What is Ulcerative Colitis? How to manage it? What are the precautions to be taken? What are the signs and symptoms? What is the cause of this disease? How to treat it? How can homeopathy help you? All of this answered, in this post and of course our doctors always there to help you. Just fill in your details in the form down below and we will answer all your questions for FREE!
For more information, you can visit Wikipedia and eMedicine.
What is Ulcerative Colitis?
Ulcerative colitis is one of the forms of irritable bowel disease (IBD) as like Crohn’s disease. Ulcerative colitis is an inflammation of the colon, in which there is inflammation of the mucosa of the colon leading to ulcer formation and open sores.
Ulcerative colitis is one of the forms of irritable bowel disease (IBD) as like Crohn’s disease. Ulcerative colitis is an inflammation of the colon, in which there is inflammation of the mucosa of the colon leading to ulcer formation and open sores.
The most indicating feature of the ulcerative colitis is diarrhoea mixed with blood.
Ulcerative colitis does not show a regular form of symptoms it is an intermittent kind of disease. There are some periods where the patient is absolutely free from symptoms and some periods where there are exacerbated symptoms.
Ulcerative colitis involves only large intestine compared to the second form of irritable bowel disease i.e. Crohn’s disease which involves any part of intestines.
It is rare that ulcerative colitis involves the terminal ileum part; it affects terminal ileum only when there is a defect in the ileocecal valve.
What are the types of Ulcerative Colitis?
The extent of disease tells the severity of symptoms. Extent of disease classifies the disease in two forms and are as follows
• Extensive colitis; there is involvement of entire colon. There are very severe symptoms at this stage.
• Distal colitis; when involvement is limited up to rectum then it is termed as proctitis.
• When involvement includes rectum as well as sigmoid colon then it is termed as proctosigmoiditis.
Who are more prone to get affected with Ulcerative Colitis?
• Prevalence of ulcerative colitis is seen more in northern countries and northern areas of individual countries.
• Prevalence is present in all type of races of the world.
• Can occur or affect an individual of any age group but people with low immunity are more prone to suffer from ulcerative colitis.
• Females and males are equally affected.
• Individuals having the family history of irritable bowel disease are at higher risk of suffering from ulcerative colitis.
What are the causes of Ulcerative Colitis?
Ulcerative colitis can occur due to number of causes as follows:-
• Genetic causes; in cases of ulcerative colitis, there is seen chromosomal instability. If there is a family history of irritable bowel disease then the patient is at higher risk of a developing ulcerative colitis. On chromosomes, there are multiple regions which are responsible for the development of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Such genes are also involved in the development of cancer of colon and rectum.
The individuals who possess genetically susceptible genes for development of ulcerative colitis show derangement in the cell mediated immunity against the normal commensal bacteria’s of the intestine. This lead to the inflammation of the mucosal layer of the colon forming the disease named as ulcerative colitis.
• An auto immune response of the body; in patients where the auto immune response of the immunity is active, the colon can be one of the organs to be attacked by the auto antibodies. In such cases, no sure cause of development of ulcerative colitis is found only there is present increased amount of auto antibodies in the blood leading to the destruction of body’s own healthy cells.
• Environmental factors; as the colon is in contact with many dietary products as the colon is a major part of the digestive tract. When these dietary products enter the colon and come in contact with the mucosa these dietary products contain the certain type of substances in them to which some individuals are reactive and this reaction leads to inflammation of the mucosa of the colon.
What are dietary restrictions for Ulcerative Colitis patients?
Some common dietary products which are associated with the formation of ulcerative colitis are as follows:-
• Vitamin B 6
• Meat protein
• Alcoholic beverages
• Sulphur restricted diets
• Accutane
• Unsaturated fatty acids
• Breast feeding; breast feeding can reduce the risk of developing ulcerative colitis.
• Psychological stress is a great factor involved in the development of ulcerative colitis.
• Milk intake can lead to increase in the formation of ulcerative colitis.
• The smoking cause is involved in Crohn’s disease the comparatively to ulcerative colitis play no role.
What are the signs and symptom of Ulcerative colitis?
Ulcerative colitis symptoms depend on the severity of the disease and the area of colon and rectum involved by disease.
• Loose stools mixed with blood and mucus.
• Regular loss of blood leads to the anaemic condition.
• Pain in the abdomen before and after passing stools.
• There are painful abdominal cramps.
• Fever may be an additional symptom.
• Weight loss.
• Nausea and vomiting.
• Some other associated symptoms are knee pains.
• Ulcers on skin and mucosa of the mouth.
• Pain in joints with swelling.
Ulcerative colitis also involves extra intestinal features and that is as follows depending upon the organs involved :
• In mouth; ulcers on tongue, lips or buccal mucosa.
• Eyes; inflammation of iris termed as iritis, another inflammation is episcleritis (inflammation of sclera).
• On skin; erythema nodosum ( inflammation of the subcutaneous tissue of the extremities ), painful ulcers ( pyoderma gangrenosum )
• Clubbing feature is seen on the ends of a finger.
• Inflammation of the bile duct is also seen with ulcerative colitis known as primary sclerosing cholangitis.
• On musculoskeletal system; sacroiliitis (inflammation of the lower spine region), ankylosing spondylitis.
What is the differential diagnosis for Ulcerative colitis?
• Crohn’s disease.
• Colon polyposis syndrome.
• Colon polyps.
• Diverticulitis of colon.
• Adenocarcinoma of a colon.
• Gastroenteritis due to bacteria.
• Infectious colitis.
• Rectal cancers and carcinomas.
• Trauma to the intestines.
• Toxicity of mega colon.
• Ischemia of mesenteries.
• Tuberculosis of gastrointestinal tract.
What Homeopathic treatment is advised in cases of Ulcerative Colitis?
• Arsenic album
• Ferrum metallicum
• Mercurius corrosiveness
• Nitricum Acidum
• Nux vomica
