Comparing and contrasting IBD and IBS: a look at how these two gut conditions are similar, the crucial ways they are different, and why it’s important to know which you are dealing with.

A food diary is an important and potentially very useful tool to help you become more conscious of what you are eating, get to know your body and its responses, and spot patterns that can be very revealing for your health. Here is all you need to know to get started: what to include, how to track, and how to analyse it all.

Receiving a diagnosis of Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis can feel very overwhelming. Written from a patient’s point of view, this is some of what I wish I had been told when I was diagnosed with IBD 20 years ago, and what anyone who has been recently diagnosed should know now.

Tips for eating for IBD, including the 3 key foods to remove from your diet, and the 3 to start eating more of now!

My experience of proctocolectomy surgery - why it was necessary, what happened, post-op complications and finally getting on the road to recovery.

The essentials of what IBD is, what it involves, and how it is dealt with. Just the essentials - the ABCs - and a must-read for the newly diagnosed and anyone who needs a ‘crash course’ in this chronic condition.

Yes, I'm quoting Matchbox 20. I am doing so because the phrase "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell" so perfectly describes what it feels like when you are living with a health problem and develop quirks, fears and coping mechanisms as a result, which other people may well find rather strange.

When you have been diagnosed with anything, you are immediately faced with a bit of a conundrum when it comes to treatment options: which is the 'right' one?

Crying over your blood test results doesn’t seem like normal behaviour, and yet that is what I did earlier today. My black and white paper profile just drove home the message that my body has been giving me for the last few weeks: I am entering a flare.