Ulcerative colitis

Alternative Names

Ulcerative colitis

What is Ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes long-lasting inflammation in part of your digestive tract.

As Crohn’s disease that is another common IBD, ulcerative colitis can be debilitating and sometimes can lead to life-threatening complications. Because ulcerative colitis is a chronic condition, symptoms usually develop over time, rather than suddenly.

Ulcerative colitis usually affects only the innermost lining of large intestine (colon) and rectum. It occurs only through continuous stretches of your colon, unlike Crohn's disease, which occurs anywhere in the digestive tract and often spreads deeply into the affected tissues.

Signs and symptoms

The main symptom of ulcerative colitis is diarrhea that sometimes has blood and mucus in it. You may also have abdominal cramping during bowel movements.

Other symptoms include the following:

• urgently needing to have a bowel movement
• feeling like you haven't finished on the toilet
• feeling sick
• losing your appetite
• losing weight
• having a fever and night sweats
• feeling tired
• incontinence

If you have proctitis, you may not have diarrhoea, but may still frequently have an urgent need to have a bowel movement, and have bleeding from your back passage.

You may also get associated problems in other parts of your body if you have ulcerative colitis. These may include mouth ulcers, skin rashes and lesions and inflammation (redness or pain) in your eyes, skin or joints.

Possible complications

Possible complications of ulcerative colitis include:

• Severe bleeding
• A hole in the colon (perforated colon)
• Severe dehydration
• Liver disease (rare)
• Kidney stones
• Osteoporosis
• Inflammation of your skin, joints and eyes
• An increased risk of colon cancer
• A rapidly swelling colon (toxic megacolon)

What causes

The causes of ulcerative colitis are not known. To date, there has been no convincing evidence that it is caused by infection or is contagious.

Prevention

Diet doesn’t belong to any causes ulcerative colitis, however it can help control the condition.

To prevent yourself from ulcerative colitis you should:

• Keep a food diary - you may find you can tolerate some foods, while others will make your symptoms worse. By keeping a record of what and when you eat, you should be able to eliminate problem foods from your diet.
• Eat small meals - eating five or six smaller meals a day, rather than three main meals, may make you feel better.
• Drink plenty of fluids - it is easy to become dehydrated when you have ulcerative colitis, as you can lose a lot of fluid through diarrhoea. Water is the best source of fluids. Avoid caffeine and alcohol as these will make your diarrhoea worse, and fizzy drinks as these will cause gas.

Treatment

There used to be two ways of treatment: medications and surgery. However, surgery is reserved for those with severe inflammation and life-threatening complications. There is no medication that can cure ulcerative colitis. Patients with ulcerative colitis will typically experience periods of relapse (worsening of inflammation) follow by periods of remission (resolution of inflammation) lasting months to years.

During relapses, symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, and rectal bleeding worsen. During remissions, these symptoms subside. Remissions usually occur because of treatment with medications or surgery, but occasionally they occur spontaneously, that is, without any treatment.