Jamie has been living with Crohn’s disease since the age of 17.
He tries to keep active as much as he can. He loves his sports and music is also very close to his heart, and has played drums for over 10 years.
Q1. You were diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at just 17. It wasn’t a straightforward diagnosis, requiring multiple doctors’ visits to determine the cause of your symptoms. Do you think more can be done to increase awareness of IBD symptoms among clinicians and the general community as a whole? Why is raising awareness of Crohn’s and IBD so important to you?
My knowledge of Crohn’s disease/ IBD’ when I was first diagnosed was that I actually knew nothing about it. As my symptoms progressed over the span of only 2weeks, I do think that the medical professionals did an excellent job at finding and actually being able to diagnose me that quickly. I know of many people who have been undiagnosed for years because the medical professionals couldn’t find a diagnosis or where unsure of what it was which ended up with them having to trial different medications to try and help them.
I don’t recall learning of it in school (not to say I didn’t) but knowing of it now I think that of course there could always be more that can be done to teach people about it. Whether it be in schools or through tv/social media, there can always be more that can be done. I think the main reason that raising awareness is important to me is because, I know how quickly you can become sick, so maybe having the knowledge early could potentially help if someone was going through symptoms. Or even having the information being shown more frequently so you don’t forget. It is an invisible illness after all, so let’s not have the information be invisible too.
Q2. You haven’t let your Crohn’s stop you from participating in what many consider an extreme workout regime. Tell us about your weekly workout schedule and how you keep motivated to push yourself even on the hard days?
Before having Crohn’s I was exercising somewhat frequently. I took a liking to lifting weights and going to the gym, I had made a solid base for myself and then I had lost it all when I went through everything.
I did my best to exercise whilst having my ileostomy and some days I did want to give up and throw in the towel so to speak.
I remember clearly that what drew me to the sport of Strongman was a local man in my area pulling a truck, and I thought that’s different maybe I could try that and many years later I’m still doing it.
My training usually consists of strength & conditioning based training. Lots of compound movements and a lot of hard work. It definitely wasn’t an ‘overnight thing’ that got me to where I am today. For me, the days when you don’t feel like training are the important ones. When you are just tired and want to sit on the couch, or maybe you’re unmotivated, those are the days that count the most. I’ve found that, if you can push through those barriers, you can in other aspects of life. A major part of my Crohn’s symptoms was and still is fatigue both physically and mentally. But much like training in the gym, if you keep pushing through the barriers you tend to feel better for it in the future. As for how I do it, I don’t actually have an answer haha. I think it’s something everyone faces in their own way and some days I even shock myself when I do it, but it’s definitely a deep, deep drive that gets you through.
Q3. You created quite a following on Instagram @KingCrohns. How important is an understanding support network for people with IBD? And what do you want everyone to know about living with Crohn’s and IBD?
Having a support network or even just having one person that can somewhat understand what you’re going though is great. Compassion can go a long way for someone suffering from the effects of Crohn’s/ IBD or any illness for that matter. I’m lucky that I have a loving and supportive family that got me through my dark days and continue to give even now. As my condition has grown so has my support network. I’m lucky and I’m grateful to have been in remission for quite sometime now and even still I get a general support for my illness from family and even people who I’ve never met before and I like to think that I give out the same for those who have it too.
As hard as it is to answer this with just one response, for my experience and in my mentality of having being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease is that; there is always someone out there worse off than you.
This was my mentality from the beginning and still is now. When I was really down in the dirt and just wanting to give up I always thought of that. Not to brush away my own feelings and to try and not care for myself, I had to just think of, maybe someone is really having it harder than me. In thinking of this, it almost drove me to do better to prove to myself that I could come back from this. So if there was one thing I could tell people or just someone about living with Crohn’s and/or IBD is that;
You can come back. You can be better and do better. Just take it one day at a time. Become you’re own ‘King’ Crohn’s or ‘Queen’.
