In the event that a person shows signs of severe intestinal disturbance, one should not self-medicate in the hope that unpleasant symptoms will disappear on his own, but it's worth immediately contacting a specialist for the purpose of conducting the necessary diagnostic study. After all, such manifestations can hide enough terrible pathologies of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract, one of which is Crohn's disease.
It almost always develops in a chronic type and is very difficult to diagnose and treat, especially when time is lost and the ailment begins to progress. In addition, Crohn's disease has many varieties. The most accurate classification of them can be found in ICD 10, under code 50. There are collected all the manifestations of this pathology, which gives the specialist the opportunity to determine the most accurate diagnosis and the appointment of adequate treatment.
A distinctive feature of Crohn's disease is that it affects not only the parts of the large intestine but the entire digestive tract, including the stomach, esophagus, and anus. This creates certain difficulties both in the detection of the form of the disease, and in the appointment of drug therapy. In addition, pathological changes occur in all layers of the walls of the digestive organs, and not only in their mucous membrane.
Symptomatic in this disease often resembles a sharp appendicitis, which is fraught with the fact that a real diagnosis can only be made during an operation to remove an appendix. In connection with the difficulty of accurately determining this inflammatory pathology, physicians usually use the differential diagnosis method, which allows to determine with the greatest accuracy the shape of the developing disease.
Classification of Crohn's disease
This disease has several forms. This classification of Crohn's disease is based on the location of pathological phenomena in the digestive tract:
- Ileocolite. It is the most common variety of this disease, the defeat by the inflammation process in which the thick and ileum is exposed;
- Ileit. With this form of Crohn's disease, pathological changes occur only in the ileum;
- Gastroduodenitis. It occurs less often than other types and is characterized by the fact that inflammation is mostly affected by the stomach.
Of all the varieties should be identified gastroduodenal form of development of this pathology, localized in the stomach. Although it is very rare( no more than 5% of all manifestations of this disease), it brings the patient the greatest problems. They are related to the fact that ulcers located in the main digestive organ are difficult to diagnose and very often the cause of their appearance is attributed not to Crohn's disease, but to other inflammatory diseases of the stomach. This, accordingly, leads to the fact that the beginning of adequate treatment is postponed for an indefinite period.
Symptomatic for such a localization of Crohn's disease for the most part corresponds to the stomach ulcer( severe pain in epigastrium, vomiting with bloody discharge, weight loss).In this form, treatment should be performed with drugs that block gastric secretion.
Crohn's disease is the cause of the disease
Although it is believed that Crohn's disease affects people between the ages of 20 and 40, but it is found, albeit rarely, in children of all age groups. At them displays of a pathology proceed usually more heavily, than at adults, but the chance on full recovery is more.
Although the etiology of Crohn's disease remains unclear, numerous studies have identified a group of children most exposed to it. In it, for the most part, we can include those who have a hereditary factor. It can be called the main cause of the development of this pathology in the gastrointestinal tract at an early age.
If one of the parents or close relatives suffered from this or similar pathology of the digestive organs, the child's likelihood of developing Crohn's disease increases. Also, the following causes are also influencing the onset of the disease:
- disrupts the functioning of the body's immune system, when it ceases to recognize its own cells and struggles with them;
- is a negative impact of external factors such as various infections, an incorrect lifestyle and unhealthy diet.
The parents of those children in whose lives these factors are present should watch with doubled attention any symptoms that may signal the development of Crohn's disease in the child.
Symptoms of Crohn's disease
The clinical picture of this inflammatory disease is quite diverse. It begins, as a rule, gradually. If you ignore the alarming symptoms and do not begin timely treatment, Crohn's disease will take a chronic form that is almost impossible to cure.
The main clinical symptom in children, arising in the first place, is diarrhea with very frequent( up to 10 times a day) urge to defecate. The stool always contains spotting.
