“The bag saved my life” – those were the words of a Basingstoke teenager who has had a stoma fitted following more than a year of pain.

Imogen Knight was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in April 2023 after she had been having problems eating and suffered ‘unbearable pain’.

Imogen’s symptoms were initially put down anxiety, but after losing almost three stone in weight, her symptoms worsened and she was admitted to hospital. She was then diagnosed with IBD at Southampton Children’s Hospital (SCH).

The 14-year-old said: “I started suffering around October 2022 and I noticed that as soon as I ate, I would have to go straight to the bathroom. It got worse very quickly, and the pain soon became unbearable. I would go all day without eating as I didn’t want to eat at school, so would wait until I got home.

“I was just glad that they finally knew what it was, and I had a chance of getting better. I was exhausted and my body was exhausted from all the pain, I was hardly going to school, and it was just a horrible time.”

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Dr Ashton and Imogen Knight (Image: University Hospital Southampton) Imogen was put on a treatment plan, but it did not stop her symptoms or slow the disease and in March this year, she underwent a surgery with a subtotal colectomy, a procedure that involves the removal of her large bowel. The procedure has left Imogen having to use a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.

She said: “The bag saved my life. I’m still getting used to it and it’s been a bit of a rocky road, especially with some of the things that people say but I don’t care. I don’t feel ill all the time anymore and it means I can be normal again and enjoy my Sunday roasts!

“I used to struggle with self-confidence before the bag, so it’s even harder now, but I want to help others and raise awareness of the disease as I don’t want anyone else to feel like I did.”

IBD is a term that describes several disorders involving chronic inflammation of tissues in the digestive tract, with the most common being Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

A recent study led by SCH shows the number of children and young adults being diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has more than doubled in the last 10 years.

Dr James Ashton, consultant paediatric gastroenterologist at SCH, said: “The results are a significant wake-up call, especially as the rate of increase was similar in all areas.”

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Although the study showed a sharp increase in the rate of diagnosis, it does not show why diagnosis in the disease has increased.

Dr Ashton, who is also a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) advanced fellow at University of Southampton, continued: “It’s complicated to say why we’ve seen the increase as the disease is very specific to each individual, with everybody having an underlying genetic risk.

“However, genetics don’t change over 10 years, so the next obvious factor would be societal environmental and lifestyle changes.

“We have seen a shift in our diets with an increase in the consumption of processed foods and, although we don’t know if this is the predominant cause, it would certainly appear to play a part.

“However, it is important to state that there is no single trigger for the disease and having IBD is not the result of doing something wrong, we’re talking about contributing factors on a societal level here.”