Bowel Moments

Send us Fan Mail This week we had such a great conversation with Laura Manning, MPH, RDN, CDN! Laura is a registered dietitian that works with the IBD team at the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center. We talked to her about her interesting and unique career before she became a dietitian and why she switched. We talked about nutrition therapy f...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Tommy Hazelton! Tommy was diagnosed with UC back in the late 1990's and went through a period where his disease was not well controlled. He was working as a musician and a performer and we talked about how he was able to be up on stage while symptomatic. We talked about the unusual and intriguing things he credits as helping him into remission and to ma...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Traci Beebe! Traci is the Director of Nursing and Clinical Practice at The Permanente Medical Group and she also happens to be Robin's sister! Traci was in nursing school when Robin was diagnosed with IBD and we talked to her about what that was like. We also talked to her about her experience with pain management clinics and pain and IBD. We discussed...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talk to Kajal Patel! Kajal is a 3rd year medical student originally diagnosed with UC but when she started to develop fistulas, her diagnosis was changed to Crohn's. We spoke to her about advocacy and a group she co-founded on campus for medical students with chronic illness. We talked about how she copies with everything that comes with IBD and school like setti...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Dr. Alessandro Fichera ! Dr. Fichera is the Division Chief of Colorectal Surgery at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas and the Surgery Safety and Quality Officer since July 2020. His clinical and research interest include colorectal cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. We talked to him about the different types of surgeries for IBD including...

Send us Fan Mail This week Robin had a fan girl moment while we talked to Jackie Zimmerman! Jackie is one of the founders of Girls with Guts and was one of the OG IBD bloggers with her blog called "Blood, Poop, & Tears." Robin was a big fan of her blog and got a lot of information and support from it when she was originally diagnosed. We talked to her about creating community for wom...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Francesca Ferraro! Francesca was diagnosed with UC in 2019 and just had the first part of a J-Pouch surgery in January 2023. She has been absolutely loving life with her ostomy and talks a lot about the pros and cons of continuing with the next round of the J-Pouch process. She told us how her ostomy has improved her quality of life, decreased her anxiety, a...

Send us Fan Mail This week we had a great conversation with Dr. Jeremy Adler ! Dr. Adler is the Director of the Pediatric IBD Program at CS Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan. We talked to him about his research interests in quality of care improvements, health disparities and IBD, and the Covid vaccine and its effectiveness with children with IBD. We also talked to him ab...

Send us Fan Mail This week we had such a great conversation with Sam Reid! Sam works in digital engagement and communications for an independent, nonpartisan policy institute in Washington D.C. Her Crohn's disease has had a big impact on her career and many of the issues that she works to improve such as drug pricing and barrier to care. We had a very interesting and passionate conversation a...

Send us Fan Mail This week friends of the show Stacey Collins, RD and Josie McGarva, GI Psychologist join us to recap the Crohn's & Colitis Congress. Congress is a conference for IBD HealthCare providers and researchers that's held by the American Gastroenterological Association and the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. This conference focuses on the total care of people living...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Maurie Jhaveri! Maurie was diagnosed with Crohn's when she was 11 years old but she was not stranger to Crohn's. Her dad was also diagnosed when he was 11 and so she was already a bit familiar with it but obviously had many questions as she started to navigate it herself. She found great support, education, and comfort in the Child Life Specialist...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Kelly Issokson, RD! Kelly is the Clinical Nutrition Coordinator at the F. Widjaja Foundation Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Institute at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, California. Kelly provides nutrition therapy to children and adults in the IBD Institute, the Nutrition & Integrative IBD Subspecialty Clinic. She is the Course Director and Apprenticeship Dire...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Erron J. Maxey ! Erron is a retired International Professional Basketball Player and now a banker. He had his first Crohn's flare when he was traveling in Columbia for his job and that started a pretty wild ride to get diagnosed and to find him best treatment options. We talked to him about what it was like to live in many different countries while copi...

