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Empowering the Chronically Ill & Disabled to Lead Fuller Lives

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  • advocacy,  awareness,  Colorectal Surgery,  Crohn's,  Fistulizing Disease,  living with IBD,  Minority Health,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis,  Women's Health

    About IBD Podcast #40 – Tina Aswani Omprakash’s Story: What Are People Going to Think?

    April 10, 2019

    Listen to About IBD’s Podcast #40: What Are People Going to Think? Shared via Amber Tresca’s podcast and blog, About IBD   People who live with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis experience stigma because of their inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The taboo topic of bowel disease can permeate all aspects of a person’s life, especially when there are cultural influences also at play. Tina Aswani Omprakash, who lives with Crohn’s disease and a permanent ileostomy, shares her story of personal empowerment and how she is working to help other people with IBD live their lives with confidence. Tina describes how IBD has profoundly affected her family as well as why…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    OstomyConnection SPOTLIGHT: Dr. Harikesh Buch works to shatter stigma and improve post-surgery care for ostomates in India.

    January 24, 2019

    Ostomy Awareness Day: Empowering Ostomates to Live Fuller Lives

    November 22, 2019

    Love Knows No Disability

    July 2, 2019
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  Colorectal Surgery,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    OstomyConnection SPOTLIGHT: Dr. Harikesh Buch works to shatter stigma and improve post-surgery care for ostomates in India.

    January 24, 2019

    Dr. Harikesh G. Buch recognized the difficulties faced by homeless people in his home city of Mumbai early in his medical career. A skilled colorectal surgeon, he devoted himself to operating on those unable to pay for his services. Then something happened that changed the course of his life: At the age of 29, he was diagnosed with rectal cancer and underwent colostomy surgery, an operation that would serve as the focus of his volunteer work for many years to come. Dr. Buch recalls that he was “devastated” after the cancer diagnosis and, though it didn’t take him long to become accustomed to living with a stoma, he had initial…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    TINA ASWANI OMPRAKASH | 2018 NYC ADULT HONORED HERO

    April 20, 2018

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

    January 30, 2019

    Day on the Hill 2019: The Faces of IBD Legislation

    May 11, 2019
  • acceptance,  advocacy,  awareness,  Colorectal Surgery,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  Fistulizing Disease,  living with IBD,  Mindfulness,  Ostomy,  patient rights,  Pelvic pain,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Real Talk About Fistulae

    January 19, 2019

    As I sit here today with a very heavy heart typing out this blog post, I’m not sure if the excruciatingly painful nodule I felt earlier this week is just another health scare or yet another horrifying abscess from a fistula. I hold back tears as I wonder what my next steps are and what I can do to keep spiraling anxiety in check. Now many of you might be wondering what I’m even referring to–abscess? Fistula? What the heck are those and why am I such a mess over them? Well, get ready for some real talk about the most harrowing experience I’ve faced as a Crohn’s patient. According…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    What Will People Think? ~A Short Documentary by Chealynn Feaster

    December 27, 2019

    Allowing Acceptance In

    November 21, 2018

    Honoring My Late Father

    June 17, 2018
  • advocacy,  awareness,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    6 Myths About IBD in Minority Patients, Busted

    December 20, 2018

    Here are the most common misconceptions surrounding Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis in minority populations. By Brianna Majsiak Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis (UC) are not easy conditions to talk about. But an even rarer topic of conversation is how minority patients are affected by these chronic and debilitating diseases. Although IBD has predominantly affected whites in the past, a study published in August 2016 in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Disease found an increase in the rate of IBD in minority groups in the United States over the past two decades. “Patients may be reluctant to identify as having ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease, so our current numbers may really underrepresent these minority groups,”…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    IBD Insider: IBD 101 Live Discussion on Facebook

    January 16, 2020

    J-Pouch Failure – Tina’s Story

    June 15, 2019

    Ostomy Awareness Day: Empowering Ostomates to Live Fuller Lives

    November 22, 2019
  • acceptance,  awareness,  Colorectal Surgery,  coping with flare,  Crohn's,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    Metamorphosis

    August 13, 2018

    This past weekend marked 3 years since my series of surgeries at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. That trial was my greatest test to date. 3 surgeries back to back to clean out remnants of j-pouch, rectum and anal sphincter that left behind a wound the size of a small football. From daunting saltwater whirlpools, Jackson-Pratt drains, Hydrogen Peroxide flushes into my pelvis, a wound VAC and procedures under sedation every other day to clean out the wound. I was on 6 different painkillers and I was barely hanging on for life. In the months prior, I had drains galore, one from my back down my leg with a bag…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    What Will People Think? ~A Short Documentary by Chealynn Feaster

    December 27, 2019

    Coping with IBD & Stress & Anxiety Around COVID-19

    April 1, 2020

    World PTSD Day 2019: The Faceless Woman

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

    September 27, 2019

    OYC Trailblazers: Celebrating Melissa’s J-Pouch-versary

    February 25, 2019

    When Diagnoses Accumulate – My Endometriosis Journey

    August 28, 2023
  • awareness,  coping with flares,  Crohn's,  Independence Day,  living with IBD,  Ostomy,  stigma,  Ulcerative Colitis

    My Very Own Independence Day

    July 4, 2018

               Today, Independence Day 2018, marks 10 years since my colon and rectum were removed in emergency. I was 24 years old, 85 lbs, being fed by a PICC line and the hair on my head was greying from malnutrition. I was dying from IBD my doctors warned me as they urged me to have surgery. I remember that day so clearly when my then boyfriend/now husband, Anand, along with my close friend, Radhika, drove me into the city to have emergency surgery. And when my surgeon came up to me in the emergency room, he expressed that I may be too far-gone, that he was…

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    Tina Aswani Omprakash

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    Real Talk about Ostomies

    October 5, 2018

    Colon Cancer & Its Devastating Impact on My Family

    March 19, 2020

    World IBD Day Panel Discussion: Experiences of Minority IBD Patients & Caregivers

    May 23, 2020
  • 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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    Can a Low FODMAP Diet Help IBD? 7 Things to Know

    February 20, 2019

    Metamorphosis

    August 13, 2018

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

    October 16, 2018
Newer Posts 

Recent Posts

  • Feb 18, 2025 How to Own Your Crohn’s & Ostomy While Traveling to India
  • Jan 05, 2025 Key Takeaways from Advances in IBD (AIBD) 2024
  • Dec 05, 2024 Navigating Mental Health in Crohn’s Disease 
  • Dec 04, 2024 Highlights from ACG 2024: SAIA’s IBDesis’ Patient Experience
  • Nov 18, 2024 SAIA is proud to announce Tina Aswani-Omprakash, MPH as our full-time CEO!

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