Another mandatory sign of this pathology, which is present in both children and adults, abdominal pain. At the initial stage of Crohn's disease, they are unobtrusive and completely unrelated to the ingestion of food. Strengthening of the painful syndrome occurs as the pathology develops, when during the meal or the process of defecation it becomes cramped. The latest stages of Crohn's disease are characterized in children by their greatest intensity and bloating.
This disease has general physiological symptoms. These include febrile condition, fever, weight loss, significant weight loss and general weakness. For children who have a history of this pathology of the digestive tract, is characterized by a delay in growth, as well as sexual development.
Crohn's disease can be accompanied by extraintestinal manifestations, the most characteristic of which for this disease are vascular disorders, stomatitis, allergies.
In the case when the pathological process is localized in the rectum, the children will have lesions in the biliary system, liver and joints. Also, for some unknown reason, rashes on the skin may occur. And in the case of localization of inflammation in the small intestine, extraintestinal manifestations of Crohn's disease become hydronephrosis and urolithiasis. In addition, the active stage of the disease sometimes causes the appearance of aphthous ulcers in the patient's oral cavity.
Pregnancy planning and Crohn's disease
Due to the fact that this pathology affects patients at a fairly young age, many patients are most concerned about the compatibility of this disease with pregnancy. Especially since the decline in fertility in women with this disease is almost not happening.
Although many modern doctors categorically forbid the bearing of a child and childbirth in Crohn's disease, studies of Western specialists show that during the remission these processes proceed without any special pathologies. The chance of having a healthy offspring in women whose gastrointestinal tract is affected by this severe illness is not less than the rest, but provided there is persistent remission.
The greatest problem in pregnancy is differential diagnosis, necessary for Crohn's disease. The reason for this is that X-ray examination of the intestine can not be performed, and colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy are hampered by the displacement of the large intestine by the uterus.
A childbearing process should occur during a persistent remission and because the occurrence of complications of pregnancy is significantly influenced by the degree of activity of the inflammatory process occurring in the digestive organs. With the active form of Crohn's disease, the risk of fetal hypotrophy, spontaneous miscarriages and premature birth increases.
Many are concerned about the question of how pregnancy affects the course of Crohn's disease. Here it is unequivocally possible to say that in the case when the bearing of the child falls on the period of remission, it will remain throughout the pregnancy. Therefore, it is so important for a woman with this pathology, before deciding to have a baby, to consult a specialist and undergo a full course of treatment.
This gives a very good chance how to get pregnant normally, and give birth to a healthy baby. Even if during the first months of bearing the fetus an exacerbation occurs, the specialist will prescribe such medications that are not contraindicated and will not harm the body of the pregnant woman, as well as the future child.
The process of delivery in patients with Crohn's disease is most often performed by caesarean section. This method is necessary even if the pregnancy throughout its entire course was without any pathological changes, as with this disease there are cicatricial changes and perianal lesions in the perineum.
Crohn's Disease ICD-10
The International Classification of Diseases is a single normative document designed to take into account the causes of various diseases and the mortality caused by them. For such an inflammatory pathology as Crohn's disease, code 50 is assigned to ICD 10. Under it one can find any kind of this ailment.
This inflammatory pathology is classified in this normative document using the following codes:
- K50.0 Under it, in ICD-10 there is a kind of Crohn's disease that is localized in the small intestine;
- Code 50.1 presents a variety of this pathology, in which inflammatory lesions occur in the large intestine;
- K50.9 classifies the unspecified form of this pathology.
And under the code 50.8 all the other varieties of Crohn's disease are collected, among which granulomatous enteritis, intestinal granuloma, as well as an inflammation of the digestive tract, which results in the formation of fistulas on the internal surface of the digestive tract
. Precise causes of all the types of disease classified in the ICD 10Crohns are still unidentified, so even with the slightest manifestation of gastrointestinal disorders, you should immediately contact a specialist. Due to timely diagnosis, it is possible to identify the pathology with the greatest accuracy, presumably to determine the cause of its occurrence and to start timely treatment.