Crohn's Disease is a horribly aggressive form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease which affects about 4 million people worldwide and about 250,000 people in the UK. CD is usually diagnosed in teens and young adults between 13 - 30 and ruins many lives, with symptoms including severe abdominal pain, weight loss diarrhea and chronic fatigue. Most sufferers require surgery at some point and many have problems attending school or keeping a job because of the amount of time off they need to recover.
There is currently no cure for Crohn's and the cause is not fully understood, however many scientists, including Professor Herman-Taylor of Kings College London, believe that Crohn's is caused by a bacterium Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis or MAP for short. MAP has been shown to cause Johnes Disease, an IDB in cows which is very similar to Crohn's, unfortunately MAP is difficult to identify in humans and has been overlooked by many. Now the evidence showing that MAP is likely the cause of Crohn's is overwhelming and Human Trials for a vaccine against MAP has started at the Jenner Institute.
The money I raise will go to help to fund the work of Professor Herman-Taylor to identify MAP and assist the Human Trials. Once the trials are successful a vaccine (which has already been made) will be made available, which is the best hope for a cure. As some may know my son Alex was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease in 2015, at the age of 12. Since then he has had many bouts of severely painful cramps, diarrhea, internal bleeding and exhaustion and has missed a significant amount of school. He is currently well and positive, but he shouldn't need to deal with this emotional or physical stress at his age, nor should any other person.
I plan to undertake a number of kayaking challenges to help raise funds to keep the MAP testing going during the trials. These challenges will include entering an open water race (Poole Harbour race), organising whitewater race (Blaze the Barle) and undertaking a few other challenging sea kayak trips and crossings throughout the year. I have been kayaking for ten years, but am fairly new to sea kayaking only been doing tit for 18 months. However I have learnt a lot in the last year and am keen to push myself to my limits in order to raise awareness of this condition and the invaluable work being down by Professor Herman-Taylor and his team.
Here’s what you could do...
- Visit my Blog https://kayakingforcrohns.org/blog/
- Visit and share the website www.crohnsmapvaccine.com
- Join me on Facebook: Please like and share our pages:
- Share this page on facebook, twitter or IBD forums
- Join me in fundraising! Find out more onhttps://www.facebook.com/CrohnsMAPVaccineHeroes orhttp://crohnsmapvaccine.com/fundraising/
Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you will join me on my journey,