Posted 8/1/2017 4:43 PM (GMT 0)
In a normal large intestine the small blood vessels, known as capillaries, form an orderly and predictable pattern that's visible on the surface through a colonoscopy (picture a tile floor with a pattern that repeats itself). In medical jargon, that is known as a "vascular pattern." Repeat patterns of inflammation and healing with IBD patients causes that vascular pattern to become very disorderly, random, and chaotic, and that's very distinct when looking at us through a colonoscopy (to continue with the prior example, picture bunches of tiles randomly thrown around a room, many broken and/or arranged wildly). Inflammation causes our intestinal walls to inflate to many times their normal thickness, and when they repeatedly thicken and thin, the capillaries get all jumbled up. In IBD, that is known as a permanent architectural change within the makeup of our large intestine, and the loss of vascular pattern is visible when we're symptom free in a remission, and when we are flaring. Permanent architectural changes are proof we have a chronic illness, and not just a one-time infection. They're nothing at all to worry about, and don't cause us any symptoms at all.