What is colitis? Early symptoms to know

The most typical symptom of colitis in the early stages is bloody stools. Severe increased blood flow can cause shock, as well as loss of appetite, vomiting, nausea, abdominal distension, weight loss, fatigue, insomnia, and fear of cold. Once these symptoms occur, they must be treated promptly.

1. Early symptoms

1. Blood in stool: It is one of the main symptoms of this disease. In mild cases, blood is attached to the surface, while in severe cases, fresh blood flows down and even causes shock.

2. Other symptoms: loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, weight loss, fatigue, bowel sounds, insomnia, nightmares, fear of cold, etc. In severe cases, there may be fever, rapid heartbeat, weakness, anemia, dehydration, nutritional disorders, etc.

2. Basic symptoms

(1) Diarrhea: Diarrhea is the main symptom of early colitis. It often recurs, mostly caused by improper diet, emotional excitement, and excessive fatigue.

(2) Abdominal pain: Mild patients have no abdominal pain or only abdominal discomfort. Generally, there is mild to moderate abdominal pain, which is pain in the lower left abdomen and may involve the entire abdomen. There is a pattern of relief after a bowel movement.

(3) Constipation: The patient has bowel movements once every 4-5 days. The stool is like sheep dung. In severe cases, the patient cannot have a bowel movement without taking laxatives.

(4) Other symptoms: abdominal distension, weight loss, fatigue, bowel sounds, insomnia, frequent dreams, fear of cold, and in severe cases, fever, rapid heartbeat, weakness, anemia, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, nutritional disorders, and mental weakness.

3. Causes

1. Autoimmune reaction (20%):

Most scholars believe that this disease is an autoimmune disease. Because this disease is often complicated by autoimmune diseases (such as autoimmune hemolytic anemia), adrenal cortex hormones can relieve the condition, and anti-colonic epithelial cell antibodies can be detected in the serum of some patients, so it is believed that the occurrence of this disease may be related to autoimmune reactions. In addition, after some patients are infected with intestinal bacteria, they may have an immune response to colon epithelial cell antigens, damaging the colon mucosa, and the patient's lymphocytes have a cytotoxic effect on fetal colon epithelial cells, suggesting that the occurrence of colitis may also be related to abnormal cellular immunity.

2. Infection (35%):

The pathological changes and clinical manifestations of this disease are similar to those of some colon infectious diseases (such as bacillary dysentery), so some people believe that infection is the cause of this disease. Among various factors such as bacteria, fungi and viruses, current research shows that viruses are more likely.

3. Genetics (20%):

The incidence of this disease is relatively high in blood-related families. According to statistics from European and American literature, about 15-30% of the direct blood relatives of patients with ulcerative colitis will develop the disease. In addition, studies on twins have shown that monozygotic twins are more likely to develop the disease than dizygotic twins, which means that the occurrence of this disease may be related to genetic factors.