“Whether IBD took too long for physicians to diagnose or the patient brushed off symptoms (or both), the delay might mean that the patient will need surgery. By the time some patients do need surgery, the disease has often been active for years.
‘The most classic symptoms are changes in bowel habits,’ Dr. Elizabeth Raskin, a colorectal surgeon at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach, California, where she serves as surgical director of the Margolis Family Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program, says. ‘Something that happens for one or two days and goes away and never returns is probably not something that is as concerning,’ Raskin says. ‘But if they have abdominal pain that comes and goes every couple of days and is associated with other symptoms, that’s something you should not overlook.’
Surgery can address complications, but it does not change the underlying problem. ‘When we do surgery for Crohn’s disease, we don’t have the ability to cure it,’ Raskin says. And many Crohn’s patients may need more than one surgery. ‘We do know the data that a patient who has a first surgery for Crohn’s disease has about a 33% chance of having a second surgery,’ she says.”