Risk Factors

So Crohn’s disease can affect people of all ages. They can start at a very early age, and typically though it presents in the second and third decade of life. And so we see a lot of teenagers, early adults presenting with symptoms of Crohn’s disease. Now keep in mind, most of the time, Crohn’s disease just doesn’t appear overnight. People tend to have inflammation that’s smoldering and progresses and eventually to develop symptoms. So the early signs of Crohn’s disease could be poor weight gain as a child, not meeting your milestones. As you get older, it could just be fatigue and inability to gain weight or grow appropriately. And then symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, rectal bleeding can occur. And in the more severe forms, people can have severe anemia, fevers, bowel obstructions or blockages or intra-abdominal infections from the fistulizing type of Crohn’s where they get abscesses in their digestive tract.