Jessica Terry, 18, suffered the abdominal pain for nearly ten years. Doctors couldn’t diagnose what’s wrong with this Washington State teen’s gutter. In January, Jessica Terry self-diagnosed her condition as Crohn’s disease after she found a granuloma when checking a slide of her own intestine tissue under the microscope at AP science class months ago in her Eastside Catholic School in Sammamish, WA. From CNN
For eight years, Jessica Terry suffered from stomach pain so horrible, it brought her to her knees. The pain, along with diarrhea, vomiting and fever, made her so sick, she lost weight and often had to miss school.
Her doctors, no matter how hard they tried, couldn’t figure out the cause of Jessica’s abdominal distress.
Then one day in January, Terry, 18, figured it out on her own.
In her Advanced Placement high school science class, she was looking under the microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue — slides her pathologist had said were completely normal — and spotted an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, a clear indication that she had Crohn’s disease.
“It’s weird I had to solve my own medical problem,” Terry told CNN affiliate KOMO in Seattle, Washington. “There were just no answers anywhere. … I was always sick.”
Jessica Terry graduated this month from her school. She is now being treated for the Crohn’s which is treatable but incurable. The disease (see an intro vid below) was caused by inflammation in the digest tract. It can cause malnutrition, ulcers, pain and health problems.
Crohn’s Disease Introduction Video
All the best to Jessica Terry, the teen you outsmarted the doctors! (more…)
