question about yesterdays scope-- tortuous colon, childhood trauma?

My sister has that. They could not get the scope into the terminal ileum. Years later with a capsule endoscopy they discovered she actually has crohns with inflammation in the terminal ileum. If you can, push to investigate your terminal ileum. My sister has permanence scarring from untreated crohns and the valve between the small and large intestine doesn't work as well as it should, due to years of misdiagnosis (they thought it was IBS). The connection with childhood trauma i would take with a pinch of salt (and even if it were true you can't undo the past).

I agree with Poopydoop RE "childhood trauma". That could be anything from diet to OTC med to enema solution to a pathogen infection somewhere in the body. Some years back I heard from a colleague at work that the mother of her son's nursery school classmate had confided she gave her 3 yr-old daughter OTC laxatives for repeat constipation. That would likely qualify as childhood trauma. *** The terminal ileum issue would be of concern, though, in your case. Hopefully the complete scope report will enable you to get appropriate follow-up on that. / Old Hat (40+ yrs with left-sided UC; in remission taking Colazal)

No, not everyone has the same size of a colon. You can do a search on the net & look up the studies on tortuous colon. I read they can do repeat scopes with a different scope in areas the regular scope couldn't get through. The NIH gives the definition of tortuous as longer than normal colon. There is plenty of junk reading on the net, stick with the medical sites with studies. This is why I commented about my DIL's mother. I don't understand why drs would think constipation & UC are odd. Some people can have constipation/diarrhea with either disease, not just when flaring.

When you see your dr again make a list of questions for sure. As for crohns typically they see patchy or cobblestone looking inflammation. Be sure to get a copy of your records including the biopsy report.

Take care.

My sister sent me one of her colonoscopy reports, indeed it said the phrase "tortuous colon". She is 5'6 so not particularly small....

Yes the brain and the body interact, but everyone has childhood trauma in one form or another and ulcerative colitis nearly always starts in the rectum.

I have had years of psychotherapy and one of the things we worked on in the early days is accepting that I cannot control UC with the power of my mind. Obviously stress makes things worse and can trigger or exacerbate flares, but for the most part my body does what it wants to do. One of the problems with looking for a psychosomatic cause for every disease is it results in blaming and shaming people for their illnesses, which can lead to unnecessary mental anguish, without solving the problem. IBD runs in my family/genetics.

There is a link between trauma and disease, period. There is a link between stress and disease, period. There is a link between gut health and mental health.

I am personally of the opinion, OPINION, that stressful experiences in childhood led to me developing ulcerative colitis. I may be wrong. And it doesn't really matter. But I am of the OPINION that I felt very stressed and that it likely triggered colitis.

Now it seems that the horse is out the gate, it probably won't go back in. So once you have it it's time to follow the meds prescribed by the doctors and follow all of their advice.

However, obviously the more you can relax, the better. The less you can be stressed, the better. But yeah, it's not like you can just relax and the UC will go away. Follow the medicines prescribed by the doctors because the illness is chronic and for life.

Here's how I look at it. I don't really believe you can categorically say, the fact you experienced trauma as a child means you got ulcerative colitis. That's not very scientific, is it? But you could say you think they're related. Because ANY TRAUMA OR STRESS can trigger disease in the body!

However, you have to ask yourself what's the use of actually knowing this ? Okay, maybe you can be as relaxed as possible and work on healing the trauma as much as you can. Yes that's really good and will definitely help you because emotional wellness and health are linked just like illness and stress are linked.

But like I said, once you have been diagnosed with colitis you do have the illness and thinking and feeling good things almost definitely isn't going to make it go away. So just stick with what the doctors prescribe and want you to do. And if you can heal trauma and feel as good as you can and relax as well, yes it will help.

Trigger and cause are two different things re UC or CD or other autoimmune.
q

And if they were referring to inflammation in the rectum that corresponds to about 95% of UC patients...