9/10 people without UC have NO IDEA WHAT IT IS, and treat it as a joke.

One of my biggest pet peeves is Close Minded People. Has anyone been treated the same way? Where you tell them you have UC, and they have no idea what it is so assume it must not be so bad. "Oh you have stomach problems"? If only they really knew what we go through.........

tbh, the less folks know about my bowel issues, the better -

people don't know sh!t - so what ?

Educating people is easy, say here drink this Gatorade (*cough*laced with a potent colonoscopy prep*cough*) and immediately afterward you drink we're going on an hour drive hehe. Then perhaps they'd understand our troubles a little bit.

Normies just don't get it. You can try to educate them, you can try to ignore it, or whatever you want. IBD is generally poorly understood.

Just as an aside, Crohn's is capitalized because it's named after Dr Burrill Crohn.

A real IBD commercial would show me doubled-over in pain on the bathroom floor at 3am, cursing like a sailor, with my pillow and blanket beside the toilet wishing i could sleep. You'd hear the sound of my heart racing like I was eyesight of the finishline in a race (pred). The camera would be centered on my chipmunk cheeks (pred) as you hear my bowels gurgle prominently, me groan and exclaim: oh god not again and frantically get up. Fade to black with lettering: UC is hell.

imagardener2 said...
It took me years to figure out what the difference is between IBD (which is ulcerative colitis and Crohn's) and IBS so I kinda understand why people can be confused. All those initials and how come Crohn's gets capitalized. Why are they so special?

Crohn's get capitalised cos it's the name of the doctor who 'discovered' Crohn's disease. Of course he didn't actually discover it - the disease has almost certainly been around for thousands of years - but he was the first doctor to describe this "new" disease in a medical paper written in 1932. By the way, Burrill Crohn wasn't actually egotistical enough to name a disease after himself, so it was called regional ileitis. But gradually Crohn's disease took over from regional ileitis. It's certainly a lot easier to say, but imagine being the person to have a crap disease, which is a byword for pain and suffering, as your surname.

As far as educating people is concerned, almost everyone has had the experience of having a night of hell in the bathroom from gastroenteritis, or whatever. And then almost everyone gets over it and forgets all about it. For me it's the long-term nature of having Crohn's which has been the most gruelling thing about it. If I let myself dwell on it, I can get proper depressed knowing that I will never have 100% functioning bowels ever again. And healthy bowels are surprisingly important to overall health, as I now know from personal experience.

I've got no idea what my life would be like now if I had never got Crohn's, it's been that long.

I remember when I was in high school I was in so much pain and had no idea why... lol. I was in so much pain that I literally had to close my eyes in class and hold down the pain. That's how bad it was.

I dunno, I don't think it's anything personal to IBD. It's just how most people are; self-absorbed and only really interested in their own problems or health issues which affect them personally.

Mentally I'm quite ruthless. I don't put myself out for anyone, but nor do I burden anyone else with my problems. I'm sick of moany people dumping their moany (and often self-made) problems onto me. You can jog on; I may be quiet but that doesn't mean I want to hear your rubbish. (You know who you are if you're reading this. Which you won't be.)

Nor do I feel it's important to educate the general public about IBD. I need certain, very specific, people to have a clue (such as the doctors who treat me, DWP stuff, possible future employers). But I don't care whether Joe Bloggs down the road, who has political and social views that I despise, has a deep understanding of IBD, no.

Post Edited (NiceCupOfTea) : 3/31/2017 8:59:25 AM (GMT-6)

If you think about it, people do not like to discuss poop or poop problems. Heck, look how many people ignore going for routine colonoscopies when they hit 50 because they're "embarrassed". That's a big reason why many don't know what UC is all about.

Poop is a taboo except among IBD patients, we just can't stop talking about it. We're all like edge of seat anticipation of all possible details regardless of disgusting it is lol.

Sorry I was a bit negative yesterday, guys. I was feeling incredibly low yesterday, but today I'm back to my sunny self :p (lol, as if I ever have a sunny side <_<)

Reading some of the other posts, I probably am fairly lucky with my family. My parents have been pretty supportive. My wider family, not so much, but on the other hand they don't say dumb things to me. They treat me as though I didn't have an illness at all, and in some ways I think I prefer that. I was really self-conscious about having a stoma at first, but it helped to have people around me not treating me any differently.

But yeah, I don't talk about poo in public. There's a certain forum I post on though, a UK board where everyone is from the UK. I swear half of them sound like they have an undiagnosed IBD at times, and indeed there are a few people with UC on there. They aren't shy about talking about their pooping habits; maybe it's 'cos they're guys, I dunno.

People are closed minded. Like everybody says, they don't understand. And to joke about it is the worst. I was in remission for over 4 months and was asked (by my sister) what do you think you have? Cancer? Remission is for cancer patients. I don't discus with anybody other than a couple close friends and my husband.

Sorry your ex was an ***

iPoop said...
My DW once said: "can't you just hold it like an adult?" when we were driving somewhere *sigh*, UC is an invisible illness (we look perfectly normal on the outside and struggle within the confines of our private bathrooms) and therefore it's easy for others to poo poo our concerns. Over the years I've read so many posts about husbands, wives, parents, siblings, and friends putting us down. They think we're just complainers, seeking attention, or hypochondriacs or some other nonsense.

pretty sure if my wife said that to me, she'd be looking for her next husband -