Personal Story
Illness can morph you without your consent
When I was first diagnosed, I was told that Crohn’s disease was chronic. I looked that word up. Chronic: “Persisting for a long time or constantly recurring.” I shrugged, “No big deal” I thought. The idea of a long time didn’t compute when I was in my early twenties. Because “a long time” doesn’t really […]
News
Public toilets letting us down
In his 1937 essay What is a City?, historian, sociologist and architecture critic Lewis Mumford described the city as a theatre — a space in which the social drama of urban life could play out. It’s unlikely he envisioned the daily drama of parents with young children, the sick, and the weak-of-bladder looking in vain […]
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Health advice not all-inclusive
Every day we’re bombarded with stories telling us how to live our healthiest lives. We’re told we should sleep seven to nine hours each night, eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, exercise regularly, drink lots of water and avoid alcohol. It’s a lot to take in. And even though it might be based on the […]
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Medical marijuana is on the rise in Australia, but we still don’t know a lot about how it works
Yesterday, the ABC revealed more than 3,100 medicinal cannabis scripts had been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) since the Federal Government relaxed restrictions in March 2018. According to experts, these people were just the tip of the iceberg. It has been estimated as many as 100,000 Australians self-medicate with cannabis they’ve acquired illegally. Advocates of […]
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‘Carbohydrate Monotony’ Diet May Ease IBD
Less-developed countries that are adopting a Western-type lifestyle are showing an increase in IBD cases, albeit with a lower incidence. This illustrates the importance of understanding the environmental factors behind IBD. Researchers believe IBD is influenced by genetics, defective immunological responses of the host, problems in the gut’s natural barrier and in its microbiome (the […]
Personal Story
Soul Food: The Ayurvedic Diet and How It Helped Me Manage IBD
When I was 16, I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and was prescribed medication to treat it. Even with medication, I dealt with flares that caused severe bleeding, debilitating pain, nausea, vomiting, and muscle cramps, among other symptoms. For three years my mother and I visited one specialist after another on the East Coast searching for answers. When a doctor […]
News
Stoma products inspired by body art, tattoos and lingerie
Stephanie Monty, an entrepreneur from the University of Birmingham’s BizzInn business incubator, has been awarded £310k by Innovate UK. Inspired by seeing close family members suffering from the devastating effects of Crohn’s disease, she set up her company, Ostique, to develop a new range of stylish stoma products that are beautiful as well as functional. […]
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A Nutritionist’s View on Managing IBD through Lifestyle and Diet
In the article published in Frontiers in Immunology in 2015, its authors conclude: “The evidence that genetic factors contribute in small part to disease pathogenesis confirms the important role of microbial and environmental factors. Epigenetic factors can mediate interactions between environment and genome. Epigenetic mechanisms could affect development and progression of IBD. Epigenomics is an emerging field, and future […]
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Inflammatory bowel disease tied to heart attack risk
(Reuters Health) – – People with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis may be up to 12 times more likely to have a heart attack, a U.S. study suggests. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) involves chronic or recurring inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s are the most common forms. People […]
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Tired of hearing comments about your Weight?
Weight is an emotionally charged subject for many people. For those living with Crohn’s disease, it’s an even more difficult topic, as weight loss and gain aren’t always in their control. Between flare-ups, courses of steroids, and sometimes even surgery, fluctuations on the scale are a somewhat inevitable part of living with the condition. One thing that certainly doesn’t help? Judgmental, […]
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