Diagnosing Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Reasons to Stay Optimistic
If you’ve been suffering from IBD for a while, determining a diagnosis can help you feel better.
Getting a diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) can be overwhelming. When you have IBD, it means you either have ulcerative colitis (UC) or Crohn’s disease, both of which are autoimmune diseases that cause chronic inflammation in the digestive tract.
But there are reasons to be optimistic, despite your IBD diagnosis. It can be worse to be uncertain about what’s going on with your symptoms. And once you do, you and your provider can come up with a treatment plan.
“That’s the most important thing, because all we want is to be able to know what’s happening so that we can make you feel well,” says Zöe Gottlieb, MD, Gastroenterologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. “And if we don’t have that information, we really can’t treat you effectively.”
Avoiding treatment for IBD can be dangerous, causing chronic inflammation, bleeding, and ulcers inside the colon. It can increase your long-term risk for colon cancer, too.
Finding the right treatment plan, on the other hand, may make you feel better and help avoid complications.
“I want you to feel comfortable going on a long car trip or going on the subway,” says Dr. Gottlieb. “I want you to be able to sleep through the night without having to think that you’re going to wake up [in the middle of the night to use the bathroom several times].”
- Zoë Gottlieb, MDDr. Gottlieb is a board-certified gastroenterologist and assistant professor at Mount Sinai Hospital.
References
Cai, Zhaobei, et al. (2021). Treatment of inflammatory bowel disease: A comprehensive review. Frontiers in Medicine.
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. (2017). Colonoscopy.
Pithadia, Anand B, et al. (2011). Treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Pharmacological Reports.