Doctors Told Her Digestive Issues Were From Food. The Real Cause Was Crohn’s Disease

Jamie Harris was in her 20s when she started having stomach problems. At first, doctors thought it was just something she ate.

In 2010, Harris was enjoying life. She was in graduate school, working toward her teaching certificate, and dating the man she would later marry. During a trip to London with him, she noticed blood in her stool. After returning home, the symptoms didn’t stop. She also had severe stomach pain.

Her general practitioner told her to eat more fiber and take psyllium husk. But the sharp pain lasted for a full year, and she began losing weight.

While student-teaching, one of her own teachers urged her to go to the emergency room.

“They ran the blood tests and were like, ‘Wow, your white blood cell count is way elevated,’ and then they ran further tests, and then that’s when I got referred to a GI doctor,” Harris said.

That doctor gave her an official diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. This is a long-term inflammatory condition that can affect any part of the digestive tract.

Dr. Emanuelle Bellaguarda, a gastroenterologist and associate professor at Northwestern University, explained that Crohn’s can cause sores called ulcers in the bowel. If not treated, it can lead to scarring and abnormal connections between parts of the bowel or from the bowel to the skin.

Harris found her first year after diagnosis very hard, both physically and mentally.

“It was like I kind of went into a little depression. I’m supposed to be at the peak of my life, and it wasn’t that anymore,” she said.

Even though food plays a role, it is not the only thing that matters.

When Harris first had symptoms, her mother — a registered dietitian for 40 years — thought she might have a gluten intolerance. Harris cut back on certain foods and kept a food diary, but everything seemed to hurt her stomach. She tried the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) for a while, but eventually she stopped eating much because it was so painful. She lost 20 pounds.

Dr. Bellaguarda said that while a healthy diet can help with symptoms like diarrhea and bloating, no studies show that diet alone can heal the inflammation caused by Crohn’s or stop the disease from getting worse.

Treatment for Crohn’s depends on the patient’s specific case, other health conditions, and past medications. There is still no cure.

Doctors use a two-step plan. First, they aim to make patients feel better and heal the bowel or stop the disease from progressing. Second, they move to a maintenance phase, where patients keep taking the medication that worked.

“Fortunately, we do have many effective medications to get patients well and keep them well, including biologic agents such as Omvoh or small molecule agents such as JAK inhibitors,” Bellaguarda said.

Harris does not take Omvoh. After her diagnosis, she tried several pill medications that helped mask some symptoms but never made her feel completely well. Doctors typically don’t switch patients to a new drug until the current one stops working.

After two years on pills, she started infusion therapy. Now she gets an infusion every six weeks. The treatments are faster than they used to be, which allows her to go about her day.

She also exercises regularly and follows a Mediterranean diet. Both help control her symptoms.

“I’ve had the disease for 16 years; I know my trigger foods,” Harris said. “I don’t like to mix a lot of ingredients, so it’s very, very plain, very bland, but there are times when you fall off the wagon.”

Harris shares her story to help others with Crohn’s.

“Sixteen years ago, I didn’t know anyone who had this disease, and it was very lonely. I felt isolated. I couldn’t relate to anyone,” she said.

That changed when she joined the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation. She now serves on its Board of Directors. She has also partnered with the medicine company Lilly to spread awareness.

“Now that I’ve shared my story and I tell people and I fundraise for it, it’s more common than you think. It’s not really a sexy disease; not everyone wants to talk about bowel movements or stool. But there are millions of people who suffer from it, and I don’t want other patients to feel alone,” Harris said.

She urges others to speak up for themselves if something feels wrong. It took two years for her to get a diagnosis.

“I felt like I was suffering for all of that time, and sometimes I thought it was in my head, like, am I making this up?” she said.

Despite the struggles, she wants people to know they can still live a full life.

“It’s not the end of your life. You will move on. I’ve always been a positive person, but there’s hope,” she said.

Dr. Bellaguarda agreed. “We expect our patients to have a healthy, normal, and fulfilling life,” she said.

When Harris was first diagnosed, she worried her boyfriend would leave her or that her life was over. Now she focuses on staying positive and hopes a cure will be found in her lifetime.

As a mom, she is open with her daughter about having IBD. She tries to eat clean food and pass those habits on to her child.

“We try to follow clean eating, so, of course, if I’m eating it, my daughter, by default, has to eat it, but it’s just about being healthy and listening to your body,” Harris said.