Colitis Symptoms

What is Colitis?

Colitis is acute inflammation or chronic inflammation of the membrane inside layer the colon bowel or large intestine. It causes sores and inflammation called as ulcers, which is in the top layers of the large intestine. This rarely affects to the small intestine.

The inflammation makes often the colon empty causing the diarrhea. At the place where inflammation killed colon lining cells, forms the ulcers. The ulcers losses the blood and creates mucus and pus.

This is an inflammatory bowel disease. This causes the diseases that cause swelling in the intestines.
- Colitis is very difficult to identify because its symptoms are very similar to another intestine diseases like irritable bowel syndrome and
- Crohn disease different from ulcerative colitis since it causes the irritation deeper within the wall of the intestinal. Crohn disease generally happens in the small intestine, but it also happen in the esophagus, mouth, stomach, large intestine, duodenum, appendix, and the anus.
Up to the two million people in the US are expected to have either Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is normally occurred in younger people before the age of thirty. It affects equally to both women and men

Colitis Causes:

This can be caused by different processes of the diseases. These processes contain acute infections and chronic infections, inflammatory disorders, lack of blood flow and the radiation history to the large bowel.

Emotional suffering or compassion to definite foods or the food products are not responsible for ulcerative colitis, but these factors may trigger the colitis symptoms in some people.

Chronic inflammation creates two major forms which are disease of inflammatory bowel. These diseases are Crohn disease and ulcerative colitis. Several features of these diseases have several causal factors:
- Family connection: Both the conditions are normal when you have first degree relatives such as father, mother, brother or sister.
- Genetic: High similarity of the symptoms occurs among the identical twins, mainly with the Crohn disease.
- Infectious agents or environmental toxins
- Immune system: Some changes in the immune system of the body identified to the contributing to the disease of inflammatory bowel but this is not specific for either Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis.
- Smoking: Smokers increase the risk of creating Crohn disease while smoker develops half risk for developing the ulcerative colitis.
- Oral contraceptive pill: Birth control pills cause the Crohn disease.
- Psychological factors: Psychological factor creates the course of disease and response to the therapy.
Other colitis causes placed in the categories described below:
- Infectious colitis: A number of bugs cause the colitis. Following germs are included such as:
  - Bacteria: Mostly found in contaminated water or in food. Bacteria produce toxins that activate intestinal cells for secreting salt and water and interfere with the normal functions. Some of the examples of bacteria which cause the infection are Shigella, Salmonella, species, Clostridium and Campylobacter jejuni.
  - Viruses: Rotavirus and Norwalk are the viruses those damage the mucous membrane and disturb the absorption of fluid.
  - Protozoa: People affected with this do not show any symptoms or they have mild, chronic, loose, bowel movements or the acute severe dysentery.
- Radiation-associated colitis: This may occur at changeable periods after the treatment of the pelvic part using radiotherapy.
- Ischemic colitis: This causes the pushing of the blood away from the intestinal lining which is contributing factor.
- Antibiotic-associated colitis: This is mostly occurs in the people after receiving antibiotics.

Colitis Symptoms:

Depending on the cause of your colitis, you may have some of the more common symptoms:
- Frequent loose bowel movements with or without blood
- Lower abdominal discomfort or cramps
- Urgency to have a bowel movement and bowel incontinence
- Weight loss with continuing diarrhea
- Fever, lethargy, and loss of appetite
If you develop chronic inflammatory bowel disease, you may also have complications, possibly because your immune system triggers inflammation in other parts of your body, such as these:
- Liver and kidney problems
- Eye problems or pain
- Neck or lower back pain
- Joint problems
- Skin rashes

Diagnosis of Colitis:

To rule out other causes of symptoms and make a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, doctors first ask about medical history and conduct a physical exam. They may also perform a number of tests:

Barium enema uses a contrast agent called barium, which shows up as white on X-rays. The barium is delivered to the intestine through an enema, and sometimes doctors insert air into the colon as well. The resulting X-rays give doctors detailed pictures of the large intestine so they can look for abnormalities.
Stool specimen tests detect bacteria, a virus or a parasite so doctors can see if one of these agents is causing diarrhea or other symptoms.
Blood tests check for signs of inflammation and anemia, which indicates bleeding.
Colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy are the most accurate methods of diagnosing ulcerative colitis. Both use an endoscope, a thin tube equipped with a light and a camera. During sigmoidoscopy, the tube is inserted into the rectum and the lower part of the large intestine; in colonoscopy, it travels farther into the large intestine. Doctors examine images on a TV monitor, looking for inflammation, bleeding or ulcers. They also can take samples of tissue, or biopsies, using the endoscope.

Treatment of Colitis:

Self-Care at Home:

Treatment on the colitis may be taken as follows:

Drink the fluid which is clear such as lemonade, water, light lemon tea, and the light soup.
Drink minimum 8 to 10 glasses of the water and other types of liquids every day to avoid difficulties like dehydration.
If the colitis symptoms get increases, then start to eat the low fiber foods. Don't eat fatty or oily food for some of days.
For the colitis, correct treatment is very necessary. Keep the food diary for tracking the problem..

Medical Treatment:

Doctor checks the causes of colitis and complications and then decided the treatment. Following treatments are necessary for the improving colitis:

For controlling mild diarrhea, diphenoxylate, loperamide codeine, anticholinergics etc may be useful for reducing the bowel movements. If person have inflammatory bowel disease then drugs should be avoided.
Cholestyramine (Questran): This is an agent which binds bile salts which is helpful for managing diarrhea connected with Crohn disease. This is mostly identified in the people who have part of small intestine detached. Bentyl is useful for removing the intestinal spasms.
Major attacks of the inflammatory bowel disease need admission in the hospital and helpful care such as IV fluids, bowel rest etc
Restricted diet must be taken.

For more information on colitis symptoms follow below pages