Send us Fan Mail This week we had the pleasure of talking to corporate executive, wife, mother, nonprofit board member, support group leader, author, and all around badass Christine Rich. And boy did we go all in on this conversation! We talked about mental health, body image, eating disorders, feeling safe or unsafe in your body, and so much more. We talked a lot about her book "Chronic&quot...

Send us Fan Mail We're ringing in the new year with a great episode! This week we talk to Dr. Bhaskar Gurram ! Dr. Gurram is a pediatric gastroenterologist specializing in IBD at Children's Medical Center Dallas and UT Southwestern. We talked to him about the genetics of IBD and what we know about it from the current research. We discussed Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT) and it's...

Send us Fan Mail We had the pleasure of getting to know Dani Edelstein in this episode! We talked to her about being diagnosed when she was only 8 years old and what it was like for her as the child of a doctor to have to navigate the medical system on her own when she got to be an adult. We discussed how the language used around IBD care can create difficulty for folks living with it- for instanc...

Send us Fan Mail This week we caught up with our friend Lauren Erbach Barnfield! We've both known Lauren for several years but have never heard her full IBD story so it was really great to hear it all. We talked about her participation in the PIANO study which is a study about women living with IBD and taking biologics while pregnant and what all that entailed. We talked to her about finding...

Send us Fan Mail This week we really enjoyed hearing Will Awve's story! We talked about his diagnosis with UC in college and how that affected his college experience. We discussed him trying basically all medication options to try to control his UC, his bouts with C. Diff,  and then his eventual decision to go through J-Pouch surgery. We also had a chance to talk about how your mental health...

Send us Fan Mail This week we had such a great conversation with Joshua Samudre! Joshua is a medical student living with UC and so we talked to him about what it's like to study medicine while also a consumer of medicine. We talked to him about moving across the country and reestablishing yourself and your care. We talked to him about advocacy volunteer and volunteering at Camp Oasis and we h...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to our second Research Roundup episode! We brought back Dr. Sunanda Kane - Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic and Dr. Lukasz Kwapisz - Assistant Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine to talk to us about the latest in what's happening in IBD research. We talked about new medications, biosimilars, diet research, and more.  Links:  Mayo Clinic on Crohn&ap...

Send us Fan Mail This week we had a great chat with Dr. Sabina Ali ! Dr. Ali is a pediatric gastroenterologist and the  medical director of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland. She also happens to be living with IBD herself. We talked to her about her special interest in quality of care research and involvement with ImproveCareNow. We also discus...

Send us Fan Mail This week we spoke to Matthew Kasabian! Matt told us about being diagnosed with IBD in college and  how isolated it made him feel. He talked about how he saw all his friends out living their young, fun lives on social media and how frustrated he felt but also how he used these feelings of isolation and frustration to motivate him to seek out new treatments and new healthcare provi...

Send us Fan Mail This week we tried something new! We let our friend Stacey Collins guest host the show! Stacey is a Registered Dietitian who specializes in IBD and our guest this week is Neha Shah who is also a Registered Dietitian who specializes in IBD. In addition to being a RD, Neha is also also a certified nutrition support clinician (CNSC), credentialed by the National Board of Nutrition Su...

Send us Fan Mail This is week we had such a fun conversation with Wendy Kovich! Wendy was diagnosed with Crohn's in her 20's very shortly after she married and it's been quite the roller coaster since. We talked to her about navigating through treatment options and surgeries, working with her healthcare team to get pregnant, dealing with a fistula, and what it's been like to ra...

Send us Fan Mail This week we talked to Dr. Tauseef Ali! Dr. Ali is the medical executive director of Saints Digestive Institute and director of IBD clinical and research program at SSM Health Saint Anthony Hospital. He is also a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Oklahoma in the Digestive Disease and Nutrition section and adjunct faculty at Oklahoma State University. Ad...