Since childhood I’ve experienced a lot of what doctors call extraintestinal manifestations, which are symptoms that occur when an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) affects parts of the body outside the gut. I dealt with issues like severe joint pain and eye issues alongside constipation and GERD, but at the time doctors didn’t think to refer me to a gastroenterologist. The discomfort and unpredictability of my condition meant I was always scared to travel, even if it was just a road trip.
The last time I visited my family in India was in 2000 at age 16. We took a day trip from New Delhi to the Taj Mahal and ended up eating street food because we were starving. We all got sick, but I fared so much worse than the others and lost about 20 pounds in the weeks that followed because I was so ill. I eventually was diagnosed with IBD—specifically, ulcerative colitis—in 2006. (Although later I learned I actually had a different type of IBD.) Nearly two years later, my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, took me to Mexico and we both came down with traveler’s diarrhea after eating some sliced fruit. He threw it all up and recovered just fine, but it took me months to get better.
What followed was a lot of pain, shame, and silence. I worked on Wall Street at the time as a financial-services compliance officer, and it was very tough to figure out the diagnosis, accept it, and try to get on medication while navigating such a stressful career. I was on disability for many years before I eventually had to stop working. I didn’t know what to do with my life because I truly thought this disease and the complications associated with it would kill me.
Over two years, my condition went from mild to severe. During this time I experienced severe bleeding, weight loss, and other debilitating symptoms. I finally had my colon removed on July 4, 2008—which I often call my very own Independence Day. However, complications from this operation, as well as my IBD itself, required me to have dozens of additional operations including one to create a permanent ileostomy in 2011. It was through this process that I learned I actually have Crohn’s disease, another type of IBD.
It wasn’t until late 2024 that my doctors finally gave me the green light to travel to India—and I was terrified. The extra-long flight plus cuisines that include many trigger foods for my condition created a hurdle I worried was impossible to overcome. Although I had taken a few trips around the U.S. and Europe since my diagnosis, I had not conquered my fears of traveling back to India and enjoying the foods my family and I love without getting sick.
Tina Aswani-Omprakash
After all this time, I thought I couldn’t do this because of my Crohn’s disease. Yet there I was almost 25 years later. I did it—albeit with lots of preparation.
