Crohn's and Colitis are caused when a person's over-reactive immune system attacks it's digestive system. This causes flares of inflammation in the digestive tract, creating problems of absorption, malnutrition, intestinal scarring, strictures, and damage. This results in unpredictable gut pain, and digestive issues of frequent and urgent use of the restroom. Crohn's & Colitis are incurable and treatments (used to quell symptoms) are often unaffordably expensive and carry hosts of serious risks. Oftentimes, surgery is necessary to remove intestine or repair intestinal complications.
Crohn's & Colitis are collectively referred to as Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD--not to be confused with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), a separate and largely unrelated condition.
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I was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in April of 1999, at the age of 12. I'm currently 25.
Last week I did a 30-something-minute podcast interview with Steve Wright, the co-founder of SCDLifestyle. Steve asked me questions about why and how I started Crohnology, what my experience wa...
I am extremely floored to be the profiled e-patient in this six-minute video on peer-to-peer healthcare. Larry Chu, MD, the organizer of Stanford Medicine X hired a very talented videographer (...
The video from my demo of Crohnology onstage at Stanford Medicine 2.0 has just been released. On stage (and in this video) I walk through briefly what motivated me to build Crohnology, what Cro...
We're starting to open the private alpha gates just a tad, and adding some new users to Crohnology.
Stanford Medicine X Video on Sean Ahrens and Peer-to-Peer Healthcare One year ago, I placed a stake in the ground. I decided I could no longer passively accept the current state ...
Today, December 1, 2011 is the start of the newly-officiated National Crohn's & Colitis (IBD) Awareness Week! The proposal for this awareness week was introduced to congress by Senate Res...
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I had the pleasure to do a video interview about Crohn's, Colitis, and Crohnology with Vic Phillips of BehaveYourHealth. BehaveYourHealth is a new website sta...
Wow. Thank you everyone who has showered Crohnology with so much love and support over the last couple of weeks. As some of you know, two weeks ago, the blog post I wrote about Demoing Cro...
