Colitis - The Bad

Colitis - The Bad

Introduction

Ulcerative colitis affects the large intestine, specifically the colon mucosa and cause inflammation which is continuous and uniform. The main symptoms of colitis are diarrhoea, sometimes bloody and rectal bleeding, fever is also considered as the symptom. Acute colitis is usually prevalent, often combined with simultaneous acute inflammation of the mucous membrane of the small intestine (acute enterocolitis), and sometimes the stomach (gastroenterocolitis).

Discussion and Analysis

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease make the bowel (intestine) inflamed, irritated, swollen, and unable to function in a healthy way. Ulcerative colitis affects the large intestine (the colon) and the rectum but does not involve the small intestine (the part of the bowel that connects the stomach to the colon and that is responsible for almost all the body's food digestion and absorption of nutrition). Crohn disease affects both the small intestine and the colon.

Ulcerative colitis is found almost equally in men and women and tends to appear in young adults, although it can be diagnosed at any age. Ulcerative colitis occurs in families in approximately 2% to 5% of cases, which is a higher frequency than expected by chance, meaning that it sometimes has an inherited (genetic) pattern. The main symptom of the disease is bloody diarrhoea, and a person who has this symptom is usually referred to a gastroenterologist, a doctor who specializes in the management of digestive disorders.

When we experience any intestinal problem then most of us are not able to differentiate between the inflammatory bowel disease, inflammatory bowel syndrome as well as ulcerative colitis. The reason is that all these conditions are quite similar.

If you are diagnosed with colitis then you must be ready to face the symptoms that we are about to discuss. We have said it earlier that the symptoms are more or less same in all intestinal problems like cramps in abdomen, stomach ache, gas, constipation, diarrhea, and blood in stool, vomiting, fever like feeling and weight loss because of appetite loss.

These are the common symptoms which may vary in intensity depending on how severe the attack is. At initial stage of the problem sometimes it is quite challenging to diagnose from the symptoms that which disease has attacked you. There is one big difference which can help in diagnosis i.e. when a person is diagnosed with colitis then it is classified as a disease because the large ...