What Are The Symptoms Of Diverticulitis?

Posted on Sat, 15 Nov 2014

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sat, 15 Nov 2014 Answered on

Tue, 2 Dec 2014 Last reviewed on

Question : Good morning, I am a 54 year old female, good health. I suffer from IBS-C. I can go days without a bowel movement, or I pass really dry, hard stool. I can also have a day where I have more than one bowel movement in a day, a little more loose, but never watery diarrhea. I eat well, no nausea, no vomiting. have already had 2 colonoscopies, both clean, but they could not finish the second one-only got through 75% because I was told I have a tortuous colon. I did have h.pylori 6 years ago-treated with Prev-Pac. Had an upper endoscopy-everything normal. Blood work normal. Last weekend I ended up in the ER with terrible lower abdominal pain. Did CT Scan that showed inflamed colon. They put me on Cipro and Flagyl for ten days. Also had watery diarrhea. Had a fever of 100.9 and chills the first night. No fever or chills since. Followed up with doctor. He looked at my scans and he told me that the doctors weren't sure whether I had diverticulitis or colitis. He did a rectal digital exam and said there was still trace of blood, most likely du to infection. I never pass blood. Repeated blood tests. My WBC was a 7 and my ESR was 33. I am on a bland diet. Pain is gone. My labs in the hospital were good. Do you think this was a one time event, or could I end up with UC? Doctor will repeat colonoscopy in 6-8weeks. I do not want to have a life-long condition. I am also very stressed. Thank you

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Inflammatory bowels disease is possible.

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Thank you for the query

Ulcerative colitis or Crohns disease can be both diagnosed only by histopathologist. In other words as long as the sample from the inflamed intestine wont be checked under a microscope, inflammatory bowels disease can not be ruled out.
Symptoms present with diverticulitis, bacterial infection of the gastrointestinal tract and inflammatory bowels disease can be very similar. However diverticles are usually clearly visible in a colonoscopy and CT scan as they have a shape of pouches in the large intestine wall. In case of bacterial infection (what was suspected after a rectoscopy) stool test and stool culture test should be done.
Without this test, it is hard to tell either its an infection or inflammation due to UC.
So I really would like to give some good news here, but it is simply impossible without mentioned tests.

So please follow as advised by your doctors, and get another colonoscopy with biopsy. This is the most important test right now.

Hope this will help. Feel free to ask further questions.
Regards.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Ashwin Bhandari