Crohn’s Disease Complications: What Are Some Of The Things That Can Go Wrong?

Having Crohn’s there are some Crohn's Disease complications that can occur. Hopefully none of these things will ever happen to you but being informed is a great way to be able to recognise the warning signs, or the indicators that something may not be right with your body.

There are many things that can be complications for Crohn’s Disease, one of the more common ones can be blockages in the bowel from inflammation.

When the bowel has been inflamed for a long period of time in the same place scarring can occur which the body then will not be able to heal.

In this case where the body will no longer be able to repair the inflamed/damaged section of bowel, surgery may be needed to remove that section so the bowel can function properly again.

The piece of bowel that has scarring will no longer be able to perform its job; the bowel can still function just fine if it has had some removed.

I have had bowel surgery twice and had a sizable portion of my large bowel removed due to scarring and inflammation and it still works just fine, that is how amazing the body we live in is.

Sure I have to look after myself, but the fact that it still works fine is testament to how the body can heal and adapt to all kinds of situations.

I have been lucky that I have never had any major Crohn's Disease complications from surgery such as infection. I have also been lucky to have never had a fistula, this is where two body cavities that are not normally connected such as the rectum and the vagina.

A fistula is not a nice thing to have and surgery can be needed if it is bad enough. Although the surgery for a fistula is a usually a minor operation you want to avoid going under the surgeons knife at all if you can help it.

Another thing that you need to be on the watch for when you have Crohn’s Disease is malabsorption of nutrients. Having impaired digestion can lead to not absorbing the proper nutrients that you need for the body to maintain good health.

It is a good idea to make sure that you are having regular blood tests/checks to make sure that all of your vitamin and mineral requirements are being meet.

Being deficient in different vitamins/minerals can make you not feel well and you may attribute that to having Crohn’s Disease complications, when it is actually a deficiency of a vitamin/mineral.

This can be especially important in pediatric Crohn's Disease as this is the stage in life where children are growing and need to have good nutrition to stay healthy, strong and develop properly.

One common thing that I used to have to keep an eye on was my iron levels. I would be feeling very tired all the time and I often just put it down to Crohn’s, but in actual fact I had low iron levels in my body.

It is to your advantage to keep yourself well monitored to make sure that all you the things you need for health are at the right levels.

Then if something is not going quite right that is another thing that you have eliminated as the cause and finding the problem will be much easier.