My Anus Horribilis

My gastroenterologist’s office called me the other week and left a message asking me to call back. I had something to do the next afternoon, and I decided I did not want to call my gastroenterologist first and then find out I’m dying and then not feel like doing the thing I had to do that afternoon, so I decided I’d call her after I finished my errand.

Still curious about why she might be calling, I checked my bloodwork online, and although this is only the second time I’ve gotten my results online, nothing seemed far out of the ordinary range to me.

The inflammation marker was 0.5, down from 1.1 three months ago. The online report seems to indicate that anything under 2.0 is normal, so I would suspect most people with Crohn’s have a CRP above 2.0, so this would indicate to me that my Crohn’s is currently not very active. (And indeed, I haven’t been experiencing any symptoms, other than the occasional day where I’ll spend a few hours close to the bathroom.)

On my previous bloodwork results, three tests were marked low, and two were marked high; on this report, three test results seemed to have gotten closer to the normal range, and two that were marked low were lower than they were before. I don’t know if you’re supposed to start worrying when something is out of the normal range by 0.1 or 1.0 or 10.0 or what, so I didn’t let any of that bother me.

My gastro office ended up foiling my plan to put off calling them back, because they called me the next morning. She told me my lymphocyte count had fallen, and they wanted me to decrease my Imuran to 60 mg a day, so instead of taking two pills once a day, I would take one pill once a day. I don’t remember her exact words, but I feel like she might have said something like the drugs are working too well and I’m too immuno-suppressed.

So, to me, being told to take less of a medication sounds like good news, so I’m pleased with that.