Brown Girl – Own Your Crohn's

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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

“I Had an Ostomy—and It Changed My Life”
December 11, 2019

OYC Trailblazers: An Ode to My Father & Fellow IBD Warrior
January 30, 2019

The Value of Support Groups
August 26, 2018
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

“I Had an Ostomy—and It Changed My Life”
December 11, 2019

Real Talk About Fistulae
January 19, 2019

Day on the Hill 2019: The Faces of IBD Legislation
May 11, 2019
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

My Pelvic Pain Story
October 26, 2018

The Waiting Game
June 30, 2018

When Diagnoses Accumulate – My Endometriosis Journey
August 28, 2023
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

~OYC Trailblazers~ Mollie’s Story: Living la Vida Latina with Ulcerative Colitis & an Ostomy
September 27, 2019

All of these exceptional women have won awards this year for their public advocacy efforts
October 16, 2018

“I Had an Ostomy—and It Changed My Life”
December 11, 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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

Talking Gut Podcast Episode 20: Tina Aswani Omprakash on Resilience & GRITT
May 30, 2020

When Diagnoses Accumulate: My Gastroparesis Story
August 29, 2019

Real Talk about Ostomies
October 5, 2018
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

Real Talk About Fistulae
January 19, 2019

Disability Awareness in the Midst of Coronavirus
March 12, 2020

I’m Chronically Ill & Depressed; So What?
June 3, 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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

When Diagnoses Accumulate: My Gastroparesis Story
August 29, 2019

My Ostomy, My Lifesaver
October 3, 2019

When Diagnoses Accumulate – My Endometriosis Journey
August 28, 2023
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

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

Metamorphosis
August 13, 2018
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…

Read More

Tina Aswani Omprakash

Related Posts

The Song That Makes Me Proud of My Scars
March 23, 2018

Pelvic Floor Dysfunction in IBD ~ A Live Discussion with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation
August 24, 2020

Welcome to “Own Your Crohn’s”
March 23, 2018