About IBD: Hidden Ways IBD Affects You Over a Lifetime

The About IBD podcast recently interviewed gastroenterologist Puja Khanna, MD, clinical director of Women’s Health in the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai, about how IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) affects the whole body and ways to manage the disease throughout a lifetime.

Considered an immune-mediated disease, IBD is driven in part by an abnormal immune response that triggers chronic inflammation in the digestive tract.

Khanna told podcast host Amber Tresca that although IBD begins in the gastrointestinal tract, the disease often also shows up elsewhere. Classic health problems that can occur outside the intestines include achiness or stiffness in the joints, as well as eye disorders or inflammation of the eyes.

“Patients can have inflammation involving their liver,” Khanna said. “Women, especially, have skin issues and IBD.”

Khanna told Tresca that IBD can affect women differently than men, with disease patterns and activity sometimes changing around life stages such as puberty, pregnancy and menopause.

She noted that because IBD can involve more than “just one part of you,” Cedars-Sinai uses a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to IBD care.

For women, Khanna told Tresca, “we have involvement from OB-GYNs and dermatologists and rheumatologists” to help address the issues women with IBD often face. She added that patients also can see nutritionists, social workers and physical therapists.

Khanna said she emphasizes the importance of patients communicating openly with physicians about any concerns and speaking frankly about symptoms they aren’t sure are related to IBD.

“My biggest mantra is that information is power,” she told Tresca. “And you need to gather as much as you can to educate yourself.”

Above all, Khanna said, she encourages patients to trust their own experience.

“You know your body the best,” she said. “Your doctor can’t tell you what’s happening to you. You need to advocate for yourself.”

Listen to the complete segment from the About IBD podcast.