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This Pro Pickleball Player Earned a Big Win in His Fight With Crohn's Disease
Perianal Crohn’s can cause severe pain, abscesses, and fistulas that affect daily life and sports. This story shows one person’s path through diagnosis, medical treatment, surgery, and peer support, which may resonate with people facing similar complications.
Adults with Crohn’s disease, especially those with perianal disease or who are on biologics/immunosuppressants; caregivers and clinicians interested in patient experiences; people seeking peer support or advocacy connections.
What To Know
This HealthCentral feature tells the patient-centered story of Rob Nunnery, a professional pickleball player who developed perianal Crohn’s disease and lived with chronic pain, fatigue, and fistula/abscess complications before getting a diagnosis and treatment that included azathioprine and infliximab and ultimately colostomy surgery.
The article is a first-person style profile focusing on lived experience, the mental-health impact of playing through disease, and treatment decisions.
It notes prior surgeries to drain abscesses, use of NSAIDs (ibuprofen) that can worsen IBD symptoms, trials of azathioprine (Imuran) plus infliximab (Remicade) without adequate response, and eventual colostomy that relieved his chronic pain. It also describes involvement with advocacy (Athletes vs. Crohn’s and Colitis).
Practical detail: This is a human-interest piece, not a clinical study. It reports the therapies and procedures the player experienced but does not provide clinical guidance, comparative effectiveness data, or new research findings. For medical decisions, readers should consult their care team.
This is a patient-focused feature from HealthCentral describing one individual’s experience; it’s not a clinical trial or guideline. Treatments mentioned (azathioprine, infliximab, colostomy) are reported as that patient’s course and outcome; individual results vary.
The article discusses risks of NSAIDs for IBD and the challenges of managing perianal Crohn’s but does not present new research data.
