Living with Crohn's

A Chapel Hill man pursues fitness to help him cope with the chronic bowel disease

As a marathon runner and fitness specialist, Darren Pangle appears to be the picture of perfect health. His daily workouts include an hour of cardio training and at least 30 minutes of weight training. The results are evident. Standing 6 feet 2 inches and weighing 260 pounds, Pangle has 30-inch quads, 20-inch biceps and only about 10 percent body fat.

"A lot of people think I'm a bodybuilder when they first meet me," said the 42-year-old Chapel Hill resident.

So people are often shocked when they learn that Pangle has a chronic disease that almost cost him his life when he was a teen and continues to cause health problems.

"When I tell people about my life, they usually can't believe that I have any medical problems at all -- unless I show them the huge scar on my stomach," he explained.

Pangle is among hundreds of Triangle residents who have Crohn's disease, an illness that causes extreme intestinal problems and can lead to severe complications, such as an obstructed bowel, persistent diarrhea and rectal bleeding.

Pangle's medical problems began at age 19, when he flipped a riding lawn mower while cutting grass on a steep embankment. At first, the injury didn't seem too severe. There weren't any bruises, just a stiff back the next morning. Within a few days, though, the pain began to intensify.

"On the third day after the accident, I woke up sweating and I couldn't move at all," he recalled. "I called my brother, and ... he literally had to carry me to the hospital."

Physicians conducted a multitude of tests and determined that Pangle was suffering from peritonitis, an inflammation of the thin membrane that lines the abdominal wall. Doctors told him the problem could have been brewing before the accident or it could have been prompted by it. Either way, a life-threatening infection was rapidly spreading throughout his body.

"The doctors told me I had less than eight hours to live, so they needed to do emergency exploratory surgery and that's when they found out I had Crohn's disease," he recalled. "After surgery, I wound up in a coma for three days and I lost 72 pounds in six days."

How many have it

Named after Dr. Burrill B. Crohn, who documented the disease's symptoms in a 1932 research paper, Crohn's disease is similar to ulcerative colitis, which also causes extreme gastric problems. Crohn's and colitis are the two main categories of a larger group of illnesses known as inflammatory bowel diseases.

An estimated 1.3 million Americans have Crohn's or colitis, according to Kelli King, development director of the Carolinas Chapter of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

"Each year, about 30,000 more people are diagnosed with Crohn's and colitis, of which about 10 percent are under age 18," King said.

For decades, many patients with Crohn's suffered quietly and the disease often went undiagnosed, King said. The nature of the disease sometimes prompts people to keep their condition secret from others.

"It's such a personal subject that many people don't discuss their symptoms and don't go to the doctor, but thankfully that seems to be changing," King said.

The number of patients diagnosed with Crohn's seems to be increasing, she said, because the public and doctors are becoming more aware of the symptoms.

To raise money for research on Crohn's, as well as educational and support programs, the Carolinas Chapter of CCFA has organized an annual event, known as the Guts & Glory Walk/Run, for almost three decades. More than 400 people are expected to participate in the 26th Annual Guts & Glory Run/Walk on Saturday at the GlaxoSmithKline campus in Research Triangle Park.