The British loathe talking about bodily functions, but for sufferers of Crohn's disease or colitis, toilet talk is a way of life. Women's Editor Lindsay Jennings meets a mother and daughter to have coped with colitis.

CHRISTINE Jackson is running through the list of foods she can eat and those which trigger off adverse reactions. "Before, I couldn't eat any vegetables or any salads or if I did, I'd be on the toilet within seconds," she says. "And beans - oh God don't mention beans. But now I can eat most things, even currys - vindaloo if I wanted."

The Jackson family are used to toilet talk. Christine, 45, was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC), an inflammatory bowel disease, in 1996 after suffering months of diarrhoea. Since then, Christine and her two daughters, Leanne, 16 - who also has the disease - and Kerry, 14, have pulled together to cope with the condition and its debilitating effects.

In Christine's case, the disease was not helped by going through a marriage break-up with two young children and a stressful house move from North Ormesby, Middlesbrough, to Hinderwell, near Whitby.

Her doctor initially diagnosed a stomach bug and when it was eventually found to be colitis, Christine was put on anti-inflammatory pills. "I was on about 18, I used to rattle," she laughs. But it soon became clear that more drastic action would be needed.

"Sometimes I would get a pain in my stomach, and there was just no way I could keep it in. It was just impossible," she says candidly. "With having young children, it wasn't too bad because you run your life by toilets anyway when they're young. But sometimes I would get such terrible stomach pains that I would need to go every ten minutes. It was like a constant knot in your stomach. If I was going to the dentist, say, I would have to starve myself beforehand and probably hardly drink anything. Until someone has colitis they don't know what it's like, you feel as if you want to go around with a big nappy on."

Christine had surgery to remove her large bowel and a pouch was made to collect and thicken her body's waste. While the pouch "bedded in", she had an operation to bypass the area, which entailed wearing a bag to collect the waste.

For most people, it would have been devastating. For the resilient Christine and her supportive girls, it meant that for the first time, her life did not revolve around the toilet.

"The first thing I can remember is waking up and having no pain," she recalls. "I'd given up work (as a nurse at the former North Tees Hospital) just before Leanne was born because I was just so tired and had no control over it. But having had the operation I got my life back. I could go out for the day without having to plan it by all the toilets. We even went camping.

"The kids were great. They used to help me change the bag - we called it Horace - there was no point being embarrassed about it."

Christine's candour is refreshing, but when it comes to talking about bodily functions, most people prefer to suffer in silence. Yet, according to the National Association for Colitis and Crohn's Disease (NACC), the two conditions affect one in 400 people in the UK, with more than 6,000 colitis sufferers in the North-East alone.

Ulcerative colitis causes inflammation of the rectum and sometimes the large intestine (colon), resulting in bloody diarrhoea, stomach pains and continued tiredness. In addition, sufferers can see inflammation in the eyes, skin and joints.

Crohn's disease can affect anywhere from the mouth to the anus, but is most common in the small intestine and/or colon. The main symptoms are abdominal pain, diarrhoea, general tiredness and loss of weight. But the severity of symptoms fluctuates unpredictably over time.

No-one knows what causes either disease, but it is believed that external factors, such as stress, and genetics could play a part. They affect both men and women and smoking exacerbates the conditions.

Most colitis patients will be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and some people, such as Christine, have surgery to remove the colon and redirect the small intestine to an external bag, or have a replacement colon made (ileo-anal pouch) by the surgeon reshaping the end of the small intestine.

With Crohn's, the drug treatment is similar and surgery may help by removing the narrowed or damaged parts of the intestine.

Norma Richardson, chairwoman of the Tees branch of the NACC, says the effects of the diseases can be debilitating and put relationships under incredible pressure.

"Some people can need the toilet 20 to 30 times a day and they're afraid to leave the house, or if they do, they have to keep their journeys to where they know there's a toilet nearby," she says.

"It can cause tiredness, which some people can find hard to understand. Lots of people try to carry on with their lives and may get to work but then find they have no energy to do anything else.

"Some find it hard to cope if a partner is lying on the settee, not being able to do anything because they may look quite well when they're not.

"To some extent it's a hidden illness. You can come across a person who has got colour and looks well and if they're taking steroids they can look rounder faced, but the problem is, they're not well on the inside.

"I think Christine is an example of how families can pull together if you have the right attitude."

Christine's daughter Leanne has had her own battle with colitis. She developed the symptoms when she was 12 and has been on and off steroids since. It has proved difficult for her, causing her to miss a great deal of school when she has been unwell, but the disease has been kept under control to some degree, and she may not need surgery.

"I could mostly get through a lesson, but in between them I would have to go to the toilet," says Leanne, who is part-way through her GCSE exams at Whitby College. "No-one really knows at school, apart from the odd few. I have to avoid things like milk, ice cream, and all fruit and veg. Not drinking milk is hard because I love milk."

Both Christine and Leanne say they can still eat foods such as fruit, but only do so when there is a toilet nearby. Christine's symptoms have eased considerably but she has developed one of the side effects of the disease, stiff joints, which she suspects is arthritis. But by raising awareness through the media, she hopes more people will be willing to talk about toilet habits and bodily functions.

"People don't like talking about anything to do with bowels because it's seen as taboo," she says. "But it needs to be talked about."

l Thousands of people are being urged to sign up to a national campaign organised by the NACC to increase the number of specialist colitis and Crohn's disease nurses. Headed by Fame Academy's Carrie Grant, who suffers from Crohn's disease, the campaign is calling on all colitis and Crohn's patients, families, friends and health professionals to add their names, either online at www.nacc.org.uk or by phone on 0871 734 3000 until July 31. The aim is to collect a million "calls" to convince the Government to improve services for patients around the UK.

For more information and support on Crohn's disease and colitis, contact Norma Richardson of the NACC on (01287) 632287.