VIDEO: Long-term effects of ulcerative colitis treatment for younger patients

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I've been very lucky. I treat both children and adults, and I saw when I was training on the adult side before I, you know, set up my practice, I was like, "This is amazing that I have so much insight now into how important it is that when I'm treating young people who've become adults with a chronic condition, it all matters, my first decision, maybe my second. I can mess up a little bit the first maybe, but that second decision could change the entire emotional and physical journey of that individual."

And you have to take it really seriously 'cause you started to see all the surgeries, the strictures, the multiple failed treatments, the anxiety and the depression that had emerged and the disability by just not correctly addressing the key management when they were children. There's so many, you know, things that go into that but addressing growth correctly, helping the young child transition with resiliency, and a toolkit. to go from a pediatric type of focused practice to, "What? Yesterday I had my mom in the room. And now I'm on my own, like, to overnight that sort of change, and I'm not ready."

And how do we get kids ready for that transition and then also transition them to independent self-manager so that they really, you know, don't, there's no like drop in care, there's no gap in getting them and staying in remission or whatever is necessary. And growth is a big part of what we do in children that we're not really as much addressing in our adult population.

Obviously we're more weight focused and, you know, nutrition focused, but in kids, nutrition and weight and puberal development and height are all part of what keeps the kids isolated, not wanting to hang with their friends if they're having a lot of growth failure, or they have steroid side effects with acne. Kids are really mean and there's a lot of bullying going on in kids who have these chronic conditions.

And so you have to think about not just what's there in front of you or what's happening, but also think clearly around the totality of the day-to-day lives of these people as you transition them to adults with IBD.