So recently I have been trying to figure out what we could do to help more IBD patients and to keep our social media out reach moving forward. I always like to ask our community what do they want to see? What can we do better or what is something new that you want to see from us? We are here to bring awareness and support to IBD patients, to their families and their friends and we take your opinion very seriously! So please do not hesitate to contact us! Now on to what is next.
In the science world right now IBD and the gut microbiome are some of the most researched topics and there is more and more research coming out every day! For us with IBD this is FANTASTIC news, because it means the more research and funding these research projects recieve the more it will lead to better treatments,better understanding of IBD and hopefully a cure. But for some people reading through the new scientific information about IBD can be scary and make you feel guilty especially when it comes to seeing things about parents passing a disease on to their children, because as a parent the last thing we want is to know that we are responsible for our child being sick. So what we need to do is explain the encouraging parts of this research. Just recently I posted an article of some research showing that when babies are born the mother might be passing on some bacteria that will contribute to the child having Inflammatory Bowel Disease, given this research is on mice and they said they will do further testing. I have a mentor who has a PhD in Microbiology with an Immunology background who she and I discussed this research together and it makes sense, especially with all of the research showing now that those of us with IBD have different variations of microbes living in our gut. We also talked about how this didn’t mean this caused IBD because not every patient with IBD was born vaginally or even from a mother who has IBD, the research just gives a glimpse of one of the smaller pieces that go into the complicated mess that IBD is.
If you do not have a scientific background this stuff can be scary and articles tend to change the title of the article saying something like “This “Insert whatever here” causes IBD due to new research.” That is one of the main problems is websites who get more attention than they deserve by writing a uninformed article piece and putting it out as “truth.” These type of misleading article posts do not benefit anyone it makes things worse and the last thing we need is more misleading information put out there! So I want to change this and I think I may have a way to help.
I myself have a science background and I start my graduate degree in the fall and eventually will get my Microbiology PhD with a focus on Immunology. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by brilliant and kind scientists who offer to explain all of this research to me in depth, but I know that is not always the case with our readers. This is where that is about to change. My Mentor Dr. Erin Norcross has kindly offered to help me to write up an article about how to interpret some of this research, give some basic tips on how to figure out if it is reliable and put together a detailed post so that we can have it to give to you all and help get through all of this science jargon if you will. What I need from you guys is if you have any topics related to IBD, Science behind it etc that you would like to see addressed please email me at LifeTakesGuts@yahoo.com I really want to address things that are helpful to you! I also do not want to sounds like “oh look at me I know science so let me do this.” That is not it at all! I just want to tap into some of the people and information I have access to and use that to our advantage!
Then I also am working on a website to transfer my blog into and have sections on IBD myths, a place to send your questions directly to me and posting the things I go over with my mentor and then branching out from there. I hope you guys see where I am going with this and support what I am trying to do 🙂 I believe that we need more people taking a stand against all of the misleading information and article posts that are confusing people. I also want after this to have my mentor help write up about some common myths about autoimmune diseases and other processes that can be hard to understand. I think this will help those who are just being diagnosed.
Thank you all again for being such an awesome community and please do not hesitate to email me or contact me through facebook with any questions, comments or concerns.
Aaron Blocker.
LifeTakesGuts@yahoo.com
www.facebook.com/ItTakesGuts
Aaron.Blocker@me.com
