awareness

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. “I’m thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have stumbled across  my strength”  Somewhat of a cliche now, but it’s a cliche because it’s true. I was diagnosed at 23 when I knew nothing about anything. Sure, I had graduated university, lived away from home, lived in a foreign country; but I knew nothing…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. I went through all medical options before I turned to surgery to help my IBD. Some days I wonder if I left it too long or was it just right? Some days I wonder what would have happened if I had gone for the clinical trial instead of the resection. But then I remember the life…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. “When they said chronic I didn’t think. They meant every single damn day.” Chronic and invisible. Double whammy. Despite there being so much information out there about the basics of IBD, we as patients still experience misconceptions and misinformation throughout our patient journey. For some this can be the fact that at a primary level, IBD…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. For most, tiredness comes when you’re overdoing it – working too many hours, being social, finding things to do instead of sleep. But when you have a chronic illness, the fatigue is a next level of tiredness. I find myself stopping from saying ‘I’m tired’ because this invites so many people to say the same back…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. There, I said it. Once you say it outloud, it’s like duh of course it does but that is as far some go. It’s sort of expected for something some internal to affect your mind. And whilst that’s good to recognise, more needs to be done. If there is counselling for a cancer diagnosis, why is there…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. What does having IBD mean? It means talking about poo. It means discussing bodily functions with specialists. It means enduring testings on your digestive system. These are not great experiences, no matter how long you have been diagnosed or how many you’ve had to go through. It means getting diagnosed. It means having a conversation with…

Part of the week of daily blogs for #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek Read the entire week here. What are Crohn’s & Colitis? Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are the major categories of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). IBD affects an estimated 300,000 in the UK. These chronic diseases can run in families and they affect males and females equally. While IBD can affect anyone, Caucasians are more likely than other ethnic groups to have IBD. Yet…