How I learned to love what once made me shudder. By Tina Aswani Omprakash Originally published by Everyday Health on 5/17/2019: https://www.everydayhealth.com/columns/my-health-story/why-my-ibd-scars-make-me-proud/ This year’s World IBD Day theme is “Making the Invisible Visible,” and I’ve been taking a long hard look at what that means to me. The reality is that living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has meant donning an invisibility cloak for most of my adult life. But over the past 14 months, I’ve striven to make my invisible illness visible. From sharing my story widely on social media to using my platform to educate others on how IBD wreaks havoc on patients like me, I’ve come to realize that visibility is necessary for…
- acceptance, awareness, Body Positivity, Colorectal Surgery, Crohn's, Fistulizing Disease, living with IBD, Mental Health, Ostomy, Self-image, Ulcerative Colitis, Women's Health, World IBD Day
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, Crohn's, living with IBD, Mental Health, Minority Health, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis, Women's Health
As a Chronically-Ill Brown Woman, Here’s Why I Share My Survival Story
I had the honor of attending the 2019 HealtheVoices conference in Dallas, TX, as a patient advocate who was selected to attend from a group of 400+ applicants. Here are my impressions of the conference theme for this year, “A Little Heart Can Do Big Things” from the perspective of a chronically-ill brown patient advocate: https://www.oshihealth.com/my-survival-story/. Originally published by Oshi Health, Inc., on April 29th, 2019. Written by Tina Aswani Omprakash Please feel free to leave comments and feedback. I would love to hear your thoughts as always.
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Day on the Hill 2019: The Faces of IBD Legislation
Last year, I had the honor of attending my first Day on the Hill (DOH) organized by the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation (http://ownyourcrohns.com/dayonthehill/). After such a rewarding and empowering experience, I’m thankful to have been invited back with 100+ other advocates to represent my fellow inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) warriors on the Hill again this year. LEGISLATIVE TRAINING This past week we kicked off DOH at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C., with a panel on Patient Advocacy & Empowerment moderated by Advocacy Committee Chair of the National Council of College Leaders (NCCL), Bianca Hernandez. The panelists involved were Dr. Thomas Ullman, Chief of Gastroenterology at Montefiore Medical Center; Natalie…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, coping with flares, Crohn's, Diet, living with IBD, Minority Health, Nutrition, Women's Health
Brown Girl with Guts: Tina’s Journey with Crohn’s Disease
Originally Published by Girls with Guts on April 30th, 2019: https://www.girlswithguts.org/blog/2019/4/30/brown-girl-with-guts-tinas-journey-with-crohns-disease As a woman of color, I’ve struggled from the very beginning with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The diagnosis was hard enough to wrap my head around but add the elements of loss of career, loss of personality and ultimately, loss of cultural identity played into a lot of my struggles with managing my brand of IBD. To backtrack, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2006. Now, this was by no means a surprising diagnosis for me. My father had died of a virulent form of Crohn’s that became colorectal cancer when I was 8 years old here in…
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An IBS Journey: Tina
Originally published in The Gut Gazette by Megan Marsiglio on April 15, 2019: https://thegutgazette.com/an-ibs-journey-tina/ If you have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), you are NOT alone. To do our part in helping spread further awareness about IBS during April’s IBS Awareness Month, we are sharing different stories of various individuals who have IBS. Name: Tina Aswani-Omprakash, Patient AdvocateLocation: New York, NYWebsite: ownyourcrohns.comFB/Twitter/Instagram: @ownyourcrohns What symptoms do you experience with IBS? I have something called post-surgical IBS that I developed after many surgeries to bring my Crohn’s Disease under control. Symptoms include: bloating, nausea, abdominal cramping, chronic constipation (but if I take laxatives, then intense diarrhea). What has been the hardest challenge with IBS? Dealing with…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, Colorectal Surgery, coping with flares, Crohn's, Fistulizing Disease, living with IBD, Mental Health, Ostomy, Pelvic pain, Self-image, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis, Women's Health
My Health Became My Top Priority
**Originally published in Health Central on April 10th, 2019** CHAPTER 1 Crashing Down When I first began having inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) symptoms in 2005, I had just graduated college, started my first job, and I gotten out of a difficult relationship. And then, to top it off, I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC). I was at the top of my game, and everything just came crashing down in the blink of an eye. I had also just started my master’s in financial management, but, after the diagnosis, I couldn’t complete it. With a new career on Wall Street, I took a break from my graduate education to focus on…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, Body Positivity, Crohn's, Fistulizing Disease, living with IBD, Mental Health, Ostomy, Self-image, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis
Lilly Singh’s ‘Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai?’: My Anthem for Body Positivity
I still remember when the racy Bollywood song, “Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai?” (Hindi: What’s Behind the Saree Blouse?), teased South Asian household television sets and AM/FM radios (yes, those used to be a thing). I was barely 10 years old and even though I couldn’t get enough of the song’s hypnotic beat, I felt tingling shame every time I heard its lyrics. So when Lilly Singh (a/k/a iiSuperwomanii), Punjabi-Canadian LGBTQ YouTube star and soon-to-be late-night TV show host, released her rap remake of “Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai?” last week, I nearly fell off my chair. She didn’t just remake a Bollywood classic; she recreated a spectacle made for…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, Colorectal Surgery, coping with flares, Crohn's, living with IBD, Mental Health, Ostomy, Ulcerative Colitis
OYC Trailblazers: What Healing Means to Natasha
By Natasha Weinstein My name is Natasha and I have Crohn’s Disease. I was diagnosed at the age of 11 after years of mild disease activity and extraintestinal manifestations (joint pains, random fevers and stunted growth). It was only when my disease became severe with rectal bleeding and vomiting that I was given a proper diagnosis. Following diagnosis, I went through years of failed medications, endless hospitalizations, 2 pediatric gastroenterologists and multiple surgeons. Last month I underwent my 10th surgery. You read that right: TENTH. I have hit double digits, two full hands, big kid status. My abdomen is growing up. To get technical about this most recent surgery, I…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, caregivers, coping with flares, hydration, living with IBD, Ulcerative Colitis
OYC Trailblazers: Celebrating Melissa’s J-Pouch-versary
And February’s OYC Trailblazer is…wait for it…Melissa “Mush” Willner! This month marks one year since Melissa had her ostomy reversed and her j-pouch became fully functional. So what better time than now to have Melissa share her story? Here goes nothing… Ulcerative Colitis has been a part of my life for over 20 years now. I first learned of my diagnosis at the age of 7 in the 2nd grade. While my young mind was preoccupied with stickers and Rugrats, I was also learning about colonoscopies and mesalamines. My sleepovers were interrupted by enemas and I took my first doses of mesalamine crushed up in my bowls of Cocoa Pebbles.…
- acceptance, advocacy, awareness, colorectal cancer, Colorectal Surgery, Crohn's, Father's Day, living with IBD, Ostomy, stigma, Ulcerative Colitis
OYC Trailblazers: An Ode to My Father & Fellow IBD Warrior
This year I’m starting a new series called Own Your Crohn’s (OYC) TrailBlazers in which I share stories of other chronic illness warriors and their experiences. And who better to begin this series than my father, a long-time veteran of Crohn’s Disease? Dr. Moti Aswani was born in New Delhi, India, and came to New York to study at the age of 21. And, oh, did he study! He held five degrees: a Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate in Electrical Engineering and Masters degrees in Philosophy and Business Administration. He was a Senior Systems Engineer for the prestigious Bell Labs in New Jersey for many years thereafter. On paper, he was…