Crohnology

About

Crohnology is a project with one ultimate goal: to build a patient-centered information sharing network for people with chronic medical conditions. We envision a world in which every patient can instantly tap into the knowledge and experiences of every other, so that every patient can learn how well treatments have worked for others, whether they are alternative, experimental, or prescription.

People with medical conditions walk around generating an incredible amount of data about their health every second of every day, but we just let that data disappear. We don't know how well most treatments actually work in the wild. Crohnology allow patients to collaborate, share health and treatment information with each other, and track and share their health. Patients learn from each other's experiences in a massively scalable way. This turns the traditional medical model on it's head. We think this is a better model for medicine for patients living with chronic conditions.

Crohnology is currently open in beta specifically for people with Crohn's or Colitis. These are a pair of incurable, autoimmune diseases that cause inflammation throughout the digestive tract.

Why I'm building this

As some of you may know, at the age of 12, I (Sean Ahrens) was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease. After having several devastating flare-ups, I went on a quest to do anything I could to treat my disease by experimenting with numerous alternative and experimental therapies and diets (including intentionally infecting myself with parasitic worms).

When I realized that the information I had built up from this quest could heal other patients, I went on another quest: to meet as many patients as I possibly could and share the information I had learned with them. But I knew there were tons of other patients around the world who had gone through their own journeys and had extremely valuable information to share themselves. And by sharing it, they could heal more patients. And so I went on a new quest: to make it possible for Crohn's & Colitis patients around the world to share and learn from one another.

Crohnology is that quest. To learn more, check out the Crohnology Blog.

The Approach

I believe strongly in the power of connecting people. I think that when motivated people are connected, greatness is produced. If we've done our job right with Crohnology, the interface itself should fade into the background, and the relationships on the site should shine.

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