I started Crohnology because

outside the doctor's office

after living for Crohn's for 14 years, I realized that the data that I was gatheringwas just as important as, if not more than, what I was learning inside.

Since my diagnosis at age 12,

I have had a dozen major flare ups of the disease. I found that, for me, diets and supplements, stress reduction and mental relaxation, and exercise help. I heard many people on the internet claim that they had found the magic bullet, but I thought it was irresponsible to be so confident.

Just because these things worked for me, I wasn't about to claim that they work for everybody. Instead, I decided to build a patient-powered research network that would allow patients everywhere to be contributing their own treatment experimentation in a way that could be aggregated for us to learn what actually works for whom.

— Sean Ahrens