How do I know if my symptoms are related to IBD or not?
I know Crohn's and UC can bring on a lot of weird symptoms but how do you know when something is IBD related or when it's something else?
My very first symptoms of having Inflammatory Bowel Disease were not "classically ulcerative colitis", and neither were the symptoms I had post partum. So, I didn't bring them up to my GI. I didn't ask questions because I assumed that they had nothing to do with IBD and felt foolish for every trying to marry the symptoms to my disease. The best thing to do is to always ask! You never know what is significant and what isn't. Better to ask. No bad or wrong questions.
My best gauge on whether its related is if I have *significant* bloating in my abdomen. I'm basically inflamed 90% of every single day, so I'm talking just a little above baseline. I also tend to have a slight nausea or cramping that will accompany a weird symptom, as well as fatigue. It's a culmination of a few different things.
If you don't mind sharing, what were your weird symptoms? I recently had a three weeks of infections and boils all over my body that refused to heal, and I only knew it was the IBD because of how badly my guts were misbehaving. As soon as my guts calmed down, my infections healed and I'm back to normal. So strange...
