Colitis

Collagenous Colitis , also known as lymphocytic colitis is a bit different from other forms of colitis. Collagenous colitis is found occurring more commonly in women than in men and children. The section of people most affected by this form of colitis are people of the Caucasian descent with the maximum number of cases of Colitis Collagenous being reported from the industrialized countries like Europe, Canada, UK, US, etc.

What are the symptoms of Colitis Collagenous?

· Sporadic attacks of diarrhea.

· Loose multiple watery bowel movements occurring in one day. Often these watery bowel movements are reported spanning over several hours and then stopping just as suddenly as they started.

· However, should the watery movements be continuous that presents a more serious symptom of the disease as weakness and dehydration can then occur, and as such needs to be treated immediately.

What is the cause of this disease?

The fact still remains a mystery as to how collagenous colitis is caused. Many medical scientists have come up with theories that this caused due to considerably long intake of painkilling drugs like ibuprofen. Others have proposed theories that this could be caused by food poisoning. The fact that this disease could set in to a system almost immediately and in an unknown manner, many times it remains undetected. If either of these theories on it's cause are correct, then the symptoms should stop when one stops taking painkilling drugs, or when there are no more instances of food poisoning.

How can one treat Colitis Collagenous?

Since the cause of the disease is unknown, doctors have not been able to propose an accurate treatment process to the patients. The fact that this disease is characterized by diarrhea and inflammations, treatment is pretty much done on a trial and error method. The treatments provided to patients suffering from this disease needs to be continuous else the symptoms of this disease reappears.

This disease can be treated by following elementary diet guidelines. For starters, the patients are well advised to stay away from caffeine and alcohol. Both these items generate fluid secretion in the intestine and hence a patient of this disease must, in all cases avoid these.

Anti-inflammatory drugs like sulfasalazine and mesalamine are used to treat the inflammations.

For patients who do not respond to the anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids like Prednisone is used for short bursts of the treatment. Since Prednisone is known to have potential long term side effects, Entocort is successfully used as a corticosteroid for treatment of this disease.

Medicines like Lomotil and Imodium are known for reducing symptoms of diarrhea and hence are used in the treatment of this disease.

Many other techniques and medicines are being used to treat Collagenous colitis, but the fact that the cause of this disease is largely unknown, treatment still continues to be on a trial-error basis.

Colitis |