Check Your Pride at the Door

This is an excellent book for anyone who has IBD (especially young adults), or anyone who loves someone with IBD.

People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can easily find advice on what to eat or what not to eat, what medical treatments are most effective, and why surgery may be needed. Books that address the emotional aspects of IBD, however, are harder to come by. Darryl D. Helems, PhD, has written a book that draws on his personal experience as a Crohn’s disease patient for more than 20 years and a school psychologist in his professional life.

“Check Your Pride at the Door” refers to the embarrassment that people with IBD must face when dealing with diagnostic testing and treatment by health professionals, as well as with the people in their everyday life. Like Dr. Helems, many IBDers are diagnosed in their teen years, which adds an extra layer of humiliation to a situation that most adults find difficult to deal with.

Dr. Helems has written his very personal story of his diagnosis with Crohn’s disease (after an initial misdiagnosis of ulcerative colitis) and his subsequent struggles with his health through his teens and into young adulthood. Dr. Helems is typical of many of us: He describes how he had a poor diet, often did not follow doctor’s orders, and generally kept his disease to himself out of embarrassment. After living through several setbacks with his disease, Dr. Helems has come out the other side with advice that all of us can use in our everyday lives.