Our Story
We started because nobody should face this alone.
Tore Caravana and Olivia Nazari started this because they needed it themselves. Both are living with IBD and know what it means to feel unseen.
Olivia & Tore
Two friends who turned their hardest years into this.
“It wasn't just a gut feeling. It was a real diagnosis, and a community we needed to build ourselves.”
More Than A Gut Feeling was started by Tore Caravana and Olivia Nazari, two friends who are both living with IBD themselves. They know what it feels like to have an illness that other people can't see. The urgent, unplanned moments. The doctor's appointments where they were told it was probably just stress. The exhaustion of having to explain something invisible over and over again.
Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis affect millions of people. But despite that, so many patients still feel invisible. Dismissed by medical professionals, misunderstood by the people around them, and too worn down to keep advocating for themselves.
They started this organization because that needed to change. People living with IBD deserve more than sympathy. They deserve community, real resources, and a world that finally takes them seriously.
So they built what they wished had existed for them.
1.6M
Americans living with IBD
70K
New diagnoses every year
15–35
Peak age of diagnosis
1 in 4
Patients feel dismissed by doctors
In Partnership With
Cedars-Sinai
The Name
Why “More Than A Gut Feeling”?
Because for too long, IBD has been dismissed. Patients are told their symptoms are from anxiety, stress, or diet. That what they're experiencing is “just” a gut feeling. Not a real, serious, life-changing condition.
The name is a reclamation. A reminder that this is real, that you are seen, and that IBD deserves far more recognition than it gets.
In Their Own Words
Meet Olivia & Tore.
Olivia Nazari
Co-Founder
Hi, I'm Olivia. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in the middle of my junior year of high school, right in the middle of soccer season. Life changed fast after that. I missed a month of school and my whole season, spent time bed-ridden and in the hospital, and lost 25 pounds in two weeks. Mostly, I just felt hopeless and alone, like the world was moving on without me while I was stuck.
I tried a handful of medications that didn't work, feeling worse each time one failed. An infliximab infusion helped for a bit, until I fell back into a flare a few weeks later. It wasn't until Dr. Ziring found the right medication for me that things actually turned around.
Now I'm back on the soccer field and applying to college as I start senior year. Those are things I genuinely didn't think I'd get to do again. I want other kids and teens going through this to know they're not alone. That's what More Than A Gut Feeling is for: so people with IBD know someone else found their way through it, and that they can too.
Tore Caravana
Co-Founder
Hi, I'm Tore. Like Olivia, I was diagnosed during my junior year of high school, right when everything else in my life was supposed to be picking up speed. Life changed fast after that. I lost 15 pounds in three weeks, dealt with constant joint pain, and spent months in and out of the hospital for tests and infusions. Mostly, I just felt exhausted and out of control of my own body.
It took a long stretch of trials and hospital visits before anything worked. Dr. Rabizadeh eventually got me on infliximab, and it made a real difference. I'm in a much better place now, but I haven't forgotten what those early months felt like.
Now I'm feeling like myself again, which still catches me off guard some days. I want other kids and teens going through this to know they're not alone in it. That's part of why Olivia and I started More Than A Gut Feeling. We know what it's like to feel like you have to carry a diagnosis like this by yourself, and we don't think anyone else should have to.