Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are lifelong conditions, but they are manageable ones, and treatment has changed enormously.
Inflammatory bowel disease is chronic inflammation of the digestive tract driven by the immune system. It is distinct from irritable bowel syndrome, despite the similar name — in IBD the bowel is genuinely inflamed and can be damaged over time, which is visible on endoscopy and in biopsies.
Ulcerative colitis affects the colon and rectum in a continuous pattern, involving the inner lining. Crohn’s disease can appear anywhere from mouth to anus, most often in the last part of the small intestine, and can affect the full thickness of the bowel wall. The distinction matters because it changes both treatment and what we watch for.
Symptoms
- Persistent diarrhea, sometimes with blood or mucus
- Abdominal pain and cramping
- Urgency, or waking at night to move the bowels
- Unintended weight loss
- Fatigue, often out of proportion to everything else
- Fever during flares
- Anemia
IBD can also affect areas outside the gut — joints, skin, and eyes among them. If you have been diagnosed with IBD and develop joint pain, a rash, or eye irritation, mention it. Those symptoms are often connected even when they seem unrelated.
How We Diagnose It
Diagnosis usually involves colonoscopy with biopsies, which lets us see the pattern of inflammation directly and confirm it under the microscope. Blood and stool testing helps assess inflammation and rule out infection, and imaging or video capsule endoscopy may be used to examine the small bowel, particularly when Crohn’s disease is suspected.
Treatment
The goal of modern IBD treatment is not simply to settle symptoms but to heal the bowel lining, because that is what prevents damage and complications over the long term. Someone can feel reasonably well while inflammation continues, which is why we monitor objectively rather than relying on symptoms alone.
Treatment is matched to the type, location, and severity of disease. Options range from anti-inflammatory medications through immune-modifying drugs to biologic therapies, which target specific parts of the immune response and have substantially changed outcomes for many patients. For patients whose treatment includes infusions, we can provide infusion therapy as part of your care here.
Ongoing care also means watching for the things that accompany IBD: nutritional deficiencies, bone health, the effects of long-term medication, and colorectal cancer surveillance, which begins earlier and runs more often in people with long-standing colitis.
When to Get in Touch
Call us during office hours if your symptoms are worsening, if a flare is not settling, or if you are having side effects from treatment. Severe abdominal pain, heavy bleeding, high fever, or persistent vomiting need emergency care — go to the nearest emergency room, since we do not have a physician on call after hours.