The African American community is very private about elimination and issues related to going to the toilet. Here Dr. Gigi and her guests open up about a very private matter.

Inflammatory bowel disease includes certain conditions. Which one does it not include? Ulcerative colitis Crohn’s disease or irritable bowel syndrome

Dr. Borum: I B D is a chronic relapsing inflammatory condition. It’s inflammation in the GI tract and the two major subtypes or Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis Crohn’s disease in ulcerative colitis, not irritable bowel syndrome, which happens to so many people that they’re diagnosed with that condition. Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis are the two major subtypes of inflammatory bowel disease and need very specific therapy.

Inflammatory bowel disease occurs at any age. Is that true or false?

Dr. Borum: It occurs at any age, most often in young adults, but also in older adults. And so we can’t forget about it in, in people of any age. My oldest person with inflammatory bowel disease is 88 years old. Oh, wow. 88 years old. She’s had it for more than five decades, but she’s 88 years old. And it occurs both in men and women. So look at this slide and, and look at this slide very quickly. We see in the red are those that’s what happens. It more often occurs in people who are Caucasian and who are Jewish in the light blue bar. It it’s Caucasians who are not Jewish. And the pink bar is African Americans. It is black Americans then Latinos, and then Asians. So black Americans have a very, uh, increasing, increasingly recognized to have inflammatory bowel disease. And we have to be aware of that.

Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease can cause symptoms outside of the GI tract. Is that true or false?

Dr. Borum: Crohn’s disease is interesting because Crohn’s disease, you can get abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bleeding, but because of the way the inflammation occurs in Crohn’s disease, you can get other types of complications and those, and the condition can occur not only in the colon, but also in the small bowel. It likes the small bowel. It likes the last part of the small bowel. It also likes the colon and it also can give significant inflammation. But one of the things that came up in one of those questions and of things that I want to raise is that it can have symptoms outside of the GI tract. Yes. You can have diarrhea. Yes. You can have blood in the stool. Yes. You can have abdominal pain, but you’re gonna, you can also have skin conditions. And the reason I bring this up is cause when you look at the skin manifestations and you look in the textbooks, they always show skin manifestations in people who are of a lighter hue mm-hmm . And so when people come into the office talking about having skin changes, they very often aren’t diagnosed because it doesn’t look like what they say is a classic description.

Dr. Gigi: So people Will get told it’s eczema or dermatitis and, you know, take whatever you need to control your asthma and hear some, some steroid cream and that’s right. Lots gets missed.

There is much more to learn from the Dr. Gigi and the panelists on this facebook live. Click the link to hear more about indicators and possible remedies to your intestinal and bowel body system. https://www.facebook.com/BlackDoctor.org/videos/952605498956844