've been seeing scattered across medical sites online—is that CRP just hasn't proven itself to be a reliable marker for either making an initial diagnosis or tracking the progression of the disease. It turns out that elevated ESR levels are significantly more frequent in these cases than anything you'd see with CRP. Just one of those things where the "standard" metric isn't always the most useful tool in the kit, I suppose.
So... why on earth did my mother jump straight to pneumonia? Well, looking back, I had this massive bout of the flu around November 23rd—I remember the date vividly because the night before, I’d gone out with friends and felt absolutely sweltering. I stepped outside for maybe fifteen minutes without a jacket just to catch some air, and wouldn't you know it? By the next morning, I was hit with a fever, a stuffed-up nose, and a scratchy throat. That quickly spiraled into a week of hacking coughs and sinus issues. Now, here’s the weird part: back on October 31st, my GI doctor actually prescribed me Doxycycline. It sounds bizarre, right? Every single one of my parasite tests came back negative, but both my GI specialist and a second doctor insisted I take it anyway—though, honestly, I still have no clue what the actual rationale was if there were no parasites involved. Anyway, fast forward to this latest sickness. This wasn't just a little sniffle; I was dealing with nasty, yellowish mucus and a cough that felt much deeper than usual. I figured, since I already had that Doxycycline sitting there waiting to be used, I might as well start it now rather than trekking back to the clinic to ask for a different antibiotic entirely. But then—get this—on the third day of the antibiotics, my fever finally broke. Just as it dropped, though, I started feeling this pain in my chest. And then, after a week of thinking I was over the hump, I realized the fever is back. Great. Just great.
Ugh, I am rambling again! My bad! 😢 Long story short: my mom is convinced I have pneumonia because of this cough—well, "coughing" by my definition, anyway—that’s been lingering for nearly seven weeks now (since November 23rd). And since I’ve been running a fever every single day, and I check it multiple times a day, it’s constantly hovering between 99.0 and 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. I’ve only had one week in this entire stretch where my temperature was actually normal... so, naturally, my mom keeps badgering me that it’s definitely pneumonia, even if the cough isn't "heavy" enough, because that's exactly how it started with my dad two years ago. He was just coughing, coughing, constant low-grade fever, only to end up three or four months later unable to catch his breath because of the coughing, eventually seeing a pulmonologist only to find out he had pneumonia and COPD...
As for my actual symptoms—which kicked in on the third day of taking Doxycycline (Nov 2nd)—it started like this: at first, it was just pain during intercourse. (Actually, that's how I realized there was an issue, since I hadn't been sexually active in about two and a half years, and when I finally was, it hurt right around the appendix area—exactly there—and felt almost like some sort of uterine cramping? I don't even know how to describe the location of the pain—you know, where we have ovaries and fallopian tubes on both sides? It's right in the middle, along the entire length of the vagina and uterus—at least, that's how our female reproductive system looks in an anatomy atlas). Then, about a week after that, during that second week, I had these two instances during sex where I got hit with such a cramp, it felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife in that exact same spot. My whole uterus just seized up. They were like period cramps, but unlike period cramps, they wouldn't stop; it was more like one continuous, unrelenting spasm. After that second intense episode, ever since November 11th, I've had this dull ache right where the appendix is. It’s not sharp or spasmodic, but it's a constant presence—not strictly constant, but it lingers for three or four hours, eases off, and then comes back. It's been doing that ever since that second attack...
Then, last week, the pain actually stopped, only for it to flare up again today during sex (and keep in mind, I haven't had sex since that second major attack!). It wasn't as violent or spasmodic as those first two times, but the pain started during the act and lasted for about two hours. It felt basically like it did the very first time I slept with my boyfriend and felt that pain—that stabbing sensation near the appendix combined with cramping throughout the length of the vagina and uterus...
And yeah... besides all that, there's the fever...
And it was painful during the bimanual exam too...
Hopefully, I managed to explain everything a bit more clearly this time. 🙂