I find that people don’t really understand the complexity of this disease. They’re just like “so you just have diarrhea sometimes?”, they know nothing about abscess, fistulas, fissures or joint pain

Yes, exactly. I have been out of work because of an abscess and I feel like no one understands why I’ve needed to take so much time. I had complications with the abscess and a fistula.

Yesss I’ve had issues with abscesses and fistulas as well and I’m currently taking the whole year off of school. I initially was embarrassed about it because it’s all focused on your gut, colon, rectum … all the “icky” stuff. And symptoms are usually “icky” too. I’m recentlyyyy diagnosed and I’m already trying to be really open about it because I want people to try to understand that it’s more than j an upset tummy ya know