Getting gutsy in the name of IBD

Did you know Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) is about three times more common than multiple sclerosis and HIV amongst Canadians? According to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada, it is and November is Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Month. To mark the awareness month, I decided to share my experiences—good and bad — with Crohn’s Disease over the past four years in hopes of explaining the disease to people.

It was back in 2007 when I was diagnosed with the disease (after many misdiagnosises), given numerous new prescriptions and released from the hospital after spending more than a week there. But what the busy doctors failed to explain to me in detail was, what is Crohn’s Disease?

I like to describe Crohn’s to people as speed bumps in your intestines. When you eat something the intestines find difficult to digest (strawberries, high fibre foods, or nuts for example), your body rejects the food. When you have Crohn’s, your intestines become spoiled brats: They decide what they want to digest, when they do it and just how much pain they are going to inflict.

The docs out there give it a little bit more of an elegant explanation. Crohn’s Disease is an IBD and like I mentioned before, it affects the intestines but can target anywhere from your mouth to your well, um, ‘exit.’ One website gives a pretty good summary, saying “People with Crohn’s disease have ongoing (chronic) inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Crohn’s disease may occur in any area of the digestive tract. There can be healthy patches of tissue between diseased areas. The inflammation causes the intestinal wall to become thick.”

And I know what some of you are probably thinking: “Wow, this sounds gross.” And really it is. But I am a firm believer that unless people start talking about it, nobody will know what the disease is or want to find a cure. I have met a lot of ‘closet’ Crohn’s sufferers over the years, people who are afraid to talk about this chronic, painful and sometimes humiliating disease. Many people are often surprised to discover that I have Crohn’s but when I tell them, nine times out of 10 they are interested and surprised to learn what I have to do to avoid pain.

Eating with Crohn’s Disease

Since it’s a gastrointestinal disorder and since I assume everybody has taken biology, that means Crohn’s has to do with digestion, making dinner parties and staff lunches a nightmare for people like myself who have IBD.

Since the body reacts different to all types of food, I have to be very selective with what I eat, otherwise I will be suffering with bad cramps, a migraine and just overall exhaustion, sometimes lasting days. Luckily, my Crohn’s overall has been going well in the past few years, thanks to the two needles I take every week. It’s tough, I admit, but it needs to be done and I am just happy to be able to go home to my own bed every night and not a hospital bed.

Although I try to keep a positive spin to the cards I have been dealt, sufferers of IBD share my pain and know just how much of an impact this disease has on your everyday life. I would love to eat whole wheat bread, strawberries and spinach, but instead I’m stuck with white bread, green beans and a muffin top.

My goal is to educate as many people as possible on the disease, since it impacts so many Canadians. I don’t do it to complain about my trials with the disease, but I do it so when people are diagnosed with IBD, they’ll know what it is and won’t have to go through the months of confusion and battles with food I did. As painful and frustrating as it can be, I look forward to the future of IBD research, with discoveries about this little-known disease developing each day. And that is something worth talking about.