crohn's disease

What is Crohn's? To my understanding Crohn's is an inflammatory bowel disease, it can involve any part of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus but most commonly affects the small intestine and/or the colon. Crohn's can affect the entire intestinal wall and it can lead to the following complications which are:
- strictures (intestinal obstruction or narrowing of the intestinal wall)
- abscesses (boils)
- skin tags (swollen lumps or ‘flaps’ of thickened skin occurring just outside the anus)
- anal fistula (abnormal connection between the skin around the bum and the lining of the anal canal. this is either a tract or tunnel)
- fissures (ulcerated tears or cracks in the lining of the anal canal)

You might be saying what the? I don't blame you. Living with this disease for over 13 years, I still don't understand some things! Out of those 5 things listed up there i have/had 4 of them. In some cases people have surgery to get rid of the bad inflamed intestine or bowel. I'm proud to say that hasn't happened to me, and I'd like to keep it that way! because it all goes down hill after your first surgery, surgery is a temporary fix, not a cure.

I have fistula's inside me, and they are tracts connecting different parts of the lower region to itself or other body organs. These tracts contain mucus and other gross stuff. I had two tracts, one connecting an abscess to the lining of the vagina, and another connected to the outside of my anus. There are a couple of pays to treat these fistulas, you can have them cut open and drained and left to heal. or you can have Seton tubes inserted to drain them constantly. Although Seton's don't really cure them, they just maintain the drainage. I had mine treated just over a year ago with Seton Tubes. Seton tubes are little thin, bendy plastic tubes that somehow (i never understood) go into the tracts and then lead to the outside of your skin to drain whats inside.

Now i had 2 of these tubes down there for 2 years! made having sex painful and wiping would feel weird and sometimes if i sat funny they would dig into my skin and make it super uncomfortable. But once i moved back over to Perth from Melbourne and saw my new doctors they snipped them off right then and there! Seton's tubes are a way of maintaining the drainage but doesn't cure them. and you have NOOOOOOOOOOO idea how much of a relief it was to have them taken out. my doctor said they were doing me no good so it was time to take them out. i could sit down with ease and not be worried. basically, it was a great day haha. everything is going fine with the fistulas at the moment, they have reduced in size and quantity and aren't a worry anymore. and now that to tubes are out, I've healed a lot more as well :)

That's the extent of my Crohn's Disease :)