The Value of Openness by PatientsLikeMe ®

Image courtesy of the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America

This week (12/1 through 12/7) is Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week. The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) wants to know what awareness means to you, asking, “Are you #IBDAware?”

Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), affect 1.6 million Americans.[1] Though both are types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are not one and the same. Symptoms are similar, but the areas affected in the gastrointestinal tract differ.[2] To learn more about the two conditions, the CCFA website has several resources to help make you #IBDAware.

During Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week, there are a number of ways you can help the CCFA and the patient community raise awareness for both conditions:

• Join the CCFA Thunderclap on social media, tomorrow at 12pm ET.
• Using the hashtag “#IBDAware,” share what awareness means to you on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter
• Tomorrow, join CCFA’s National Call-In Day and urge your legislator to join the Congressional Crohn’s & Colitis Caucus

For the CCFA and the IBD community, raising awareness for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis is a year-round effort. Learn how you can get involved!

Don’t forget – you can connect with more than 3,400 PatientsLikeMe members living with Crohn’s disease, and more than 1,100 PatientsLikeMe members living with ulcerative colitis.

Let’s be #IBDAware, together.

Share this post on Twitter and help spread the word.

We’re throwing it back this Thursday, but to help raise awareness for something that’s happening right now: National Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Week (Dec. 1^st to 7^th). For this #TBT, our very own Maria Lowe shares about her experiences with Crohn’s disease. Maria is part of the PatientsLikeMe Health Data Integrity and Research Teams, and she’s been living with Crohn’s since she was just a kid in the 90s. Her father, David, was also diagnosed with Crohn’s back in 1980, but as you’ll read, it wasn’t an easy process for either of them.

This week, it’s all about raising awareness for everyone living with IBD. You can learn how to help on the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America’s (CCFA) website, and be sure to share your support on social media via the #CCFAawarenessweek hashtag. And if you’ve been recently diagnosed with either Crohn’s or UC, reach out to others like you on PatientsLikeMe.

Share this post on Twitter and help spread the word for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.