Ulcerative Colitis Symptoms - Do You Have Them?

If you are experiencing any form of abdominal pain or chronic diarrhea, wondering whether these represent ulcerative colitis symptoms is perfectly normal. In fact the condition is quite common and your diagnosis may well be correct. Read on to confirm whether your ulcerative colitis symptoms are real or imagined, and then learn what you can do to relieve your discomfort.

Ulcerative colitis represents an inflammation of the colon which can be mild or quite severe. In the latter case the inflammation can lead to ulcers which represent "sores" on the wall of your colon. This means you may experience intense cramping, as well as blood or mucus in your stool. Rectal bleeding may be another symptom, but this can also be due to other causes (such as hemorrhoids). The presence of recurring abdominal pain, sometimes in response to certain foods you may have eaten, may represent true ulcerative colitis symptoms.

The key word here is recurring. You may well be misled into thinking you have a colitis problem when, in fact, you are suffering from unhygienic cooking practices. Under-cooked meat, for example, can cause diarrhea and abdominal pain, as can insufficiently cooked eggs that harbor salmonella bacteria. These forms of food poisoning cause problems for a few days, but then usually disappear. A real case of ulcerative colitis will persistently give you problems. Fatigue, fever, and night sweats are also common symptoms of ulcerative colitis. Left untreated, the condition may develop to the point where surgery is necessary to remove a portion of the damaged colon.

Consulting with a physical to determine whether you do have ulcerative colitis is not something you should put off when you suspect it might be the cause of your discomfort. Find out early, so that you can properly decide on a course of action. It goes without saying that you cannot effectively remedy the situation if you have mis diagnosed the condition!

So what are the causes of ulcerative colitis? Surprising, for such a common affliction, the root causes of colitis are not known. Or at the very least, they are widely debated. Some believe that the immune system overreacts to the presence of intestinal bacteria. Others believe that the condition is largely hereditary, since it often manifests itself before the age of 30. These two views are not inconsistent with each other. But other physicians and holistic practitioners believe diet plays the dominant role in ulcerative colitis.

If the last group is correct, it is good news. Why? Because prescription medications for ulcerative colitis tend to put the condition into remission, without curing it. The pain typically returns at a later time, and you are back to the place you were before. But if diet is responsible for the cause of your colitis, well, you can easily effect a change there, and very possibly reverse the effects of your colitis.

Not only could this be good news, but it also makes a lot of sense. Your intestinal tract in the place where you process foods. If you are putting in low quality material that aggravates the fine chemical and bacteriological balance that has been achieved after half a billion years of evolution, you have to expect there are going to be some problems. Sorting the good foods from the bad ones just makes a whole lot of sense when it comes to considering the possible causes of your ulcerative colitis symptoms.

So what part of your diet may be responsible for your abdominal aggravation? What foods can you cut from your diet (or add to it) to improve your intestinal health?

The truth is that ulcerative colitis diets represent a large topic which cannot be covered in any useful sense in the remainder of this article. But resources for addressing the issue are available. You will not be surprised to hear that some of the more unique foods of the twenty-first century appear high on the list of suspect consumables: processed sugars, deep fried fast foods, and modern ingredients like olean. But also on the list are foods that we have consumed for centuries, but not in the quantities available to us today: white rice, salt, and coffee.