Online Resources For Understanding Your Friend’s Ulcerative Colitis Or Crohn’s
Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis are diseases which affect every area of an individual’s life. Both bowel diseases have the potential to create physical, mental and emotional trauma in the life of the patient.
Often individuals with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis will shy away from social situations and close friendships due to the lack of knowledge and awareness of these diseases. Others build walls around themselves, sometimes separating themselves from family, because so few people understand the disease.
The best way to understand and wait on a friend with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis is to educate yourself. The following websites and organizations provide a variety of information related to Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
Crohn’s and Colitis Medical Organizations Online
The first place to start your research of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis is through the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, www.ccfa.org, provides basic information about the IBDs, helps you understand how patients live with the disease, advises you of ongoing research and opportunities to raise money for Crohn’s and colitis research.
A relatively new site that is filled with information from experts including doctors, nutritionists, and medical psychologists is www.roadtouclearing.com. On the Road to UC Learning is part of a traveling forum designed to assist the colitis community. Their website is dedicated to education, creating community among colitis sufferers, and providing news and other resources.
MyIBD.org offers extensive educational information and resources for learning more about Crohn’s and colitis. MyIBD.org allows researchers to dig as deeply into information about Crohn’s and colitis as you desire.
Mount Cedar-Sinai Medical Center is among the country’s leaders in inflammatory bowel disease and research. Mount Cedar-Sinai is very patient oriented, but the link above will take you to their FAQ page, from which you can learn about Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis.
UC and Crohn’s is an online information center. UCandCrohn’s.org is designed with pediatric Crohn’s and colitis patients in mind. As you may imagine, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s demonstrate special challenges for kids. This website offers encouragement to pediatric IBD patients, but also offers information to help parents and teachers understand the impact of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis on a young life.
Crohn’s and Colitis Interactive Forums
Once you have a greater understanding of the medical aspects of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, you will benefit from visiting forums in which Crohn’s and colitis patients and their support network interact.
I’m positive a simple Google or Yahoo search will yield a plethora of results. The following forums are among the best and most helpful for patients and individuals trying to understand Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. Don’t be timid to effect up on a Crohn’s and colitis forum. Ask questions. You will find most Crohn’s and ulcerative patients are alive to for others to learn about and understand their IBD.
My first halt is always HealingWell.com. HealingWell is an online forum that offers support to a variety of chronic disease suffers. Scroll through the list of diseases until you find Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis. You will then be directed to a forum filled with informative articles and Crohn’s and colitis patients who regularly check in to ask questions, report on their treatment, part success stories, and share the battles they encounter. You will learn a lot just from reading through the posts on HealingWell.com.
UCandCrohn’s mentioned above, also offers an interactive forum where kids can share their stories and find people willing to listen to the challenges they face. More than a message board, UCandCrohn’s is a highly interactive sight which allows kids to post their thoughts and ideas in creative ways. I highly recommend this region to any pediatric Crohn’s or colitis parents, friends, or teachers. Score out what kids have to say about the way these IBDs obtain them feel.
EHealthforum.com, like HealingWell covers a variety of diseases and conditions. From the start page, to find Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis discussions, click on “more” under the category of “diseases and conditions”. You will see Crohn’s listed. Clicking on the Crohn’s link will take you to a message board in which Crohn’s patients posted concerns, recipes, trial and error treatments, and all related Crohn’s issues.
In order to procure discussions specific to colitis, expand the list from the “diseases and conditions” table, click on “more.” Colon issues have all been lumped together in this forum under “stomach, ulcers, gastric bypass, and colon disorders. Discussions in this forum are varied, but there are a number that are specific to ulcerative colitis.
Miscellaneous Crohn’s and Colitis Sights
Years ago, when I first started learning about Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis I was directed to what I thought, at the time, was one of the most graphic discussions and illustrations of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis. If you really don’t understand the impact of these IBD’s, I recommend you visit www.randynoguts.com. Randy has gone to extensive lengths to provide his story. His sight includes the history of his disease and very graphic photos of his surgery. If you just can’t wrap your mind around what Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis really are, or what a fistula is, one visit to Randynoguts and you will understand.
The distinct side of Randynoguts is that he also presents a story of life after surgery and continuing to live a life after a Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis diagnosis.
There are a number of other websites, forums and blogs, including community sites on Yahoo, MSN, and other celebrated chat sites.
I encourage you to learn all you can. It will help you better understand your friends with Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis, their special needs, and concerns.
Once you better understand the potential of Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis to incapacitate friends and family members, you may become an advocate on behalf of IBD patients. At the very least, you can help increase awareness of the disease and its affects.
Related Posts
Filed under Gastric Bypass by on Oct 3rd, 2011. 