Hello! I was diagnosed with crohns back in 2009 when I was only like 12 years old. If you do have crohns, yes it can be very serious. Some people have more issues than others. Some find it hard to find a medication that works for them so they're always in pain and lose alot of weight. Some people have to take steroids for a long time and gain alot of weight from them. If it gets too bad, some people need surgery to remove part of the bowel. You may also have to deal with malabsorption, anemia, arthritis, psoriasis, or any kind of inflammation in any body part its not just digestive system specific. If you want to message me with more questions, feel free! I'd like to help if I can

I found out when I was 17 while I was in the hospital with a virus (pre covid) a couple years back. Crohn’s runs in my family so I wasn’t too surprised lol. I had been dealing with severe IBS and celiac disease up to that point, so I was honestly really relieved to hear that there was a name for my symptoms! Crohn’s sounds really intimidating, but the more you educate yourself on it, it becomes less intimidating over time! It’s not typically a deadly disease or anything lol, most ppl with crohn’s live (mostly) normal lives. But if yours is severe enough, it can come with complications every once and awhile. There’s really wonderful communities online (like Instagram) that can help you through the diagnosis tho! Bc I know it can be a lot at first. And I really do think that education is key. The more you know, the less scared you feel.

Its so true, people live long and mostly normal lives now a days with Crohn's. But even mild flares need to be taken seriously. The focus is on prolonging your quality of life....with flares, eventually intestinal scarring occurs and the worse it is, the more digestive problems you'll experience. With flares, you're more susceptible for infection because your body is busy attacking itself and can cause ulcers. Within 7 months of my first flare, at the age of 30, I was diagnosed with Crohn's. 1 month later, I was hospitalized for 3 days with a septic case of listeria. My flare was really bad, and not trying to scare, but want to point out the importance of taking care of your Crohn's. Flares very rarely get better on their own, usually getting worse. My whole family was surprised I got Crohn's because no one had it and "I was the healthy one" in the family. Make sure to have good health insurance, and be proactive I your treatment. The longer flares stick around, the higher the stats of hospitalization or medications not being as effective. For the record, I'm 35 in another flare up and about to change medications, and can say it's still not that big of deal...of all the health conditions we can get in this world, this one isn't so bad - just need to be on top of getting your flares under control and then go back to liven up life to the fullest.