Crohn's Disease

Crohn's disease is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that can affect any part of the digestive tract, causing transmural inflammation that leads to abdominal pain, diarrhoea, and, over time, potential complications like strictures or fistulas.

The exact cause is unknown, but it's thought to arise from an abnormal immune response in genetically susceptible people, triggered or influenced by environmental factors and the gut microbiome.

Typical symptoms include abdominal pain, chronic diarrhoea, fatigue, and unintended weight loss, sometimes with additional symptoms outside the gut such as joint pain, eye inflammation, or skin problems during flares.

Yes, it's a lifelong condition that can cause significant complications if poorly controlled, but with modern treatment many people achieve long periods of good symptom control and lead full, active lives.

There's a genetic component - risk is higher with a family history - but it's not simply inherited, and most people diagnosed have no affected relatives, so environmental and immune factors also play a significant role.

There's no cure currently available, but treatments, particularly biologic medications, can induce and maintain remission for extended periods, meaningfully controlling symptoms and reducing complication risk.

Treatment typically starts with anti-inflammatory or immunosuppressive medication, escalating to biologic therapies for more significant disease, with surgery used for complications that don't respond to medical treatment.

With treatment, flares often improve within a few weeks, though the disease follows an unpredictable long-term course of remission and occasional relapse that varies between individuals.

Crohn's disease can affect any part of the digestive tract with patchy, full-thickness inflammation, while ulcerative colitis affects only the colon and rectum with continuous, more superficial inflammation - an important distinction for treatment and surgical planning.

See a gastroenterologist if you have ongoing abdominal pain, diarrhoea, or unexplained weight loss. A private gastroenterology consultation is often available within about two weeks, considerably faster than typical NHS waiting times for a non-urgent referral.