We are Teresa and Lisa who run the Wairarapa Support Group.

We both have Crohn's, Teresa for 34 years and Lisa for 10 years. We both enjoy a good yarn and a laugh, and this support group and meeting others has helped us become stronger and more supported.

Teresa is married, has two daughters and a 3-year-old granddaughter who is the apple of her eye. Lisa lives with her husband Jamie and very spoilt dog, Max.

We cover a wide area, from Eketahuna to Featherston, and currently our group is around 60 people and we would love to see its numbers grow.

In the last 4-5 years, we have had coffee catch ups and focussed on getting services to the Wairarapa Hospital as we lost our gastro specialist coverage in 2017.

With help from Dr Richard Stein, we were able to achieve this and now have Dr John Wyeth available once a week, and the fabulous Wuss Harvie, our unofficial IBD Nurse.

Recently Teresa put up her hand to help Lisa with the support group. Now our focus is doing more formal and informal catch ups. We recently held our first session that we organised together. We had John and Wuss as our guest speakers and were very excited to have 25 people attend the event.

We want to connect more members who live in the Wairarapa and help us work our way through this disease together, giving each other support.

Please join our Facebook Group – Wairarapa Crohn's and Colitis Support Group or email us on wairarapa@crohnsandcolitis.org.nz and we will add you to our list.

Share our group and details to anyone you know with IBD.