SUE WILLETT, for the Courier | Posted: Wednesday, September 14, 2005 12:00 am
CEDAR FALLS - As a preteen, Maureen D'Alessandro suffered constant stomach aches. Simple things, like kneeling for prayer at church, were impossible because of the pain.
"I remember just feeling sick," recalls D'Alessandro, now 21. " I was really scared because I didn't know what was wrong with me at all and I had to go to specialists. I wasn't able to hang out with my friends."
D'Alessandro's medical adventure progressed rapidly. Since there was no pediatric gastroenterologist in the area at the time, her parents sought treatment at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Diagnosed with Crohn's disease, D'Alessandro spent about six weeks in the pediatric/teen ward.
Surgery may be needed for Crohn's disease if medications aren't working to control symptoms. During surgery, doctors remove as little of the intestines as possible to preserve normal function.
"During that time I was on a lot of drugs but none of them worked," said the Cedar Falls native now studying nursing at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn. "Their final decision was to do surgery. Everything went well and I was home about a week after surgery."
Crohn's disease is a chronic disorder that causes inflammation of the digestive tract. Although it can involve any area of the gastrointestinal tract, it most commonly affects the small intestine and/or colon. Crohn's is closely related to another disorder called ulcerative colitis, a condition marked by ulcers in the top layers of the lining of the large intestine. Inflammation usually occurs in the lower part of the colon, but may affect the entire colon. Together, Crohn's and ulcerative colitis are frequently referred to as inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD.
For people diagnosed with these disorders, daily life is marked by periods of intense abdominal pain, countless trips to the bathroom, doctor's appointments, hospitalizations and intense drug therapy all aimed at putting their disorder in remission.
"Many types of anti-inflammatory medications are currently available, from steroid-like medications to medications that work more specifically on the immune system," said Dr. William Faubion of the Mayo Clinic's gastroenterology department.
The 19th floor of the Mayo Clinic is dedicated to research and treatment of IBD. So far, researchers have been unable to pinpoint the exact cause of IBD. The most popular theory is that the body's immune system reacts to a virus or bacteria with ongoing inflammation in the intestinal wall.
"My current research interests involve the role of bacteria and receptors for bacterial products in provoking and maintaining a chronic inflammatory state in the bowel," Faubion said. … "The same cells that attack viruses and bacteria attack the colon causing bleeding, diarrhea, and pain. There is some component of genes as well, as 20 percent or so of patients with IBD have a family member with the disease. We don't know how you get the disease, but to some degree one can inherit it or perhaps a virus or bacterial infection set it off." … "We hope that by studying immune cells from patients with IBD and the genes from these patients that we can contribute to the understanding of why patients develop disease … and improve the safety of current therapy."