A woman has told how she returned from holiday and suddenly was going to the toilet immediately after eating, before receiving a shock diagnosis that changed her life.
Selan Lee had just turned 18 and was waiting to sit her A Levels when she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a painful condition which affects the digestive tract.
Selan, 23, was going to the toilet three to four times a day or almost immediately after eating anything, and her attendance at school suffered.
She said: “I came back from a family holiday and noticed that there were increased trips to the toilet and I felt more lethargic than before.
"I believe that going so frequently with diarrhea and abdominal pain led to anxiety about going to the toilet. Not knowing where the nearest toilet was, or the slightest stomach cramp would send my anxiety through the roof.
“I think I had, like, 100 per cent attendance at school, and then I just didn’t turn up for a good two months. That was a big warning.”
Selan ended up in hospital where she was told that she had Crohn’s. The most common types of inflamatory bowel disease (IBS) are Crohn’s and Ulcerative Colitis, neither of which have a cure.
With IBS conditions, the immune system attacks healthy tissue in the gut. You can develop Inflammatory Bowel Disease at any age, although – like Selan – a quarter of people get their diagnosis before 30, reports Wales Online.
It took Selan some time to come to terms with her diagnosis, with the Surrey native unable to start university when she had planned and having to curtail her social life, instead focusing on art.
She said: “Initially I had no way of speaking about my illness and art has helped me massively with that.
"My friends had seen me before my diagnosis, so they could understand the difference in me and the impact, but for someone who didn’t know me that well and would ask, it was very hard to describe how much it was affecting me.
"How lethargy works, how fatigue impacts you, how going to the hospital multiple times can be draining. For me, art can really describe that more eloquently than words can."
Selan recently put on an exhibition in London describing how it feels to live with a lifelong health condition. She works as a health and care intern, teaming up with other artists with chronic illnesses.
She said: “I called my art exhibition Low on Spoons, Not Identity. It comes from the Spoons Theory that was developed quite a few years ago now. It’s a way to describe the energy-limiting aspect of chronic illnesses and mental health.
"The idea is that you have a set number of spoons’ worth of energy every day: sometimes you have lots and sometimes you have very few – everything you do takes up some of that energy. If you have a low-energy, “low spoons” day, you’re going to choose to do less to conserve the energy you do have. It might make you look a bit lazy, but it’s what is going to help you get through the day."
Selan works with the Crohn’s & Colitis UK charity to help spread awareness of the conditions, saying: "I know that my colleagues who had no real idea of chronic illness, have said my work has really given them a better understanding – which is fantastic."
Sarah Sleet, CEO of Crohn’s & Colitis UK warned that the symptoms of the conditions should not be ignored. She said: “It can be tempting to brush the symptoms of Crohn’s and Colitis off as something minor. You might blame your dodgy stomach on a food intolerance, stress, or assume you’ve eaten something that didn’t agree with you.
"What you might not know is that even if you don’t have all the symptoms, or if they come and go, you should go and see your GP. Why not let our symptom checker do the talking for you? It’ll take you 30 seconds to complete and will help you decide what to do next.”
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