How to Diagnose Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) refers to a disorder that involves inflammation of the colon or rectum. Doctors find it difficult to diagnose inflammatory bowel disease because the symptoms are shared with many other disorders and health complications. Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease are the most diagnosed conditions and many patients live with IBD symptoms that doctors are unable to diagnose as one particular disorder. Read on to learn how to diagnose inflammatory bowel disease.

Difficulty:

Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Expect to undergo a sigmoidoscopy. A sigmoidoscopy helps a doctor diagnose ulcerative colitis by examining and taking pictures of the rectum and sigmoid (or left) colon. The procedure is done with tubing inserted into the rectum with a camera on the end called an endoscope.

2. Request a colonoscopy for a complete picture of rectum and colon health. A colonoscopy entails an endoscope traveling through the rectum and the entire large bowel while the patient is under sedation. A colonoscopy is routinely used to diagnose Crohn's disease and a tissue sample might be taken for further examination as well.

3. Get a copy of the pictures your doctor takes of your colon during sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy procedures. To diagnose Crohn's disease, a doctor must find random patches of deep ulcers. To diagnose ulcerative colitis a doctor looks for an even amount of inflammation in the colon that bleeds with contact.

4. Ask your doctor about looking at your digestive tissue under a microscope for inflammatory cells called granulomas. Granulomas can help diagnose Crohn's disease, but they are also present in other health conditions.

5. Undergo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to help your doctor diagnose Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. MRS is a variation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and can help doctors determine which of the two diseases a patient is suffering from.

6. Check your small intestine for Crohn's disease with an upper barium X-ray. This procedure requires the patient to drink a barium shake to have X-ray pictures taken.

Tips & Warnings

• If you are unsure about your symptoms and what they mean, see a gastroenterologist. Gastroenterologists diagnose inflammatory bowel disease, and have access to the latest tests and trends due to their specialization in digestive disorders.

• Use inflammatory bowel disease test results to help a secondary doctor diagnose your illness. Since IBD is difficult to diagnose, a second opinion can be helpful.

• Consider ultrasound testing to diagnose Crohn's disease in children. If you are a parent, talk to your child's doctor about whether taking ultra-sound measurements of the bowel wall could be helpful in evaluating your child.