This World IBD Day, learn how Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis affect mental health and the gut-brain connection — and ways to cope.   World IBD Day: The Hidden Mental Health Impact of IBD Why mental health awareness matters in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative col...

Living with IBD: The Emotional Burden We Don’t Talk AboutNearly one in 100 people in the U.S. are living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), an umbrella term for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. IBD causes inflammation of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and is a chronic and sometimes painf...

*This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.   Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, affects nearly 1 in 100 Americans. While the exact cause of IBD remains unknown, some researchers believe that extreme stress may pote...

Fourteen was an extremely difficult age to be diagnosed with chronic illness because there were already so many other changes occurring in my body. At that age, we are all trying to fit in and be accepted by our peers. I was still in my first few months of high school, trying to find my place, and t...

Back in mid-March, as COVID-19 swept the globe, I remember sitting at my favorite cafe in Munich, drinking a cup of coffee and thinking, “tomorrow is lock down and I can’t get coffee.” I never thought I would be stuck in my apartment in a foreign country with only a few months supply of IBD medicati...

Although post-traumatic stress is a harsh reality thousands of people live with, I always thought of it as something that people experienced after facing a severe event. Little did I know how deeply it could impact people living their ordinary lives, just like myself.    I was di...

When I was 15 years old, I was diagnosed with severe ulcerative colitis. Twelve days later, I underwent surgery to remove most of my large intestine. I woke up from surgery having lost most of my colon (and gained an ileostomy), a month of my sophomore year, and a lot of self-confidence. My mental h...

Living with a chronic illness, like Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, can cause a lot of physical symptoms and emotional distress. But what we don’t talk about enough is the positive effect of having a chronic illness- the ability for patients to take their experience and become more resilient,...

We all know what it’s like to feel invisible at some point in time—the feeling of not being seen or heard by those around you. Typically, the feeling doesn’t last long-term. But for people living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis, the feeling of being invisible is something they combat in e...

Acknowledgement: This article is a summary of “Influences and Impact of Anxiety and Depression in the Setting of Inflammatory Bowel Disease” recently published in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases by Seyedehsan Navabi, MD, Venkata Subhash Gorrepati, MD, MPH, Sanjay Yadav, MD, Jaykrishna Chintanaboina, MD,...