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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    Can Crohn's affect other organs in the body?

    Related Topics
    Crohn's Disease & Ulcerative Colitis Digestive Health
    • 2 answers
    • Prof Andrew Day
    • Phil Bailey
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    Prof Andrew Day

    Paediatrician

    Although we think of Crohn disease involving the gut, it can also involve a number of other organs outside the gut. The most common of these are the skin, the eyes, the joints and the liver. 
    For instance, there are two main skin problems that can occur in people with Crohn disease: these are erythema nodosum and pyoderma gangrenosum.

    Not everyone with Crohn disease suffers from these conditions. Sometimes they can occur as the first feature of Crohn disease, but can be at anytime. Some of them will occur when they is active chnages in the gut (for instance, joint symptoms usually correspond with increased gut inflammation).

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  • Phil Bailey

    HealthShare Member

    after living with a sufferer of crohns of the ileum and large bowel; post surgery there was continued flare-ups which i suspect increased the volume and activity of the lymphatic system. As I understand (laymans knowledge), crohns presents (in one type) as a breakdown in the normal behaviour of how the body reacts to certain cell structures and how these items are filtered abnormally/or the bodys incapacity to filter due to changes in  normal (in this example) skin structures.

    The reasons why I focused on skin and lymph fluid is purely due to what i have seen and it seems an uncommonly reported symptom - where there seems to be exsessive lymph production probably due to a local crohns activity eg the gut or pelvic region, the skin in that region can show nodules on the surface. Potentially, wherever there are lymph nodes with high activity due to a crohns flareup there could also be present the symptom (the nodules on the surface of the skin or the specific inflamation response to the organ in that local).

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