Is chronic colitis serious?

Although many people have heard of colitis, they don’t know what it is. Colitis varies in severity from case to case. Some severe cases of colitis will affect your life. Generally speaking, the main symptoms of colitis are constipation and bleeding. People in serious condition may also experience dizziness and general weakness. Moreover, colitis is difficult to cure and usually recurs repeatedly. Severe cases may result in death.

1. Toxic intestinal dilatation:

The clinical manifestations are rapid deterioration of the disease and obvious symptoms of poisoning, accompanied by diarrhea, abdominal tenderness and rebound pain, weakened or disappeared bowel sounds, increased white blood cell count, and easy complications of intestinal perforation.

2. Intestinal stenosis:

It often occurs in cases with extensive lesions and a duration of more than 5-25 years. The location is mostly in the left colon, sigmoid colon or rectum. It is generally asymptomatic clinically. In severe cases, it can cause intestinal obstruction. When intestinal stenosis occurs in this disease, one must be alert to tumors and distinguish between benign and malignant.

3. Intestinal perforation:

It is mostly a complication of toxic intestinal dilatation, but may also be severe, often occurring in the left colon. The use of corticosteroids is considered a risk factor for intestinal perforation.

4. A lot of blood in the stool:

Blood in the stool is one of the main clinical manifestations of this disease, and the amount of blood in the stool is also an indicator of the severity of the disease.

5. Colon cancer:

About 5% of cases develop cancer, which is more common in patients with lesions involving the entire colon, onset in childhood and a history of more than 10 years.

6. Diarrhea

Diarrhea is the most common symptom of colitis, and there are many abnormal stools such as bloody stools, watery stools, mucous stools, and loose stools. In mild cases, bowel movements occur every 1 to 2 hours, and the stool is sometimes filled with mucus, pus, and blood, or watery stool without feces. 5% of patients with ulcerative colitis may experience constipation, which is mostly a case of enteritis. Because there is blood in the stool, it is often mistaken for hemorrhoidal bleeding.

7. Constipation

Colitis and proctitis are the causes of constipation, which can be caused by systemic metabolic disorders, nervous system diseases, or small anal fissures in the anus.

8. Tips

Patients with chronic enteritis need to eliminate symptoms of intestinal inflammation and restore the balance of intestinal flora. Symptomatic treatment alone (such as taking laxatives or antidiarrheal drugs) cannot cure the disease. In addition, antibiotics destroy the balance of intestinal microecology. If they must be used, please use them in combination with probiotic preparations.