Get Your Doctors Talking to Each Other

When you have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), you may be seeing several different doctors or specialists for different conditions. Your gastroenterologist is probably the doc you see the most, so he or she is the one who should be communicating about your progress to your other docs. That way, all the docs on your health care team know what medications you take, what conditions you're being treated for, and if you've been hospitalized or have had surgery.

Get them talking to each other! Make sure your gastro has a list of your other docs, and make sure your other docs know not only that you are being treated for IBD, but also who is treating you. Bring a list of all your doctors to appointments. Often they know each other already, so it's not difficult to get them communicating.