A young woman who had to have her large intestine removed after masking her bowel symptoms for a year out of embarrassment has urged others not to do the same.<\/p>\n
Alex Lyons was 21 when she started having to use the toilet more frequently and noticed blood in her stool.<\/p>\n
She recognised they were symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) as her twin brother Joe had just had bowel removal surgery at the time due to the chronic disease.<\/p>\n
She said she saw the trauma it put her family through and “couldn’t face the possibility of doing that to them again”.<\/p>\n
“I thought ignoring it would make it go away. I think being at uni at the time it was quite hard to talk to friends and family about it because I felt embarrassed,” she added.<\/p>\n
She was diagnosed with IBD last year and started treatment but last month was told it was not working and she was rushed into life-saving emergency surgery.<\/p>\n
Alex, from Armagh, said her brother also hid his symptoms for a year prior to his diagnosis.<\/p>\n
She said they both have aggressive forms of the disease meaning surgery was probably inevitable.<\/p>\n
Now 23, she said if she could go back in time she would shake her younger self and tell her to go to the doctor.<\/p>\n
“I think I would’ve gone a little longer without losing my bowel had I gone to the doctor earlier,” she said.<\/p>\n
It is estimated half a million people in the UK have IBD. However, Alex and Joe are part of a growing number of young people who are being diagnosed with it.<\/p>\n
A 2024 study by Southampton Children’s Hospital found the number of children and young adults being diagnosed more than doubled in 10 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alex has Ulcerative Colitis, which along with Crohn’s disease are the most common forms of IBD.<\/p>\n According to the charity Crohn’s & Colitis there are more than 17,000 people in Northern Ireland living with either form.<\/p>\n It estimates more than 200,000 people in the UK are living with a stoma – an opening on the abdomen which connects to the digestive or urinary system and allows waste to be diverted out of the body and into a bag.<\/p>\n ‘Stool sample end of world’<\/p>\n