Archive for the 'Inflammatory Bowel' Category

What To Expect With A Colitis Diagnosis

Being diagnosed by a doctor with a symptom is a worrying time and often what causes a lot of anxiety is the unknown, what lies ahead and how it will affect the persons quality of life. When diagnosed with a disease, such feelings are multiplied many times as the consequences, both actual and imagined are magnified greatly in the patients thoughts.

When given a colitis diagnosis by a doctor or hospital consultant, the patient will have so many questions to ask to find out what exactly they should be prepared for. It can be difficult to source the really helpful information that can make a difference to the daily wellbeing of the sufferer though it is important to know the basics of what it is they are about to face.

The patient will face a period of time where they will be subjected to bouts of diarrhoea that will at times be frequent and uncontrollable. This will be accompanied by abdominal pain, though the degree of such symptoms will be related to the extent of the inflammation that has occurred on the large colon. There can be evidence of mucus and blood when passing waste all of which adds to the concern of the sufferer.

This period can last depending on the severity of the attack from a few days to several weeks. Some patients, though thankfully only a small percentage, have these symptoms continuously though for the vast majority once brought under control, they will reduce and be all but eliminated. The symptoms are brought under control by prescribed medication including the use of steroids.

During the colitis attack, the sufferer will feel tired and weak as the body is using all its energy to fight the disease. The amount and variety of food is normally reduced to a restricted diet which the sufferer can tolerate without exacerbating the symptoms. Many foods will be off limits during an attack and it can be a question of what food creates the least amount of reaction and waste that has to be evacuated. It is often the case that the sufferer is in fact not that hungry for periods of the attack due to the overall feeling of being unwell.

It is important to understand what happens to the colon with a colitis diagnosis and to be aware of how the sufferers actions during an attack can influence the length of it and the recovery period afterwards. To ensure that the attack is well managed, a sufferer needs to call upon the experiences of others who have been through such times and have the knowledge to make daily living easier. Such questions as how much rest is needed, what should be eaten, what degree of discomfort should be expected and how to manage it are typical of the information required to ensure that the sufferer can manage through the attack without needlessly suffering to a greater extent than they have to.

So You Have Been Given A Colitis Diagnosis

Whilst you have been given a colitis diagnosis, it is not the end of your world and you should never think like that. What it should be regarded as is the closing of part of your life and the beginning of another stage. A stage that is, at the beginning, filled with anxiety, doubts, fears, even foreboding about the possibilities that await you in the future.

You will want all the questions answered, your anxieties soothed and a clear path for you to travel revealed. It is not as easy as that, as sufferers experience different intensities of the disease, yet what separates us also brings us together as so many similarities overlap.

Your life will change but maybe not to the degree that you think it will. The colitis symptoms that you experience may only ever reach the mild form and can be managed successfully. That does not mean to say that you can just ignore them or not take them seriously. Even mild symptoms will have an effect on your daily routine when colitis rears its ugly head. Your lifestyle will have to adjust, what you do, what you eat, the medication that you have to take, all have to be taken into consideration. You do not want to undertake anything that might have the effect of exacerbating the problems. In effect, you have to respect the disease, the power that colitis has to inflict serious illness upon a sufferer. Once you realise this and accept it, you can start to plan your defence against it.

It is only natural to envisage that your own colitis experience will be one of endless severe pain and discomfort. Just to reassure you, very few people actually suffer continuous symptoms. For the vast majority, it is a disease whose symptoms appear then disappear though the timescale in between varies among sufferers. Some fortunate ones have an attack and can then go many, many years of enjoying full health again whilst others have to be on guard as to the possibility of a pending relapse. Just to complicate matters, symptoms may appear all of a sudden and raise alarm but that does not suggest that the sufferer is at the start of a relapse. Experience is the key to understanding this and learning from others is vital in this respect.

The degree of severity of colitis relapses can vary and from mild to full blown symptoms. At these times, it can be very hard to endure the prolonged symptoms An attack can take so much out of you both physically and mentally and can last for several months, though thankfully the worst of the attack can be over in a matter of weeks.

It is very important to prepare yourself mentally for such times, as this approach will assist you in your most difficult days and aid recovery. There will be periods during a relapse when you yearn to be well again, when you will feel very fed up and tired of the same routine that has been inflicted upon you. Pre preparing for this holds the key for a timely recovery. The knowledge and experience of others who have been through many relapses hold the answers to ensure your own colitis diagnosis and all it brings is managed as well as it can be.

What You Face With Colitis Surgery

There comes a time when a percentage of colitis sufferers reach the point when they are faced with the prospect of surgery to remove the large intestine. Whatever the varying reasons for this, the prospect of having a major organ taken out of the body is both alarming and anxiety ridden for the patient.

Often, colitis surgery is undertaken due to the symptoms having reached an uncontrolled state. The patient will by then have been admitted to hospital and will be administered high dosages of powerful steroids which will not have the desired effect of bringing under control the diarrhoea and blood being passed.

The operation to extract the diseased large colon is major and will take approximately four to five hours. The patient will require the formation of an ileostomy which shall be used as the end point of the bowel to evacuate waste. The end of the ileostomy is in fact the end of the small bowel which is brought through a hole formed on the abdominal wall. It pokes out by approximately two to four centimetres and a bag is attached to the surrounding skin to catch and store the bodys waste.

After surgery, the patient will feel sore from both the surgical wound and internally. As the small bowel will have been handled and inspected it will feel quite raw though the bonus is that it will not be in an operative state. After such major surgery, the bowel goes into a period of abeyance which can last for a few days before it reawakens and starts to function again.

The ilesotomy will remain for a period of time to let the body heal before further surgery is undertaken. The length of the period will be determined by the health of the patient when they were admitted to hospital. Some patients, often older, prefer to keep the ileostomy but this is not the only option available. Many decide to have further operations to form what is known as a j pouch which is an internal area formed from the small intestine and used to store the waste until evacuation and does away with the need for an ilesotomy.

Colitis surgery is major and can take the form of one or several operations where the formation of an ileostomy can be either temporary or permanent. It is a time of major anxiety about the procedure itself and how to cope not just in the immediate days after but in the long term as well. Questions such as what does it feel like not to have a large colon, how is the diet affected, how is daily life affected by wearing a bag are commonly asked. By finding practical answers to problems, the patient will be able to ensure that their immediate post surgery period and living with an ileostomy or j pouch is made much easier and the anxieties that are present can be addressed.