About a million Americans suffer from ulcerative colitis (UC), a subset of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) that causes sores in the lining of your large intestine (colon).
People who have UC suffer from a wide array of symptoms that can be challenging to manage. Those symptoms tend to be worse during flare-ups, lessening or even going away entirely during periods of remission.
Our team at Digestive Disease Specialists in Moline, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa, helps patients manage UC and its symptoms with advanced therapies based on cutting-edge research. In this post, learn more about UC remission along with the treatments that can help you stay healthy.
IBD includes two diseases: ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. Both diseases cause significant inflammation and sores or ulcers in your digestive tract, along with painful and sometimes debilitating symptoms. But while Crohn’s disease can involve any part of your gastrointestinal tract, UC affects your colon.
Researchers don’t know why ulcerative colitis occurs, but they believe it’s a combination of genetics, immune system dysfunction, and environmental factors. Inflammation and sores typically affect the upper layers of the tissue that lines your colon, rarely involving deeper muscle tissue.
UC symptoms vary depending on the severity of the disease and can include:
Ulcerative colitis can also cause disruptions in a woman’s normal menstrual cycle.
UC treatment focuses on helping patients achieve remission, periods when symptoms are markedly reduced or entirely absent. Typically, that involves a combination of medications, lifestyle changes, and for more severe or unresponsive cases, surgery.
While remission may seem difficult to attain, it’s actually fairly common. In any given year, about half of all UC patients are in remission. However, it does require ongoing management and close collaboration with your care team.
For most patients, remission depends on finding the right combination of medications to manage or relieve inflammation that underlies the disease process. Several medications are available, including those that target an overactive immune system. We work individually with every patient to find a combination of medicines that works for them.
We also recommend lifestyle changes, including dietary changes, stress management, and increased physical exercise, each of which can help reduce symptoms and prevent flare-ups. In cases where these conservative options aren’t effective in helping achieve and maintain remission, we may suggest surgery to remove or bypass the damaged part of your colon.
If you have UC, remission is possible with the right combination of therapies and regular visits with our team. To learn how we can help you relieve your UC symptoms, book an appointment online or over the phone with Digestive Disease Specialists today.
