Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD for short, is an idiopathic inflammatory disease of the intestine, including ulcerative colitis UC and Crohn's disease CD. The so-called idiopathy can be understood as the medical community's cover-up of unknown phenomena, those diseases that do exist and cannot be avoided, but cannot find the cause, are usually called this title. IBD is one such thing, more than 200 years since it was described in the 18th century, and the cause has still not been confirmed. This chronic disease will recur, causing abdominal pain, diarrhea and other intestinal manifestations, and will also affect multiple systems throughout the body, and the performance is different, so it needs to be carefully identified.
Inflammatory bowel disease, although the name of the disease is bowel disease, however, the current academic community generally believes that the disease is a systemic disease, the cause may be immune dysfunction, activate the immune mechanism of the intestinal mucosa, produce intestinal inflammation. Chronic inflammation may affect multiple organs throughout the body, causing extraintestinal manifestations, including skin, muscles, bones, eyes, liver and gallbladder, and even affect the inner ear, resulting in hearing loss. Studies have found that in adult patients with IBD, the most common extraintestinal manifestation is arthritis or joint pain. The overall incidence of ulcerative colitis with extraintestinal manifestations is about 30%, and the overall incidence of Crohn's disease with extraintestinal manifestations is about 24%.
Arthropathy associated with inflammatory bowel disease, known as spondyloarthritis, can be subdivided into axial and peripheral types. About 3% to 10% of patients develop progressive ankylosing spondylitis with osteophytes, and can also develop finger toeitis, resulting in severe pain and swelling. In addition, 20% to 50% of patients with IBD may present with osteoporosis. Abdominal pain and diarrhea are frequent, accompanied by back or joint pain, and should be carefully examined. In such cases, in addition to physical analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs or short-term oral glucocorticoids may be considered.
The eyes, which are also the sites where inflammatory bowel disease often affects, are mainly symptoms of sensational eye irritation, eye redness, pain, and blurred vision. Primary eye disease, which can manifest as conjunctivitis, keratitis, scleritis, uveitis, and optic neuropathy. In the case of superficial scleritis, it is usually self-limiting, does not require special treatment, and can relieve symptoms with cold compresses. In the case of scleritis, vision may be affected and hormone therapy is required.
Inflammatory bowel disease also affects the skin. Common skin lesions are erythema nodosum, manifested by the appearance of raised red or purple subcutaneous nodules 1 cm to 5 cm in diameter with tenderness, and the common site is the front of the tibia, which usually does not leave scars after healing. In addition, inflammatory bowel disease can also bring oral damage, the more common is aphrotasitis and periodontitis, when stomatitis occurs, painful ulcers will appear, periodontitis can cause swelling and bleeding. These manifestations can be dealt with in accordance with conventional methods.
Inflammatory bowel disease, but also affects the hepatobiliary system, about 5% of IBD patients, there will be chronic liver disease, about 30% of IBD patients, there will be liver function abnormalities, of which, the most specific manifestation, is primary sclerosing cholangitis, the main symptoms are itching, fever, chills, night sweats, right upper abdominal pain. Low doses of ursodeoxycholic acid can improve liver function, but if the disease has progressed to the end stage, liver transplantation may need to be considered.
Recent studies have shown that the extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease also include neurogenic hearing loss, a disorder, also known as autoimmune inner ear disease, caused by dysfunction of the vestibular cochlear nerve of the inner ear or the processing center of the brain. Therefore, patients with inflammatory bowel disease need to undergo a complete OTOL and hearing test in order to detect problems in a timely manner and intervene. In short, the extraintestinal manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease are diverse and have a wide range of influences, so I remind you that if you often have abdominal pain, diarrhea, and abnormal manifestations of the skin, bones, joints, eyes, hearing, liver and biliary tract, etc., you should be examined in time and treated as soon as possible.
Whoever loves, pass on health to whom.