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Back-To-School Time Can Be Trying For Students With Inflammatory Bowel Disease

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – It is back-to-school time for students across the country. It's a time of excitement with new hopes for a new year.

But, for some college students with an embarrassing condition, it is not always an exciting time.

Throughout college, Sarah Burlas struggled with an inflammatory bowel disease called Crohn's disease.

"I'd have to like get up in the middle of a lecture, and go to the bathroom, and I'd be gone for like ten minutes, and you're like, ugh, you know, you know what everybody's thinking when you're gone in the bathroom for ten minutes," Burlas said.

"Some patients, young patients, it might affect their ability to go to school properly, to date, to go out to parties. Because some of them also get embarrassed, having to go multiple times in the bathroom," Dr. Sandra El-Hachem, of Allegheny General Hospital Gastroenterology, said.

When young people go off to college, they're more likely to stop their treatment, which can be pills or shots that decrease inflammation or quiet the immune system.

There are a variety of reasons for stopping -- they're away from home, they're busy, and they just aren't focused on dealing with chronic disease.

"We're young, we're free, we want to do what we want to do, we shouldn't have to take a pill every single day. This is ridiculous. You know, that's the mind of a young person in college. That was me," Burlas said.

"Young people, if they start feeling a little bit better, they don't want to be reminded of their disease, so it's easier to forget taking the medication when you feel well," Dr. El-Hachem said.

Inflammatory bowel disease is a process where the body attacks its own intestines. This includes Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. Symptoms can include diarrhea, blood in the stool, abdominal pain, fever and fatigue, and weight loss.

It can affect all ages, but usually young people 15 to 30.

Dr. El-Hachem's goal is to help her patients achieve remission, that is, complete control of their disease.

"This is a lifelong disease. This is a disease just like diabetes, or high blood pressure, or heart disease, where to remain healthy, you have to take your medicine," Dr. El-Hachem said.

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