Nine years ago today, the love of my life, Anand, and I were married in a beautiful Hindu temple with several of our relatives and friends in attendance from all over the world. It was a momentous occasion for me not just in a traditional sense but because of how...
Last weekend, a number of us celebrated World IBD Day from DDW in San Diego, CA. We advocates sat in sessions and conferences brainstorming the best ways in which to address the gaps in IBD care and bring those ideas forward to doctors leading the quest to improve our...
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… ...
As we wrap up Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week, I reflect on the greatest blessing of all in my IBD journey: my caregivers, my dear mother and husband. From the constant rides into the city for doctors’ visits to packing wounds and changing PICC line dressings...
(Daddy at his Doctoral Commencement at Columbia University in the ’70s.)This Father’s Day I honor all fathers. I especially honor my father who devoted his life to the sciences and to his family. He toiled endlessly until the very last minute working until...
By Tina Aswani-Omprakash, MPH Looking back 20 years ago... When I first graduated college and started working, I had no idea what my life was going to look like. I was full of excitement but I did have a fear in the back of my mind that I may already have inflammatory...
For Tina, a Sjögren's disease diagnosis brought long-awaited answers and sparked her journey into patient advocacy By Tina Aswani-Omprakash **Originally published by Novartis on https://www.novartis.com/us-en/stories/living-with-sjogrens-disease-one-womans-story. For...
By Tina Aswani-Omprakash As IBD warriors, it’s always nerve-wracking to travel with our conditions and/or an ostomy. For me, it’s been 7 years of me traveling all over the U.S. and Europe for patient advocacy work. And even though I’ve spoken many times virtually for...
By Tina Aswani-Omprakash & Natalie Hayden **This article has also been published on Natalie's blog: Lights, Camera, Crohn's ** As two bloggers and patient thought leaders in the IBD community, we were thrilled and honored to attend and speak at the Advances...
Did you know that approximately 25% of people living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) report significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS)? This PTS is directly related to disease experiences and related hospitalizations and is referred to as...
By Tina Aswani-Omprakash As IBD warriors, it’s always nerve-wracking to travel with our conditions and/or an ostomy. For me, it’s been 7 years of me traveling all over the U.S. and Europe for patient advocacy work. And even though I’ve spoken many times virtually for...
Did you know that approximately 25% of people living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) report significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS)? This PTS is directly related to disease experiences and related hospitalizations and is referred to as...
SAIA is honoured to announce that Tina Aswani-Omprakash, MPH, is now our full-time Chief Executive Officer 🎉🎉 Written by Madhura Balasubramaniam, Sharan Khela, Dr. Neilanjan Nandi & SAIA’s Board of Directors Tina is a patient advocate and thought leader par...
Are you getting ready to start an advanced therapy (for example, a biologic or small molecule medication) for the first time for your Crohn’s disease? Or perhaps this is round 2, 3, or 4 when it comes to trying advanced therapies to better manage your Crohn’s? Whether...
A person I admire once said, “Once you stop fighting your illness, you will allow acceptance to emerge.” I guess I had never looked at illness that way before. Society tells us to fight illness to our last breath, but is it really a fighting attitude we should...