Microscopic colitis includes 2 types of disease: lymphocytic and collagen colitis. Collagen form - this is the overflow of the walls of the colon with collagens. The lymphocytic type is the filling of the walls of the colon with lymphocytes. The main symptom is watery or mucous diarrhea. The cause of the appearance of microscopic colitis has not been identified so far, most experts tend to autoimmune - this is an unusual disease that occurs most often in older women.
Although until now the cause is not identified, all tend to develop an immune response to antigens that come from the contents of the colon's lumen. Pathology is manifested when the intestine is filled. It is only necessary to free the gut from the feces, as the calm comes and the patient's condition improves. Medications are an important part of the etiology, in particular it concerns NSAIDs. In addition to this, etiological factors include food production and intestinal microflora.
Symptoms and treatment of microscopic colitis
Symptoms:
- Frequent watery diarrhea, which becomes chronic.
- Spastic pain.
- Weight reduction.
Patient examination and laboratory studies will not give special results. Only with microscopy, white blood cells are found. At a colonoscopy also a pathology is not found out, only sometimes it is possible to meet easy variable changes.
Conventional therapeutic methods of treatment will not help in the fight against such a disease. This method of work can only testify to the lack of professionalism of the doctor. Glucocorticoid therapy is undesirable for microscopic colitis. There are examples when Budesonide was successfully applied.
Lymphocytic and collagen colitis
The first variant of the disease is an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the large intestine, which is accompanied by lymphocytic infiltration. This disease is characterized by a long recurring diarrhea.
Similar diseases are pathologies of a rare form that combine a common name - microscopic ones. Collagen colitis is characterized by hypertrophy of collagen tissue, which is located in the subepithelial layer of the large intestine.
The cause of the occurrence, as such, was not found, it is known only that everything is due to immune malfunctions in the mucosa of the large intestine.
Over the years, specialists have observed a trend that such a disease has appeared in people with diseases associated with HLA A1 and HLA A3 antigens. For example, these are diseases such as: gluten enteropathy, Sjögren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis.
It is also possible that the cause lies also in the pathogenic effect on the differentiation and formation of fibroblasts of the microbial flora of the intestine.
Collagenous colitis
Collagenous colitis is also an independent disease that enters the name of microscopic colitis. It is characterized by a microscopic change in the intestinal mucosa or a thickening of collagen fibers. The collagenous appearance of inflammation is spread mainly in women who have crossed the line of 35-40 years. The cause is also not clear, but for the most part are inclined, nevertheless, to the result of disruption and inflammation of the intestinal mucosa. Also not without hereditary predisposition and weak immunity.
Symptoms:
- Frequent watery stools;
- Abdominal pain;
- Flatulence;
- Weight reduction.
Thus in a feces are not found out, neither slime, nor a blood, and, means, it is possible to carry out endoscopic examinations.
The treatment is exposed, both the disease itself, and the causes and consequences. Therapy of collagenous colitis should have a complex direction, one can not be cured without the other. In the first place, of course, it is necessary to stop diarrhea and restore the intestinal mucosa barrier.