Ulcerative Colitis – What is it, Symptoms and Treatments!

Ulcerative Colitis – What is it, Symptoms and Treatments of this disease. Also, Ulcerative Colitis occurs when the lining of your large intestine and rectum becomes inflamed. While the exact cause of Ulcerative Colitis is unknown, your genes, environment, and immune system all play a role. Ulcerative Colitis is a chronic condition.

Treatment usually involves drug therapy or surgery. Ulcerative Colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). IBD comprises a group of diseases that affect the gastrointestinal tract.

Ulcerative colitis occurs when the lining of your large intestine (also called the colon), rectum, or both becomes inflamed. This inflammation produces small sores called ulcers in the lining of your colon. It usually starts in the rectum and spreads upward. This can involve the entire colon.

Inflammation causes your bowel to move its contents quickly and empty frequently. As cells on the surface of the lining of the intestine die, ulcers form.

Ulcers can cause bleeding and discharge of mucus and pus. Although this disease affects people of all ages, most people are diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 35. After age 50, another small increase in diagnosis for this disease is seen, usually in men.

Causes of Ulcerative Colitis: The exact cause of Ulcerative Colitis is unknown. Previously, it was believed that diet and stress could be among the causes of the condition, but now it is known that this can only exacerbate the problem but not cause Ulcerative Colitis .

One possible cause is an immune system disorder . Similarly when the immune system tries to fight an invading virus or bacteria, in this case an abnormal immune response causes it to attack the body’s own cells. In this case, the mucosal cells of the colon and rectum. It is as if the organism understands that the large intestine is a foreign organ, persistently trying to fight it.

Heredity also appears to play a role in the incidence of Ulcerative Colitis , as the disease occurs in people who have family members with the condition. However, most people with Ulcerative Colitis do not have this family history.

Symptoms of Ulcerative Colitis: The severity of symptoms varies among affected people. According to Cedars-Sinai, about 50 percent of people diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis have mild symptoms. However, symptoms can be severe. Common symptoms of ulcerative colitis include:

• abdominal pain
• increased abdominal sounds
• bloody stools
• diarrhea
• fever
• rectal pain
• weight loss
• malnutrition

Ulcerative Colitis can cause additional conditions, such as:

• joint pain
• joint swelling
• Nausea and decreased appetite
• skin problems
• canker sores
• eye inflammation

Ulcerative Colitis Treatments: Ulcerative Colitis is a chronic condition. Treatment usually involves drug therapy or surgery. The goal of treatment is to reduce the inflammation that causes your symptoms. Your doctor may prescribe medication to reduce inflammation and swelling. These types of medications include:

• sulfasalazine (Azulfidine);
• mesalamine (Asacol and Lialda);
• balsalazide (Colazal);
• olsalazine (Dipentum);

Reducing inflammation will help alleviate many of your symptoms.

More severe cases may need corticosteroids, antibiotics, drugs that suppress immune function, or antibody drugs, called biologics, that help block inflammation in a different way. If your symptoms are severe, you will need to be hospitalized to correct the effects of dehydration and electrolyte loss that diarrhea causes and to treat any complications.

Surgery is necessary when there is massive bleeding, chronic and debilitating symptoms, colon perforation, or severe blockage. A CT scan or colonoscopy can detect these serious problems.

The surgery involves removing your entire colon by creating a new pathway for waste. This path can be taken through a small opening in your abdominal wall or redirected back to the end of your rectum.

To redirect waste through your abdominal wall, your surgeon will make a small opening in the abdominal wall. The tip of the lower small intestine , or the ileum, is then brought to the surface of the skin.

Waste will drain through the opening in a bag. If waste can be redirected through your rectum, your surgeon removes the diseased part of your colon and rectum, but retains the outer muscles of your rectum.