For a little background info, I was diagnosed with Crohns in 2011, have been asymptomatic since 2012 and stopped my crohns medication in 2013 due to loss of insurance.

I started my WLS journey 9 months ago in July. At my first appointment my surgeon thought I may have been misdiagnosed and recommended I have a colonoscopy as WLS is contraindicated for people with Crohns. He seemed pretty sure I did not have Crohn’s since I had very mild symptoms before being diagnosed.

I wasn’t able to get a colonoscopy until the end of October, and it came back still indicating I do indeed have Crohn’s. My GI doctor wasn’t sure why I wasn’t having symptoms, but did see inflammation which was contained to my colon. She put me on mesalamine and wanted to do calprotectin labs to check inflammation in February.

I returned to my surgeon and was informed that he did not feel comfortable performing WLS with this condition. I was pretty devastated but wasn’t going to let it get me down. I had lost 20 pounds (10 pounds more than the goal he had set for me) and accepted the fact that I will have to do this on my own.

A month later I was called back into the bariatric clinic and my surgeon had went to a bariatric surgery conference in DC and proposed my case and spoke with other surgeons and all of a sudden he was able to offer me the sleeve. He advised against RNY due to if I ever became symptomatic I might require addition surgery as it could spread. I was looking to do full RNY due to the possibility of having dumping but I would take the sleeve over nothing. The catch was we have to wait until the inflammation in my colon goes down.

3 months was basically wasted on the mesalamine. Nothing changed. My GI doctor started me on a 2 month prednisone taper. Prednisone is the freaking devil. I gained 23 pounds but had the labs re-done and my inflammation went down from 374 to 81 and normal was

Now my VSG is scheduled for 5/31! Does anyone else have Crohn’s? Have you had problems?

I am a crohns patient and he been told not to touch the intestines. The sleeve is the best option for me. If u show him the studies on crohns patients and the sleeve it is amazing some even come off steroids and have less flares show ur surgeon but do not do the RNY very dangerous for crohns patient and my gastro even told me that. They can not scope your stomach after that procedure and crohns can go there and u run a higher risk of crohns forming on the intestine when they are dissected. Please pull up the studies on gastric sleeve and crohns patient or IBD it’s called inflammatory bowel disease I have had it for over 20 years and now resistant to so many drugs

My surgery date is 5/29

I have active crohns right know again I am resisting but no inflammation it’s really strange on all my studies I am on entvyo which is a infusion every 8 weeks. I have a 2cm stricture at my my ilium I really don’t recommend the RNY neither did my GI or my surgeon. U need to preserve ur intestines as much as possible.

Sleeve is the best option like I said maybe do your research and present it your surgeon with the information and show him ur case many just don’t deal with it but it is not a conterindication they have found the sleeve has help a lot of patients with IBD

I did some research when he said I cannot do either and I think that is what prompted presenting my case at a conference. I’m going with the sleeve. I would never want my crohns to return and be more severe. I’m only 27 and my mom had the same experience with Crohns, she has been asymptomatic for 30 years. I hope the sleeve improves your crohns!

FYI I know 4 more crohns patients that have had the sleeve done. Do u have insurance now? In order for my inflammation to be touched on steroids I was on such a high dose it took two years to get off it. So I never get steroids anymore. The only time I get steroids is if they push them in a iv for my infusion. Entvyo is very expensive that’s why I asked it’s a $20,000 drug and brand new. But there is humaria, cimiza which are good drugs to but again very expensive. I can’t believe our surgery dates are very close together only days apart. I am lucky I have tricare (military) tell my husband he can never get out we could never afford my meds lmao

Sorry very Passionate

Good glad u are getting the sleeve. I just hate it when the. Dont educate themselves on condition. I am 36 I have delt with it since I was 16. Two hospital stays with almost complete blocks when I went off meds with pregnancies. Now my body just builds antibodies to them. Lol but I try to stay up on reasrch CBD oil is the best for it but I am a government employee and there is a small chance u can test positive for THC. So not worth the chance. Don’t know what state or job or requirements u have but CBD oil if I remember is legal in all states because there is supposed to be no THC in it. That might help ur inflammation. But it might have a issue with pre surgery requirements. They just took me off blood pressure medication and birth control pills. They switched my blood pressure meds with a non water one

I do have insurance now! I have a $2k co-payment for the surgery but I’ve saved enough up the last 9 months so I didn’t have to dip into my savings or put it on a credit card and pay interest on it as well. I was under my dad’s insurance previously but when he turned 65 and had to go on Medicare I got the boot off.

I’m going to have to ask my GI doctor about new meds because the tabs of mesalamine are too big to take after surgery. I was previously on Asacol and those were smaller so we might go that route.

The injections work the best the pills never worked. Try the humaria or cimizia it is self injected. Do not go on Remicade or entyvo unless all else fails. They are very harsh on your system