Could this be Early Stage Crohn’s?
25 yo female, 5’5”, 133 lbs.
About a year ago I began dealing with blood and mucus in my stool. It was treated as hemorrhoids initially with fiber and stool softening medication, but did not improve after 11 weeks.
So a year later, I have gone through two colonoscopies (one without a biopsy, and one with — biopsy was clean), one upper endoscopy, one capsule endoscopy and preliminary CTE scan, a SIBO breath test, and countless stool/blood tests. With these they’ve ruled out celiac, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, food intolerances and allergies, various bacteria/viruses/parasites.
However, my capsule endoscopy came back saying the bowel looked normal, they just found approximately 18 small ulcers in the last two sections of my small intestine. And my CT scan showed a completely normal small bowel as well, no thickening or strictures anywhere.
During this time of over a year, I have dealt with NONE OF THE FOLLOWING:
NO abdominal pain, cramps or bloating.
NO diarrhea, constipation, nausea, or vomiting.
NO hemorrhoids or polyps found.
NO fever, weight loss, or loss of appetite.
NO sudden urge to use the bathroom, or pain when going.
NO anemia/iron deficiency.
NO systemic issues like swollen or painful joints, eye or liver issues, or skin rashes/ulcers.
Over this year I have had consistently elevated calprotectin in stool, from 70-230 (To specify, I’ve been told these levels are due to the blood in my intestinal tract interfering with the tests, I don’t know if that matters). But I’ve been tested for CRP levels and they’ve been entirely normal. And my CTE scan I had recently into this year of issues showed a completely normal small intestine, aside from constipation (stool in the small intestine that shouldn’t be there, in my case). My CTE scan also showed I have an umbilical hernia but it’s unclear if this is causing this and the hernia subreddit did not think so either.
My ONLY symptoms all year have been blood and mucus in stool. I would not say a lot, but it has been consistent.
I have had persistent fatigue as well, but my doctors have been unclear on what to attribute it to specifically as i dealt with this problem long before i had issues with blood and mucus — I also have an IGA deficiency that was causing me to deal with the same respiratory infections over and over. (And I have been told having an IGA deficiency makes me more susceptible to developing Crohn’s and Celiac which is why I had extensive testing for both.) and they felt that was also contributing to fatigue, but it is still here after taking immune boosters to successfully give me the antibodies I was not making naturally.
I have chronic low lymphocytes as well, but that’s also been hesitantly attributed to my IGA deficiency at this point. I do not know if Crohn’s can also cause this though.
I suppose my question is, has anyone else with Crohn’s dealt with this in the beginning stages? Could this be Crohn’s, even if everything else has come back relatively negative for it a year into these problems? Can early Crohn’s possibly look like this a year into things, with no other symptoms present?
I do not and have never smoked or vaped, and never drink either if that matters. NO radiation either. I also do not deal with long term/heavy use of NSAIDs.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can answer this.