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Own Your Crohn's

Empowering the Chronically Ill & Disabled to Lead Fuller Lives

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  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  colorectal cancer,  Colorectal Surgery,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    IBD Awareness Week Line-Up: Diversity, Mental Health & More!

    December 1, 2018

    Today kicks off Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week! The lead-up to this week has included my (very exciting!) feature on the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s website for general IBD awareness and for racial and ethnic minorities. I also had the honor of sharing my IBD story with reporters from various media outlets who attended the Foundation’s briefing this past week. In discussing my story, I talked about the cultural impact of being a minority woman with Crohn’s Disease and a permanent ostomy. Being a different race, gender, sexuality and/or ethnicity adds a whole other layer of complexity to the IBD experience. I really wanted to bring to light how complicated our…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    July 1, 2020

    My Health Became My Top Priority

    April 16, 2019

    Step in Our Shoes: A Discussion on Being an Ally to the Black Community

    June 20, 2020
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    My Feature During Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week

    November 8, 2018

    Pleased to announce that this year I have the honor of representing my fellow IBD warriors for Awareness Week (12/1-12/7) nationally on the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation’s website! REPRESENT!! Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, genders and sexual orientations. IBD affects 1.6 million people and counting in the U.S. alone and over 5 million worldwide. This chronic, autoimmune and often invisible condition is growing by leaps and bounds unfortunately every single year. It wreaks havoc on our guts, bodies and mental health. It behooves us to recognize and de-stigmatize IBD and chronic illness in general so that folks like us can live fuller, happier lives. I…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    My Feature in Suffering the Silence’s Photo Series Campaign

    October 6, 2019

    Coping with IBD & Stress & Anxiety Around COVID-19

    April 1, 2020

    Throwback to La Caverna 2006!

    August 30, 2018
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  colorectal cancer,  Colorectal Surgery,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  patient rights,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Real Talk about Ostomies

    October 5, 2018

    On the eve of World Ostomy Day, I write this blog post in hopes of debunking many of the myths surrounding living with an ostomy. So here goes nothing… I always get super excited when friends and family muster up the courage to ask about my ostomy. It makes me feel so connected to them and like I’m being recognized for all of me and not just the healthy-looking parts of me. I feel their concern, their love and most of all, their interest in how I live my life, chronic illness and disabilities abound. See, the thing is, living with an ostomy is often the proverbial elephant in the…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    When Diagnoses Accumulate – My Endometriosis Journey

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    Talking Gut Podcast Episode 20: Tina Aswani Omprakash on Resilience & GRITT

    May 30, 2020
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  colorectal cancer,  Colorectal Surgery,  Crohn's,  Ostomy,  stigma

    No More Secrets: An enlightening film that reveals the stigma of having an ostomy in India

    September 24, 2018

    In a world that’s still struggling with the concept of life-saving ostomy surgery, India comes chock full of psychosocial taboos. In addition to the challenge of costly medical supplies, ostomies are widely viewed as unacceptable in this country and can even become barriers to pursuing careers and relationships. Filmmaker Anisha Vijayan recognized the need to educate the masses about living with an ostomy in India. After months of interviews and countless hours of research and production, her documentary No More Secrets was released earlier this year. She shared with OC the inspiration behind creating the film and how it’s offering encouragement to ostomates in South Asia. Read the full story on…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week: Minorities, Mental Health & IBD

    December 9, 2018

    “I Had an Ostomy—and It Changed My Life”

    December 11, 2019

    OYC Trailblazers: What Healing Means to Natasha

    March 26, 2019
  • acceptance,  awareness,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Throwback to La Caverna 2006!

    August 30, 2018

    Throwback to the summer of 2006 at La Caverna in New York City, just a few months after my IBD diagnosis when I was 22 (you can literally see how pale and anemic I was). My buddy, Sunil, and I were always the ultimate dance partners wil’in out on the dance floor. Some really fun times that I’m glad I had the chance to enjoy back then. Fast forward 12 years along with countless medications and surgeries, here Sunil and I are again at La Caverna. This time with our amazing husbands recreating dance moves from our college days. As friends for many years, we have come a long way…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    OYC Trailblazers: An Ode to My Father & Fellow IBD Warrior

    January 30, 2019

    No More Secrets: An enlightening film that reveals the stigma of having an ostomy in India

    September 24, 2018

    An IBS Journey: Tina

    April 21, 2019
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  patient rights,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Being Brown and Coming Out of the IBD Closet: The Chronic Illness Experience

    August 7, 2018

    ***Originally published in Brown Girl Magazine on August 2nd, 2018: https://www.browngirlmagazine.com/2018/08/being-brown-coming-out-ibd-closet/*** Just as soon as he landed from India, a good friend called me, half laughing: “Tina, I know exactly what it feels like to be you now! I’ve had diarrhea for the last three weeks after eating at Elco Market in Mumbai! What do I do?” Another time when I was deathly ill, languishing from anemia, malnutrition and weight loss due to 20-30 bloody bowel movements a day, I remember the aunties ridiculing me. They would cackle behind my back as they proclaimed that I did this to myself. “She must have eaten lots of junk food and drank…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    April 30, 2019

    How a clinical trial helped this Crohn’s advocate finally reach remission

    November 24, 2019

    Love Knows No Disability

    July 2, 2019
  • acceptance,  awareness,  caregivers,  colorectal cancer,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  Father's Day,  living with IBD,  patient rights,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Honoring My Late Father

    June 17, 2018

    (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 he couldn’t anymore all to ensure his wife and daughters could get by without him. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder how much better life would have been if he could have lived to see his girls all grown up. ? His battle with Crohn’s and later colorectal cancer may have taken his life but he has become my inspiration to fight incessantly for my…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    Why My IBD Scars Make Me Proud

    May 23, 2019

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  • coping with flare,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  patient rights,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Coming Out of My IBD Closet as a Desi Woman

    June 16, 2018

    Every single year the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation chooses a local Adult Honored Hero who shares his/her story and is honored at the Take Steps Walk in the spring. And every single year I attend the New York City walk, raise awareness and funds to help find treatments and someday a cure for these awful diseases. I bring my friends and my family together along with the Foundation’s Women’s Support Group so they can see that we patients don’t suffer alone, that many folks from all walks of life have been through hell and back at a young age. And every single year, one of my closest girlfriends has tears…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    Metamorphosis

    August 13, 2018

    All of these exceptional women have won awards this year for their public advocacy efforts

    October 16, 2018

    Can a Low FODMAP Diet Help IBD? 7 Things to Know

    February 20, 2019
  • Uncategorized

    Indian-American Crohn’s Patient and Ostomate Named Honored Hero

    May 2, 2018

    Indian-American Crohn’s Patient and Ostomate Named Honored Hero of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation By Brown Girl Magazine May 1, 2018     [All photos courtesy of Tina Aswani Omprakash]   I was at the top of my game having just graduated college with a Wall Street career and BAM, just like that, the colitis hit. At the tender age of 22, when my life was just beginning, my existence became a perpetual case of bolting to the nearest bathroom. Between wearing diapers and trying to date while popping pills and using enemas, I began to realize how tenuous life is. It was a scary proposition because my father passed away at…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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  • Feb 18, 2025 How to Own Your Crohn’s & Ostomy While Traveling to India
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  • Nov 18, 2024 SAIA is proud to announce Tina Aswani-Omprakash, MPH as our full-time CEO!

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