More people could have hidden bowel condition: Microscopic colitis

Sly Saint · Apr 17, 2023

Many people may be suffering from an undiagnosed and misunderstood bowel condition, according to the charity Guts UK.

Microscopic colitis is an inflammation of the large bowel and causes frequent watery diarrhoea, stomach pain, faecal incontinence, fatigue and weight loss.

About 17,000 people are diagnosed each year in the UK, but experts say the real number is likely to be higher.

Some standard tests for inflammatory bowel conditions do not spot it.

But despite misdiagnoses, cases have risen in the UK in recent years.

Biopsy samples
Victoria Rennison, 33, from South London, was diagnosed with microscopic colitis last year, after more than a decade of symptoms.

She saw a number of specialists but was told she had irritable bowel syndrome and "was left to get on with it".

When the condition was at its worst she would spend the entire day and many nights on the toilet, or running urgently to the bathroom.

"The diarrhoea would come on suddenly and would be profuse and watery and the pain was like intense cramps," said Victoria.

"There were even times my infant son had to sit on a bouncer in the bathroom with me for hours."

She told BBC News: "I used to be sociable and outgoing but I found it harder and harder to go out.

"I didn't want to leave the house. I had to make a map of every toilet to do so."

Victoria was finally diagnosed after a gut specialist did a colonoscopy (camera test of her bowel) and - crucially - took biopsy samples of the inflamed bowel.

On previous visits to doctors she had had colonoscopies, but no biopsy samples had been taken and the condition - which can be seen clearly when samples are put under a microscope - was missed.

She says it was a huge relief to get a diagnosis and be given treatment.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65276600

Arvo · Apr 17, 2023

Great for Victoria.

And good of the BBC to report on it, including what is needed to diagnose it.

I can't remember the source or in what context, but I recently read a whole CBT/BPS thing on these symptoms, explaining how wanting to be near a toilet because of sudden upcoming diarrhea was anxiety that you needed to be trained out of. (The thought that you needed to be near a toilet was seen as a cognitive distortion of course.)

Healthy people with zero experience of these conditions patronisingly "teaching" people who do have them how to train themselves out of it, I deeply detest this ableism pretending to be science.

NelliePledge · Apr 17, 2023

Ableism pretending to be science

Sums it up well

Hubris · Apr 18, 2023

This is a good example of why we need to study tissues more in ME. Everyone keeps looking at the blood and we never get anywhere. Studying gastric biopsies in ME patients with severe stomach symptoms, for example, would be a good idea. Nobody has done it yet.

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More people could have hidden bowel condition: Microscopic colitis

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