My Gut Feelings: Living with Crohn’s Disease

My name is Adrian, and I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease when I was 9 years old. For several months before I was diagnosed, I was slowly losing weight, growing paler, and having intermittent stomach aches. I would be in terrible pain, fall to the floor, and then it would pass almost as quickly as it came on. Neither my parents nor I thought it was anything serious at first. Initially my mom thought maybe I was lactose intolerant, so we cut dairy out for a while, which was a disappointment because my favorite foods were cereal and yogurt. Removing dairy, however, did not help.