Raise your hand if you’ve dealt with chronic pain and fatigue living with IBD. Pain and fatigue are two common complaints amongst Crohn’s & ulcerative colitis patients whether disease is active or in remission. And oftentimes, it’s the least addressed or acknowledged.
Many of us patients live with different types of chronic pain from abdominal pain and cramping related to disease flare-ups to post-surgical pain and pelvic pain. Some of us also tend to have pain from extraintestinal manifestations including severe joint pain and pain from dermatological manifestations (erythema nodosum, pyoderma gangrenosum, etc.).
And fatigue appears to be a staple living with IBD where even if we have relief from the disease itself, we are still struggling to managing the severe fatigue that comes with an underlying autoimmune condition.
For me, I’ve dealt with all of these and then some in my journey with Crohn’s Disease. And I believe we must advocate harder so that our healthcare providers can hear us and help us best with regard to managing our pain and fatigue best.
As such, the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and I along with a couple other patients and providers teamed up to share our experiences and knowledge in how to manage pain and fatigue in IBD and how to advocate for ourselves as patients dealing with these symptoms.
Check out the video below and feel free to share if you think it can help anyone else:
