Symptoms of Ulcerative Colitis
Unfortunately, ulcerative colitis can be very hard to diagnose if you have to rely solely on the symptoms because so many of those symptoms can be attributed to any number of other diseases and/or illnesses. However, the symptoms that are common to ulcerative colitis include persistent or recurring diarrhea, abdominal pain and sometimes fever.
In ulcerative colitis, often diarrhea is full of mucous or bloody, and the pain is often worse just before a bowel movement. It tends to come in waves of cramps and usually on the left side of the body. Because it is an inflammatory disease, it may be accompanied by fever. Unfortunately, those very same symptoms can be indicative of other colorectal diseases or totally unrelated to the colon altogether.
Oddly enough, there may also be other physical symptoms that are so unrelated to the colon that many people, including doctors, miss them altogether. These symptoms may occur weeks or even months before the onset of ulcerative colitis, but they can also occur at the same time. It is not exactly understood why these symptoms pop up, but it is believe they are triggered by the immune system due to the inflammatory nature of ulcerative colitis. You may get iritis, which is a reddening of the eye. Some people experience pain in one or more of the large joints including the knee, shoulders, elbows, wrists or ankles. Other people experience skin lesions especially on the knees or shins while other people get ulcers in the mouth.
The only way to accurately diagnose ulcerative colitis is with radiology or laboratory tests.
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