How to Own Your Crohn’s & Ostomy While Traveling to India

By Tina Aswani-OmprakashAs IBD warriors, it’s always nerve-wracking to travel with our conditions and/or an ostomy. For me, it’s been 7 years of me traveling all over the U.S. and Europe for patient advocacy work. And even though I’ve spoken many times virtually for events in India and Pakistan, I hadn’t traveled to the region to speak given the pandemic. Now that we are out of the pandemic and back at in-person conferences, it was fantastic to be invited to speak about my experiences as an IBD patient & ostomate at Global Association of Physicians of Indian Origin’s (GAPIO’s) conference in Mysuru, Karnataka, India. Plus, traveling to Karnataka meant I could visit many, many relatives and reconnect ????But visiting India also meant mustering up the courage to sit through a very long flight. India, with a layover, can be a 24-hour flight easily, which really throws off my gut motility among a whole host of other health issues (migraines, sinuses, etc.). Visiting India also meant being very...