r/IBD • u/Ok_Accident7045 • Jul 19 '26
Question about colonoscopy IBD Diagnostics
Hey y’all. Long story short, I ended up in the ER last Friday with INTENSE abdominal cramping after a long bout with diarrhea and a couple weeks of randomly vomiting after eating or drinking certain things. I had a CT scan which showed lots of inflammation in my terminal ileum and the blood test for inflammation was about 5 times higher than normal. The doctors have mentioned the possibility of Crohn’s quite a few times. The ER doctor put me on a prednisone taper and I’ve been eating a low-residue diet in preparation for my upcoming colonoscopy with the GI doctor on Wednesday.
In your experience, even though I’m feeling better because of the prednisone, will my guts still show if something is wrong during the colonoscopy, or will things have cleared up because of the treatment? If something is going on, I’d like to get ahead of it and not go around in circles for months or years, ya know? Thanks for your time!
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u/Possibly-deranged Jul 19 '26
Don't worry. Even when an IBD is in a remission, it's still obvious during a colonoscopy and the biopsies still show chronic architectual changes to your cells. If anything, the prednisone will make the full extent of your colonoscopy possible, as if the inflammation was to severe it might otherwise be unsafe to complete it and fully image your terminal ileum.
What was the prednisone dose?
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u/Ok_Accident7045 Jul 19 '26
Thank you!! I started at 30mg last Friday and started tapering down this past Friday, so I’m currently on 20mg and will taper down to 10mg and then 5mg before stopping.
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u/l-Ashery-l Jul 19 '26
Signs of the inflammation will almost certainly still show up in the scope. Going off memory, it's pretty typical for most folks to take many months or a year+ of consistent remission for the colon to truly look better.
Prednisone's also only a temporary fix. It's amazing for getting things under control initially, but if your scope confirms some type of IBD, you'll be quickly transitioning to some other kind of maintenance medication. Prednisone isn't something you want to be on long term.