Taking part in this At Home for Crohn's challenge:
- Sean Young (the one with Crohn's disease)
- Matt Reed
- Greg Bowes
- Simon Fern

Hello everyone. At Home for Crohn's is a fundraising drive to help with the Kings College London Chrohn's MAP Vaccine. Crohn’s disease is a painful inflammatory condition affecting the digestive system. It affects around four million people around the world (over a million of which are in the USA, and two hundred and fifty thousand of which are in the UK). The numbers are also increasing, particularly amongst children.

Around eighty percent of sufferers will require surgery at some point in their lives as a result of the disease. Even then, the crippling symptoms of stomach pain, bloody stools, fatigue, and extreme weight loss are likely to return. Currently, there is no known cure.

But there is hope.

Researchers at Kings College London have developed a modern vaccine that can both treat and prevent infection with a type of bacteria suspected as being the causative agent in Crohn’s disease. This bacteria is known as MAP. Preparations are being made to begin human trials to check it is safe to use on those suffering with Crohn’s disease. Donations are needed to complete work on a new MAP test that will be a vital part of these final trials.

To help, I'm doing a fundraising push I and some friends are calling ‘At Home for Crohn’s’. In these uncertain times, it is difficult to join fundraising events such as fun runs or marathons, so we are doing a different type of marathon: a movie marathon. On the 21st of November, we will be embarking on our epic Arnold Schwarzenegger quest - watching as many different Arnie films as we can in one day. We will probably all be wearing our Arnocorps t-shirts while we do it (https://arnocorps.com/about/index.html), and as we will all be watching different films each, we should cover at least twelve (although we may try to do more). I will be posting updates on Facebook (and here) throughout the day.

Perhaps you would like to join in? If you would, simply copy and paste this text changing it to reflect the films you will be watching. There are no real rules. Simply choose at least three films to watch back to back that are connected in some way. For example, you could watch all of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings extended DVDs (like my girlfriend, Charlotte, did - crazy lady), or you could watch all of the Star Wars trilogy. It’s up to you. Good luck and have fun!

If you would like to contribute (or need somewhere to direct those who are supporting your fundraising effort), this JustGiving page has been set up to make donations. Alternatively, you can use the main Crohn’s MAP Vaccine JustGiving page, which can be found here:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/crohnsmapvaccine-ts11359

Or, of course, you can set up your own.

Good luck and have fun!

#athomeforcrohns

#crohnsmapvaccine