Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are variable, affecting tissues outside digestive system and having an important mark on person’s self esteem; many times patients suffering from this disease are very depressive and unable to perform their activities. When we mention inflammatory bowel disease symptoms we have in mind Chron disease and ulcerative colitis.

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms list

Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are represented by digestive symptoms and non-digestive symptoms:

•  diarrhea is the most frequent and annoying symptom among the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms; some patients may have numerous watery stools,
• constipation: this is an often symptom in rectitis, (patients with ulcerative colitis complain of constipation, because this disease affects the rectum at the onset),
• abdominal pain- it is one of the frequent inflammatory bowel disease symptoms, it can be diffuse, or located in the iliac fossa (Chron disease affects, more frequently, the terminal ileum, which is the most distant part of the small intestine, located in the right iliac fossa, while ulcerative colitis affects rectum in most of the cases),
• stool with blood-it is a common finding among inflammatory bowel disease symptoms,
• weigh loss because of the diarrhea, which stops the intestine to absorb nutrients,
• fever, it is the response of the body to the inflammation of the intestine,
• abnormal communication among different parts of the intestine, or among intestine and urinary bladder or vagina (in medical practice this condition is called fistula),
• intestine stenosis (it is one of the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms known as Chron disease)-meaning a narrowing of the intestine lumen,
• blood cells abnormalities: anemia (low number of red blood cells and hemoglobin), a large number of platelets (a condition that predisposes to blood clots),
• deficits of vitamins and other nutrients, due to diarrhea, which favors malabsorption,
• intestine perforation,
• digestive cancer.

Non-digestive inflammatory bowel disease symptoms are represented by different medical conditions: liver disease (cholangiocarcinoma, primitive sclerosing cholangitis), arthritis, myositis (these patients need treatment with cortisone, which can determine, as an adverse effect, myositis), renal failure (due to dehydration), oral ulcerations, stomatitis etc.
How do we diagnose it? Once there is a clinical suspicion, a colonoscopy and intestine biopsy are needed in order to confirm the inflammatory bowel disease and also to distinguish between the two forms of inflammatory bowel disease (for each disease, there is a different histological pattern, the macroscopic aspect and the lesions location are criteria used to confirm which one of the inflammatory bowel disease is responsible for symptoms).
What is the treatment for this disease? Depending on whether there are complications, inflammatory bowel disease can be treated with cortisone (there are schemes of treatment starting with increasing doses of cortisone, which will be diminished gradually once the disease is under control), anti-inflammatory agents (like sulfasalazine), immunosuppressive medication (if the first two types of drugs are not effective) or surgery if there are complications like fistula, stenosis or intestine perforation or if disease can’t be controlled with medication.
What is the evolution of the inflammatory bowel disease? Inflammatory bowel disease symptoms have a fluctuanting evolution; there are periods with symptoms, followed by “free” periods. There are medical scales which can estimate the severity of the disease, using indices like red blood cell sedimentation rate, heart rate, body temperature, numbers of stools per day.

If any of the inflammatory bowel disease symptoms occur do not treat yourself and call a doctor.