Hi Toni: Glad to see you back! Joint pains are one symptom of Crohn's disease. I posted on a GI forum and the doctor told me that Crohn's disease can be *very* hard to diagnose. In fact, in some cases, the * only* symptoms are "extra-intestinal", meaning everything but the intestinal symptoms. (joint pains, iris inflammation, mouth inflammation etc) We had a woman come into the hospital one day with abdominal pain she had been having for 6 months-no other symptoms-no diarrhea, cramping, or anything typical of crohn's. The only thing besides the pain was a positive stool occult blood test. They did all kinds of tests on her. I read the doctor's notes and they were sure she had a malignancy somewhere in her GI tract. (she was about 50 years old.) They did a CT Scan. Diagnosis: Crohn's of the jejeunem, which is the middle section of the small intestine and can not be seen from a colonoscopy. Crohn's is *usually* in the terminal ileum and when they do a colonoscopy they look into this area. Ct is the test to rule out Crohn's I believe. With your strong family history I would push for this, despite what your doctors say. You can have Crohn's besides the adhesions.
Chris S.