Something that came to my attention with this round of issues is that my abdominal pain causes issues.
What I mean by this is at my ER visit last Saturday, I noticed first when the doctors gave me some morphine that my gut responded by allowing fluids to pass again. Then when they gave me the dilaudid later, it caused the same response: that after administering the pain medicine, my gut became more active again.
Normally, the opiate pain relievers are supposed to immobilize your gut and cause constipation but for me when they reduce the pain, my gut starts moving again.
This has happened to me again at home with the much less powerful pain relievers. When I take pain medications, my gut becomes active again. Furthermore, as long as my gut is active, it reduces the amount of pain I experience. So taking pain medications leads to a very good feedback loop of allow my gut to process foods and preventing further pain.
Some other observations that I've had: lying on my left side tends to immobilize my digestive tract. I have no idea why this might be but I've noticed on multiple occasions that my gut noises reduce and pain levels increase when I lie on my left side. So for the next week or so I'll only lie on my right side.
I resumed my azathioprine (btw I apologize for switching back and forth between the generic name and brand name for this drug, Imuran) last night. I also had a moderately bad night sweat.
I found out that I do have the enzymes required to properly metabolize the drug. This doesn't preclude the chance that I can have severe side-effects from it but it does reduce the odds that I'll have problems with it.
I assume that my pain from last Thursday was just part of the Crohn's gut pain that lead to me going to the hospital on Saturday and that it was simply radiating away from my Crohn's site.
Over the course of the last couple of days I've mostly experienced a general discomfort an pain through my entire gut. The feeling makes me want to avoid food. Even when I'm taking pain medication, I often continue to experience some pain right at the Crohn's site. My pain levels range from barely noticable (a sub 1 on the pain scale) to high enough to wake from sleep (say a 6 or 7) - which has happened every night except Saturday night (that dilaudid really knocked my pain back for a long time).
The only foods which don't seem to exacerbate my pain levels are sherbert and peppermint candies. Both of these seem to sooth my GI tract. The peppermint actually helps and can completely eliminate the GI tract discomfort for short periods of time. I remembered that these had helped me decades ago but I forgot how effectively they could help me.
I'm going to try to keep a bag of these candies in my backpack at all times. They could be a life saver.
So far I've only tried liquids and low-residue foods. As long as my GI tract keeps "locking-up" with even these foods, I have no desire to try anything more substantial. However, I'm going to have to try to get some vegetable matter through my system somehow. I'm going to try some V8 or equivalent vegetable juice pretty soon.
My gut still hurts enough just from the constant lock-up that I won't consider running. However, I'm going to go with my wife and do a little walking later today.
What I mean by this is at my ER visit last Saturday, I noticed first when the doctors gave me some morphine that my gut responded by allowing fluids to pass again. Then when they gave me the dilaudid later, it caused the same response: that after administering the pain medicine, my gut became more active again.
Normally, the opiate pain relievers are supposed to immobilize your gut and cause constipation but for me when they reduce the pain, my gut starts moving again.
This has happened to me again at home with the much less powerful pain relievers. When I take pain medications, my gut becomes active again. Furthermore, as long as my gut is active, it reduces the amount of pain I experience. So taking pain medications leads to a very good feedback loop of allow my gut to process foods and preventing further pain.
Some other observations that I've had: lying on my left side tends to immobilize my digestive tract. I have no idea why this might be but I've noticed on multiple occasions that my gut noises reduce and pain levels increase when I lie on my left side. So for the next week or so I'll only lie on my right side.
I resumed my azathioprine (btw I apologize for switching back and forth between the generic name and brand name for this drug, Imuran) last night. I also had a moderately bad night sweat.
I found out that I do have the enzymes required to properly metabolize the drug. This doesn't preclude the chance that I can have severe side-effects from it but it does reduce the odds that I'll have problems with it.
I assume that my pain from last Thursday was just part of the Crohn's gut pain that lead to me going to the hospital on Saturday and that it was simply radiating away from my Crohn's site.
Over the course of the last couple of days I've mostly experienced a general discomfort an pain through my entire gut. The feeling makes me want to avoid food. Even when I'm taking pain medication, I often continue to experience some pain right at the Crohn's site. My pain levels range from barely noticable (a sub 1 on the pain scale) to high enough to wake from sleep (say a 6 or 7) - which has happened every night except Saturday night (that dilaudid really knocked my pain back for a long time).
The only foods which don't seem to exacerbate my pain levels are sherbert and peppermint candies. Both of these seem to sooth my GI tract. The peppermint actually helps and can completely eliminate the GI tract discomfort for short periods of time. I remembered that these had helped me decades ago but I forgot how effectively they could help me.
I'm going to try to keep a bag of these candies in my backpack at all times. They could be a life saver.
So far I've only tried liquids and low-residue foods. As long as my GI tract keeps "locking-up" with even these foods, I have no desire to try anything more substantial. However, I'm going to have to try to get some vegetable matter through my system somehow. I'm going to try some V8 or equivalent vegetable juice pretty soon.
My gut still hurts enough just from the constant lock-up that I won't consider running. However, I'm going to go with my wife and do a little walking later today.
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