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Kate Tieman can vividly recall a college teacher pulling her parents aside one day to suggest she had an eating disorder.
From the outside, she was a thin student who often chose not to eat. But in her last year of school, it all made sense. Kate had been suffering with undiagnosed Crohn’s disease.
“I was a sick kid and took quite a bit of time off school with sore tummies and in my teenage years, it started getting bad enough that we began to investigate it more,” says Paraparaumu-based Kate, now 31, who owns and runs a marketing business from home.
“I saw a handful of doctors and explained my symptoms, and they’d say it was growing pains or I wasn’t eating well or getting enough exercise.”
Although she received suspicious comments from teachers and classmates about why she often wasn’t eating, Kate was actually suffering from stomach pain and constant nausea.
Aged 15, Kate was plagued with tummy troubles.
By 17, after she found blood in her stool, Kate’s parents booked her in with a private specialist and she was given a colonoscopy. When she woke from the procedure, Kate was informed she had Crohn’s, a lifelong inflammatory bowel disease that affects the lining of the gastrointestinal tract.
“It felt good to finally have an answer after years of being told it was all in my head and being judged for my weight,” she says.
“I’ll be on medications for the rest of my life but its keeps me mainly symptom-free. The main thing I get now is fatigue.”
While Crohn’s still impacts Kate, she considers herself lucky as some people with the condition end up having part of their bowel removed.
“I’ve had a few relapses and they put me on steroids, but I consider that great compared to what some people have and what I was like before it,” says Kate, who also cares for dogs part-time.
“I built my wee marketing business so I have flexibility with my hours and life, and if I wake up not feeling well, I can sleep in. I’m very lucky I can work around my health.”
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