Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Colitis Ibs

Question:
 I was diagnosed with colitis via children's hospital some 15-17 years ago. I never researched it much. Most info I learned by experience.  About 5 years ago I had to switch doctors and was told that oh no, you don't have colitis you have IBS. This was of course done without any serious attempt to diagnose this. My understanding was that they just decided to call it something else. No problem since they haven’t been able to do much for me anyway.

Answer:
The difference (as I understand it) is that with colitis (and CD) there's visible tissue dysphasia and damage. With IBS, all you get are the symptoms with none of the visible evidence of something causing the problems. There is also celiac disease, which any doctor worth his salt should have tested for before pronouncing IBS. Colitis can be a misdiagnosis. In a Canadian survey 15% of diagnosed celiacs said that they had been diagnosed with colitis first (available on request). The gluten-free diet which completely controls celiac disease is a subset of the diet that Elaine Gottschall claims cures colitis. Celiac disease is the medical name for intolerance to gluten, a protein that is found in all wheat (more so in bread and pasta), but also found in lesser quantity in rye, barley, oats and all foodstuffs containing one of these grains, including many food chemicals like hydrolyzed vegetable protein (called flavorings or natural flavors in the ingredient list). Although doctors try to be uniform in their use of medical terminology, unfortunately they aren't always consistent. This may cause confusion. Technically speaking, the term colitis means inflammation of the colon. Numerous conditions can manifest this inflammation, and there are different degrees of inflammation as well as accompanying symptoms. In Irritable Bowel Syndrome, some people do have true inflammation, while others don't. Or they have it intermittently. There are other characteristics that make up the diagnosis IBS: stomach cramps, flatulence, growling, diarrhea, constipation, etc.   No matter what label you wish to tag on to it, I strongly recommend you have yourself tested for hidden food sensitivities. Amongst my patients, this appears to be the single most frequently seen cause for IBS, colitis, as well as more serious conditions such as Crohn's disease or Ulcerative Colitis. Since hidden food sensitivities tend to manifest themselves in a fairly insidious and slow fashion, the relationship between complaints and foods eaten is frequently lost. If you are interested, you should contact the American Academy of Environmental Medicine in Prairie Village, KS, and get a listing of doctors in your area specializing in hidden food sensitivities. Conventional doctors tend to regard this as nonsense, so there's no use even asking them.