We all experience the occasional stomach ache from time to time. Maybe you ate something that didn’t agree with you or caught a stomach bug. While this is often just an unfortunate part of life, frequent and debilitating stomach aches and pain may indicate a more serious illness, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

IBD is an umbrella term for both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Both conditions are characterized by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract,