Woman Develops Food Poisoning on Vacation. 7 Months Later, She’s Diagnosed with an Incurable Autoimmune Disease (Exclusive)

Woman Develops Food Poisoning, Later Turns Into Autoimmune Disease (Exclusive)

Ella Rhian had never experienced any stomach problems before and lived a healthy life. Then, in September 2023, the 28-year-old London native traveled to Vietnam on vacation with her family — and everything changed. While abroad, Rhian sampled a few foods she didn’t normally eat, including some items that weren’t fully cooked, she recalls to PEOPLE. One was a Bánh Mì sandwich she purchased from a street cart on the side of the road in 100-degree weather, and another was a lobster roll. Rhian, who grew up traveling and eating street food without issue, never expected anything to go wrong. But two days after consuming the sandwiches, she started feeling unwell and seemingly developed food poisoning.

“I was like, ‘There’s something not right,’ but I didn’t think anything of it,” Rhian, now 30, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “Then, a month later, my boyfriend and I made something from a cookbook that had loads of oil in it, and I was up all night in agony.” “My stomach was in so much pain, and that had never happened to me before,” she adds. “That’s when I started to wonder what was going on. Then, I started getting all these symptoms, including blood when I went to the toilet — symptoms that I couldn’t ignore.”

In January 2024, Rhian went to the doctor and ended up having a colonoscopy. After the appointment, she waited 10 weeks for her results. In March 2024, she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes inflammation and ulcers in the lining of the large intestine. “It was a crazy few months, and obviously, the doctors were like, ‘We can’t identify when it happened or what caused it,’ but when you know, you know, and it seems like food poisoning is a huge trigger,” she says. (According to various medical organizations, food poisoning can trigger IBD, though has not been directly linked to causing ulcerative colitis.) “To be honest, I do think it was genetic,” she adds. “I have bowel cancer in my family, and some relatives died young. I think they probably had undiagnosed IBD because inflammatory bowel disease increases your risk of bowel cancer. So, in my mind, I think it’s genetic, and I must have had it underlying in my body, and that food poisoning just triggered it.”

After seeing the doctor, Rhian started sharing her diagnosis experience on TikTok. Recently, one of her videos went viral, amassing almost 14 million views and 4,000 comments. “I think with the nature of my autoimmune disease — inflammatory bowel disease — it’s not sexy, it’s not cute,” she says. “I was bleeding from my bum talking about that on the Internet, and knowing that people from my school, people I’ve dated, people from anywhere I know have obviously seen the videos of me talking about that was hard at first.” “But the amount of people that were in my DMs when I posted the colonoscopy video asking for advice and asking how they can see their doctor or get fast-tracked, that made it worth it,” she adds. “I’ve actually made real-life friends from posting. Now I have a friend that I regularly meet up with in London who also has ulcerative colitis, and it’s so nice to just be able to vent about really niche things that my other friends wouldn’t get.”

Since her diagnosis, Rhian has met with a few consultants and was prescribed mesalamine, which she takes twice a day. Six months ago, after starting the medication, she went into remission. “I don’t have any symptoms,” she says. “Every now and then, I might eat something, usually fried food, that triggers my stomach, and then I’m reminded that it’s still there. The first six months were rough, but now, with a good diet, exercise and my medication, it’s been manageable.” “I feel like in the beginning, I genuinely thought my world was ending when I first got diagnosed. I feel like if I could go back and be like, ‘It’s okay, it’s going to be okay.’ But I don’t regret eating anything. I don’t regret doing anything. It is what it is.”