Symptoms of Colitis

Diseases and disorders particularly that of bowels and digestive process is more common than others and colitis is one such common disease that is experienced by countless people all over the world. For common man's understanding the symptoms of colitis represents the inflammation of the bowels, but as per clinical understanding there are various types of colitis, though the most common of all is the ulcerative colitis. Sedentary lifestyle especially the kind that leads to irritable bowels movement and inflammation of the small intestine is held to be one of the main responsible factors behind colitis. Let us now see here the classification, clinical description and finally the symptoms of colitis.

What exactly is colitis?

Though by the term as implied with the word itself colitis refers to the inflammatory syndromes of colon itself, but in medical terminology colitis rather is used to denote a broader spectrum of inflammatory syndromes concerning the whole large intestine which consists of colon, caecum and rectum. The symptoms of colitis can both manifest as chronic or acute and are mainly considered as part of the broader spectrum of digestive disorders. According to the different aspects like contributory factors, different syndromes and affected part of the large intestine there are different types of colitis. Some of the main types of colitis that we would like to focus here include Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, Infectious colitis, Microscopic colitis, Ischemic colitis, etc. There are also various sub types and respective difference in symptoms of colitis between them that we omitted here.

Types of colitis and respective symptoms

In the present section we would describe some of the major types of the disease along with their respective symptoms. Here are the types and corresponding symptoms of colitis.

Ulcerative colitis

Ulcerative colitis is basically an autoimmune disorder with inflammatory bowel syndrome that is mainly caused by ulcers or open sores in the large intestine or colon. Ulcerative colitis is the most common in comparison to other types of colitis. Some of the most common symptoms of ulcerative colitis include

1. Constant diarrhea mixed with blood.
2. Chronic loss of blood from gastrointestinal tract may lead to anemia.
3. Painful bowel movement
4. Abdominal pain or cramping
5. Weight loss and fatigue
6. With the rising severity associated with the disease the person may suffer from fever as well.

Inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease is the broad category of many disorderly and inflammatory symptoms including many sub types of colitis as well. Some of the common symptoms of colitis of this particular type include

1. Vomiting.
2. Diarrhea.
3. Rectal Bleeding.
4. Weight loss.
5. Cramping or inflammatory pain in the abdomen.

Microscopic Colitis

Microscopic colitis as the name suggests is a type of colitis that can only be diagnosed by microscopic examination of the tissues of the bowels and normally affected person may appear normal and so the disorder sometimes can be non symptomatic as well or else there can be emergence of symptoms of colitis in general.

Ischemic Colitis

This particular type of colitis occurs due to inadequate blood supply in the large intestine or colon and results in symptoms of colitis that include

1. Severe abdominal pain and passage of bloody stools.
2. In the later stage with widespread abdominal pain decreasing bowel mobility and corresponding bloating is experienced.
3. In the advanced stage fluid leaks through the already damaged lining of colon leading to syndromes like increased heartbeat, dehydration, low blood pressure, mild fever etc.