Part of #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek My mental health has been really impacted by having Crohn’s disease. It started with the aftermath of diagnosis and has come back stronger and deeper since surgery. All of the issues that I’ve had have made it harder to process just how much IBD can go on to affect daily life, especially when you’re living in constant pain. Before stoma surgery, however, I was not taking medication…
health
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Awareness Week – Change in Bowel Habits
Part of #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek My bowel habits began changing alot time before I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. In fact, I recently found a diary of mine from mid-2010 – a whole year prior to my diagnosis – in which I complained about some rather persistent diarrhoea. But I was studying for my final year exams, preparing for graduation and I thought it was stress-related. I certainly continued to think that…
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Awareness Week – Change in Appearance
Part of #crohnsandcolitisawarenessweek My appearance is something that changes quite often with my Crohns disease. Whether it be weight gain – either much needed or just subsequent – or weight loss, my body has not looked consistently the same for years. Even within a year, I can dramatically lose weight or gain it, it depends on how well my disease is being controlled my current course of treatment. While my…
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“What does fatigue feel like?”
What exactly is fatigue? fatigue | noun 1. extreme tiredness resulting from mental or physical exertion or illness. We all experience tiredness at times, which can be relieved by sleep and rest. Fatigue is when the tiredness is often overwhelming and isn’t relieved by sleep and rest. There are three types of fatigue: transient, cumulative, and circadian: Transient fatigue is acute fatigue brought on by extreme sleep restriction or extended hours awake…
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“Is it tough taking lots of medications?”
The one thing I really struggled to grasp was just how much medication I could end up taking for my IBD. It’s early morning on the ward and the formidable drugs trolley is making its rounds. When it gets to me, I’m surprised to get two small pots of medications. Inside is a plethora of tablets for me to take. All of which have a very individual job to do.…
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“What does surgery feel like?”
As many of you know, I’ve had a few surgeries over the years. In fact, it was almost one per year. And I didn’t particularly have a terrible time of suffering from my Crohns disease, but I had issues with healing and other subsequent problems cropping up. You can read about all my surgical journeys here. But I do get asked how surgery actually feels so often by family, friends…
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Vedolizumab Subcutaneous Injections
Biologics have been around since 2003 and have had a great impact on inducing and maintaining remission in moderate-to-severe Crohn’s disease (CD) and Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Biologics have been a mixture of intravenous (IV) infusions, subcutaneous (SC) injections and oral medications. What did the pandemic mean for medications? At home administration of biologic Veodlizumab seems to have been spurred on into development and availability due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But…
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Examinations Under Anaesthesia
THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY What exactly is a Examination Under Anaesthesia? This is a surgical examination under general or spinal anaesthesia, also known as a EUA. Due to the location of a particular area that requires a deeper look, a surgeon will usually advocate for this procedure to minimise pain and discomfort to the patient. Why you might have one and the benefits This procedure can be…
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#2021HOMESTRETCH
The last 10 weeks of the year, time to set 5 goals for those weeks. This is very similar to the #100daysgoals movement, in which you find realistic and actionable goals for the final stretch of the calendar year. I last did this as a ‘proper’ blog post back in 2018 – which you can read here – but I do spend the last quarter of the year; from October…