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Kids Coping with IBD

Summary & Participants

Listen to a panel discussion of children and teenagers with Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, types of inflammatory bowel disease. The children discuss how IBD has affected their lives and the coping strategies they used to manage their disease.

Medically Reviewed On: July 21, 2008

Webcast Transcript

BROOKE SHEALY: Hello. I'm Brooke Shealy. Recently I hosted a panel discussion sponsored by the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America on issues relating to Children and IBD. I spoke with three kids who have IBD: David Cohen, who is fifteen; Tess Koman, who is twelve; and Lizzie Luckman, who is eleven. I began by asking these kids how and when they were first diagnosed.

DAVID COHEN: Hi. I'm David and I was diagnosed with Crohn's when I was ten years old. And well, my diagnosis was Crohn's, and basically when I got it I suffered severe weight loss, like I lost 20 pounds in about a month, and I had a lot of stomach problems and I was going to the bathroom often, and basically just severe stomach pain.

BROOKE SHEALY: Lizzie, when were you diagnosed and what was your diagnosis?

LIZZIE LUCKMAN: I was diagnosed when I was nine, and my diagnosis was ulcerative colitis.

BROOKE SHEALY: What kind of symptoms did you have?

LIZZIE LUCKMAN: The summer before it I was at sleep-away camp. And I was getting like diarrhea and my stomach was hurting really badly. So then after camp like around the beginning of May or end of April, I like started bleeding. And then like the day after, that morning, and then my mom had to take me to the hospital to the emergency room and we had to wait for like four hours.

BROOKE SHEALY: Tess?

TESS KOMAN: Well, when I was seven I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, and I'd been having very like severe pains all of a sudden and I was going to the bathroom a lot. I was constipated and it continued until I was diagnosed.

BROOKE SHEALY: David, you were hospitalized two years ago. Tell us about that experience.

DAVID COHEN: Well, when I went into the hospital I was there for nine days and it was really shocking like I didn't really think that like this disease could make me go into the hospital. And it kind of upset me because I missed like the first two weeks of school, so I don't know, it was really hard on me then.

BROOKE SHEALY: Are you taking a lot of medications? Is that a problem?

DAVID COHEN: I'm taking about twenty pills a day. It's really not a problem like catching up with what I have to take because I've been doing it for five years now. So basically I get into a routine of what I have to take and when I have to take it.

BROOKE SHEALY: So is your IBD under control right now?

DAVID COHEN: Yeah, definitely. I mean I haven't had a problem. I mean I'm feeling great. I play sports. I haven't felt like, I haven't had stomach pain for a really long time.

BROOKE SHEALY: Lizzie, tell me about your course of treatment. What did the doctors do? Were you on certain medications? Did you have any problems with these medications?

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