The undisputed star of this year’s Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity is 10-year-old Łukasz, who is struggling with a serious, incurable disease. Despite his own misfortune, the boy collected money for others in need.
Łukasz is under the care of the Polish Society for Supporting People with Nonspecific Intestinal Inflammation J-elita. This group of diseases includes chronic autoimmune enteritis. These include: Crohn’s disease, ulcerative enteritis, Behcet’s disease and many others. Łukasz suffers from the first of these ailments.
Crohn’s disease usually appears between the ages of 15 and 25, but as we can see in Łukasz’s example, it can also affect younger people. In Poland, CLC affects about 5. people.
One of the first symptoms of the disease is chronic abdominal pain and diarrhea. There may also be lumps in the abdomen and intestinal obstruction. Sometimes there are skin changes in the form of erythema, abnormalities in the joints and problems with eyesight.
To diagnose the disease, a colonoscopy and a series of laboratory tests are necessary, including the presence of ANCA and ASCA antibodies.
The disease is characterized by periods of remission during which the patient can function normally, and periods of exacerbation. In severe cases, it is necessary to use the toilet up to 20 times a day.
At the moment, the disease can be relieved in several ways. The first is the excision of the affected part of the intestine, but it does not exclude that the lesions will appear elsewhere. A number of pharmaceuticals are also used to alleviate symptoms and sometimes even bring them into remission. The most advanced is biological treatment, in this case with the use of antibodies, but in Poland it is difficult to obtain.
We know how much Jurek Owsiak earns on working at the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity