Sometimes it seems like all the old taboos have gone. We can talk openly about sex and there was even a day or two recently when talk of tampons dominated Australian politics. Yet when it comes to poo, we'd rather not go there - and that can be bad for our health.

Carly Gordyn​ discovered this the hard way when she kept quiet about the blood that began appearing in her bowel movements when she was a teenager. Too scared to tell her parents or a GP she turned to Dr Google who convinced her she was going to die. Five years later when severe gut pain made it almost impossible to eat, a colonoscopy revealed ulceration in her small intestine and a diagnosis of Crohn's disease - one of a group of conditions known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease which cause the gut to become inflamed.

It's time to flush our toilet anxiety.

Now Gordyn, 26, wants to raise awareness of what it's like to live with this increasingly common disease that can involve episodes of chronic and unpredictable diarrhoea.

"If you have IBD and you want to go out it's a bit like going out with a baby and needing to plan where you can change a nappy, except when you have IBD you have to think about 'where can I poop?' and 'how can I get there on time?" the PhD candidate with the Australian National University says. "The symptoms can be so distressing that some people don't leave the house for months."