IBD Impact Archives •

“Does having IBD scare you?”

Let me take you back down memory road to the day after I was diagnosed with Crohns disease. “I sat on my hospital bed, in the new ward, waiting for the doctors to come and do their rounds. I would meet my consultant for the first time – excellent, when I looked and felt awful […]

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Chronic Illness Admin

It takes a mammoth amount of energy, time and effort to organise chronic illness life. Throughout all my years with IBD it has been a barrage of appointments, procedures, medications and conversations about my health. It’s sort of why I started writing my blog because I was forgetful – medication side effect and just being […]

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- Crohns
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- Surgery
Exploring the Emotional Complexity of IBD Surgery

As I come to the five year anniversary of my first IBD surgery, what exactly can I share with you, that isn’t already out there? What can I tell you that does ‘justice’ to the process, to the hard work that goes on behind the scenes? What can I tell you as a patient and […]

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Life Lately | What Exactly is Going On?

I always get nervous … because I always wonder if I should or could go without my medication. It is not a matter of fighting for the funding like it has been before, but its more about how my body and disease will cope without medication. It is a catch 22 situation of whether I […]

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- Crohns
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“How do you know when you’re flaring?”

I’ll admit this openly, but flare-ups used to scare the heck out of me. After I was officially diagnosed in late 2011 I had several bad flare-ups back to back, which always led to me being hospitalised. Luckily, that doesn’t happen so often now, because I have become better at reading my own body’s warning […]

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- Crohns
- IBD Impact
“Will you always need check-ups for your IBD?”

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes but here is why: Getting diagnosed with IBD for most is a great relief. It ends the months, even years, of needing answers but them being dismissed or ignored. But diagnosis is just the first step in a lifetime of appointments, scans, procedures and consults with a specialist team […]

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- Blog
- Crohns
- IBD Impact
“Does caffeine affect your IBD?”

Where would I be without my morning cup of coffee? Probably still in bed and probably still asleep. It’s been used for decades as a popular morning beverage to get us up, awake, alert and ready for a new day. We then added it to drinks to keep us full of energy during the day, […]

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“How different are scans when you have a bag?”

The most common way for IBD to diagnosed and monitored is via endoscopy. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your viewpoint – a colonoscopy can only show so much of the bowel. If you have IBD of the colon or rectum, you are fine with having just a colonoscopy regularly. But those with small bowel […]

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- Crohns
- IBD Impact
I AM SCARED, despite being in such a joyous season

December always feels like the most scary month for me. I have no triggers or flashbacks for this month in particular, but there is such a drive away from routine and towards joy, that it makes it a hard time. The last time I felt like this was back in 2015. I had been having […]

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Never Give Up Hope

Every October and November, I feel nostalgic. I feel the swirl of memories flood my mind, of being taken back to days in the hospital for treatment, of being hooked up to an IV stand. The first time was October 2013, when I moved from Humira to Infliximab. Going from an at-home self-injection to a […]

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Hernias & Stomas

I remember sitting in my hospital bed, after my first solo stoma bag change back in 2016 and my nurse said “you must always try and avoid a hernia. You are more susceptible to them now”. I was four or five days post op and I just nodded along. It was never a big worry […]

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