What is Crohn’s disease?

Crohn's disease is an offshoot of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This condition leads to inflammation of your digestive tract and a host of troublesome symptoms, including:

• Abdominal pain
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Sudden weight loss
• Fever
• Bloody stool
• Mouth sores

If left untreated, Crohn’s disease can spread deep into layers of impacted bowel tissue. Furthermore, Crohn’s disease can be not only painful and extremely incapacitating, but it can also prove life-threatening without expert medical management.

While there is no cure, the team at Richmond Gastroenterology Associates can help you effectively manage your Crohn’s disease and reduce its impact on you through long-term remission techniques.

What causes Crohn’s disease?

Diet and stress were long thought to be potential causes of Crohn’s disease, but an exact cause remains unknown. There are certain risk factors linked to the development of Crohn’s disease, however, including:

• Smoking cigarettes
• Having a family history of Crohn’s disease
• Taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs
• Your age, as it’s most common in people under 30
• Your ethnicity, as it’s most common in whites and Ashkenazi Jews

It’s generally thought that the immune system and hereditary factors also play a role in causing Crohn’s disease.

How is Crohn’s disease diagnosed?

An accurate diagnosis is very important since Crohn’s disease shares symptoms with many other conditions. No one test or symptom reveals a concrete Crohn’s disease diagnosis.

During your consultation at Richmond Gastroenterology Associates, your provider discusses the totality of your symptoms, reviews your medical history, and performs a physical exam and other tests before offering a diagnosis. This may include inspection of blood samples and imaging tests such as X-rays, CT scans, or a colonoscopy.

The combination of all these methods helps your provider definitively determine whether or not you have Crohn’s disease.

How is Crohn’s Disease treated?

Crohn's disease should be treated by a specially trained gastroenterologist. With effective treatment from the professionals at Richmond Gastroenterology Associates, you can enjoy a long, healthy life.

Treatment for Crohn’s disease generally involves a combination of medication management, nutrition therapy to account for dietary aggravators, and possibly surgical techniques. Each individualized treatment plan varies according to the specifics of your condition.

To learn more about Crohn’s disease and how the experts at Richmond Gastroenterology Associates can help you manage the condition, call the office nearest you or request an appointment online today.