Severe colitis pain

Hi all,

I am posting for my mom who was recently diagnosed with colitis. Her only symptoms is a severe pain in her lower right abdomen. She does not have diarrhea or bloody stool and from what I’ve been reading, those are common side effects. I’m just wondering if only the pain is a symptom or if she was perhaps misdiagnosed. She is trying to get an appointment with a gastroenterologist next week. Any suggestions? She was diagnosed in the ER and they just gave her pain meds. I am really concerned about her.

There's "Ulcerative Colitis" a chronic, Inflammatory Bowel Disease. There's "Colitis or Infectious-Colitis" which is a one-time infection that typically clears up after a single course of medications. Definitely see a gasteroenteroligist-specialist doctor who can tell you more. Expect a colonoscopy.

Unfortunately, you need to see the specialist. In the meantime, it might be possible to request stool tests. If it's a pathogen causing her symptoms, it would be fairly simple to get results and treat the problem. The problem with stool tests is that they can miss things, so even if it were negative, it's not a bad idea to test more than once - unless there is a biopsy proving another cause, like IBD. Did they do any tests in the ER? I am not sure why they would assume colitis. There are other possible causes of abdominal pain.

In order, testing should include

blood tests
stool tests (for infections)
stool tests (for inflammatory markers)
colonoscopy or ct scan or mri, or some combination of them.

Norco can help with pain, obviously, but have her take as little as she can, because it can slow the function of the colon and worsen colitis; in addition it can increase odds of other adverse incidents (abscesses, other infections, etc).

Good luck with the GI appointment and let us know what they say/do.

MBlue said...
Thank you all for the replies. She has an appointment with a gastrologist Thursday. They did a sonogram and MRI in the ER and said acute colitis. They sent her home with Norco. She still needs the colonoscopy correct? She seems to think she doesn't. We've been looking into foods she would avoid if it is colitis.

The only way to tell if it is UC is to have the scope - more specifically biopsies taken during scope.

Food is linked to symptoms and only weakly linked to inflammation (the definition if IBD). It is wise to notice problem foods and avoid them. But be very careful of thinking about whatever is going on as a essentially food-driven thing that is best managed by food choices.

good luck