Learn How to Live with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Roanoke, VA (PRWEB) July 8, 2006 -- There is life after receiving a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). That’s the message of Check Your Pride at the Door, a book by Virginia, psychologist Dr. Darryl D. Helems, who has lived with IBD for more than twenty years since his diagnosis at age 17.

IBD can be defined basically as a medical condition that manifests itself in various forms of inflammation throughout the gastrointestinal tract. Depending on the severity and location of this inflammation, the specific diagnosis can be either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis.

In trying to explain their condition, IBD patients often receive blank stares or hear a response something like this: “Oh, is that where you have to watch what you eat and have to go to the bathroom a lot?” As Helems writes, that understanding is correct but inadequate, as people who do not have the disease have difficulty understanding how physically and emotionally devastating it can be.

Statistics on IBD are sobering. The cause of IBD is unknown and there is no medical cure for it. It is estimated that some 1.4 million Americans suffer from IBD, with approximately thirty thousand new cases diagnosed each year. Anyone can get IBD, but adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 35 are most susceptible.

But Check Your Pride at the Door is not a clinical recital of medical facts and statistics. Helems believes that the practical and emotional aspects associated with this illness are often overlooked. Therefore, he focuses on his story of coping with IBD, showing how he “checked his pride at the door”—that is, accepted that he had a disease—and then developed life-management strategies to maintain his physical and emotional equilibrium through the disease’s ups and downs.

His detailed recounting of those strategies makes Check Your Pride at the Door a valuable resource for patients with IBD and many other debilitating diseases. Even more, the book can serve as a source of hope, for the author has been able to experience a rich, full life, including marriage, children, academic achievements, and a challenging career.

To learn more about Check Your Pride at the Door, visit the companion site where you will find a full table of contents, chapter excerpt, and ordering information. Check Your Pride at the Door will be available for purchase September 2006.

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