Essay On Ulcerative Colitis

In this paper I have decided to talk about my family’s health history. One health risk factor that runs in my family for more than fifty years is the Ulcerative Colitis disease. Ulcerative colitis is an inflammatory bowel disease that causes long lasting inflammatory and ulcers (sores) in your digestive tract. Ulcerative colitis affects the innermost lining of your large intestine (colon) and rectum. Ulcerative colitis can lead to life-threatening complications. While it has no known cure, treatments can greatly reduce signs and symptoms of the disease and even bring about long-term remission. This is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease taking away people’s lives nowadays. While several relative have this type of disease I am going to interview my closest aunt. My aunt Carmen is 56 years of age, she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis when she was fifteen. My aunt has been dealing with this disease for forty years and has managed to live a healthy lifestyle. I asked my aunt what were the signs and symptoms she had before she was diagnosed with the disease. She …show more content…
“Well after every meal I ate, I had bad pain on my left side of my belly. I had to lie for about forty-five minutes on my belly so the pain would calm or go away. I was feeling weaker and weaker each day. I was constantly having joint pains, gassiness, felt fatigue and bloated. That’s when I decided to go to the hospital because these symptoms were getting worst.” This was when my aunt was diagnosed with this severe disease. As I read on WebMD, the symptoms may develop on what part of the colon is affected. Ongoing symptoms, such as diarrhea (leaking stools) can lead to weight loss. Also some people get anemia because of low iron cells cause or lost by the bloody stools or intestinal inflammation. My aunt had all of the above symptoms; this is why she had to follow up with her doctor to check her blood counts every two