Case study: Artificial bowel stopped me looking like a walking X-ray

Steven Sharp’s Crohn’s disease made him look “like a walking X-ray” when he was younger, he said.

From the age of 12 he was virtually housebound for six years due to the pain and embarrassment of his illness.

He first became aware of the problem as a child when he began passing blood, started to feel sick and became increasingly tired.

Mr Sharp, now 21, of West Lothian, said: “I became used to just coming home from school and going to my bed until the next day. I was being sick and struggling to keep food down.

“I was never what you’d call thin, but after I was diagnosed in primary seven I began to lose weight – eventually I was like a walking X-ray.”

Along with losing weight, Mr Sharp had to learn to cope with almost relentless fatigue.

His condition got so bad that in 2008, when he was in his final year of school, doctors told him he needed surgery to insert what is effectively an artificial bowel. However he decided to use the operation as the catalyst to turn his life around. The operation involved the removal of his large intestine and the fitting of a stoma – an instrument allowing the conversion of food to waste.

He said: “It’s changed everything. It made a drastic improvement to my quality of life.

“I piled the weight on after the operation because I was eating so much, so I’ve had to rein that in a bit.

“I asked myself what the point was in being embarrassed? The more people know about it, the more awareness there is, the less embarrassing it will be for others to speak about it.”

Since his surgery, Mr Sharp, who works for a glazing firm, has gone on to play football and trained as a first-aider

He said: “I’ve been lucky to have the support of friends, my family and school when I was there. There are thousands who have this and we shouldn’t be ashamed of it. ”