IBD is an abbreviation that stands for inflammatory bowel disease. This is a generalized category that refers to diseases of the digestive tract, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These two conditions are differentiated by where they occur in the body and how severe lesions in the intestines may become. IBD Washington DC, like many other medical conditions throughout history, has been described in increasingly more detail as scientific advances occur to give doctors and researchers better abilities to visualize and describe what patients are experiencing.
IBD DC Early Descriptions
Illnesses causing diarrhea have been noted by all cultures in every part of the world since the beginning of written history. In 1875, ulcerative colitis was first distinguished from diarrhea caused by bacteria and other infectious agents by two physicians in the United Kingdom. Crohn’s disease was not accurately described until 1932. Around that time, tuberculosis was prominently in the news and problems in the small bowel were described as “intestinal tuberculosis”.
Treatments for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases
As medical technologies have continued to improve, so have understandings of inflammatory bowel disease. IBD treatments DC now include stepped drug regimens and various surgical interventions, like those available from http://www.medstarwashington.org/.
At this time, it is known that IBD is causes by some combination of genetics and environment. Inflammation in the digestive tract is caused by a maladaptive immune response in the body that makes it attack its own digestive system structures. In the case of Crohn’s disease, this can occur anywhere in the digestive system. Those who have ulcerative colitis suffer exclusively from inflammation in the large bowel and rectal areas. There are many medical interventions available at this time to monitor the progression of these diseases and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments.
Monitoring and prevention are chief among measures currently available to help those at risk for IBD. Scoping procedures like the colonoscopy can be used to evaluate the effects of ulcerative colitis, and even to easily remove diseased nodules that are present before they become worse. Genetic testing may be able to predict who will be at risk for inflammatory bowel disease in families with that history.
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