Symptoms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
The most common symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease are:
- Cramping pain in the belly
- Ongoing diarrhea
- Blood in stool (feces)
- Weight loss
The symptoms range from mild to severe. It’s normal for people with IBD to have periods without any symptoms (remission), sometimes for months or years, and then to get symptoms again (recurrence). The periods of remission can make it difficult for doctors to make a diagnosis.
IBD can lead to other health problems, which cause their own symptoms. Read more about the complications of Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Diagnosis
To diagnose inflammatory bowel disease, your child's doctor will ask you for a detailed history of your child’s illness. The doctor will examine your child.
Your child's doctors may also use several kinds of tests, including:
- Blood tests. Blood tests check for anemia, caused by excessive bleeding, and can show a high level of white blood cells, a sign of inflammation. Blood tests also help doctors find out if the problem is Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis.
- Tests on a stool sample. Doctors use these tests to find blood or signs of infection.
- X-rays. These include an upper GI (PDF 48KB) (gastrointestinal) series with a small bowel follow-through to check the stomach and small intestine.
- CT (computed tomography) scan (sometimes said "cat scan"). A CT scan can help find an abnormal channel (fistula) that forms in the intestine, or pocket of pus (abscess).
Doctors can look at your child's intestine by inserting a thin, lighted tube (endoscope) through the anus. The tube has a camera that’s connected to a computer and a TV monitor. Using the camera, doctors can look for swelling and redness, sores (ulcers) and bleeding. They can take a tiny sample of the intestine for testing (biopsy).
When doctors look at only the lower colon, this procedure is called sigmoidoscopy (pronounced sig-moid-OSS-cope-ee). When they look at the whole colon, it’s called colonoscopy (pronounced coal-un-OSS-cope-ee).
Another similar procedure allows doctors to look at the stomach and the first part of the small intestine. The endoscope goes through your child's mouth and into the stomach.
During these procedures, we give your child medicine to help calm them and block pain.
Sometimes, doctors ask children to swallow a pill-like device that carries a tiny camera. This instrument takes pictures of the intestine. It passes out of your child's body in a stool. The pictures are viewed on a computer. This lets your child's doctors see more parts of the intestine than they can using an endoscope.