Crohn’s disease isn’t something that usually comes up in cocktail party conversations. It isn’t featured prominently in television shows or radio spots. Ask your average person what Crohn’s is, and they likely will be hard-pressed to give you the right answer.
But this chronic inflammatory bowel disease is featured on the Web site of the New York Times, putting a face – or faces, in this case – to this rarely discussed disorder. In this interactive feature, seven people ranging in age from 19 to 61 share their experiences with the condition that has been diagnosed in more than 300,000 Americans.
“It takes forever to get diagnosed with Crohn’s,” recounts Ryan Walsh Horowitz, 19, of Brooklyn. “They thought I was anemic. They thought I had leukemia – and a bunch of other things.”
That is not surprising, nor an isolated problem.
Crohn’s has long been overlooked or misdiagnosed in the general public. The most common symptoms are, well, common: diarrhea, constipation, gas, abdominal pain, bloating and loss of weight. So it’s easy to see why many other health conditions are often suspected first.