How IBD is Treated

Inflammatory bowel disease is a condition that needs to be managed to help with symptoms. 

There is no cure at the present moment, but there are good options for treatment, which include medications, changes to lifestyle, and surgery. 

Treatment also usually falls into two categories of IBD, Chron’s disease and UC. If you have what’s called indeterminate colitis, they may give you different treatments. 

The Prescription Treatments 

There are drugs that are used to be treated for IBD. 

The goal of these drugs is to help control the flare-ups, and also to keep the condition in remission so you don’t experience further flare-ups. 

Some drugs that are out there do involve 5-ASA drugs. Antibiotics, biologics, and corticosteroids. 

Usually, you can talk to your doctor about this. 

OTC therapies 

Over the counter treatments are also used. 

First, you’ve got fiber supplements, which is used for chronic moderate and mild diarrhea, and usually, this is Metamucil, or Citrucel, to help make the stool firmer. 

There are also anti-diarrheal medications, including Imodium A-D and others. 

If there is pain in your intestines and stomach, you may take OTC pain relievers to help with this, or even NSAIDs that can help with this condition. 

Another thing is iron, since intestinal bleeding does cause anemia, and you may need to take an iron supplement. Talk to the practitioner, and try to find liquid iron options, since this is non-binding to the intestines as well. 

And finally, IBD treated by steroids does need to have a calcium and vitamin D supplement.  Corticosteroids for Crohn’s disease does increase the risk for osteoporosis in women, and supplements will improve the bone density as well. 

Talk to your doctor before you take these in order to treat IBD in yourself. 

Lifestyle 

There are lifestyle changes that you can do too, which is basically your diet. 

You may need to eat a low residue diet for those who have structures in bowels or stenosis, since this can prevent intestinal blockage. 

You also may need to have a special diet through enteral nutrition, or interveinal nutrition. 

The feeding tube may be surgically placed or through the nose for a bit, and then after it’s placed, you can then just have this fed through a tube at home. 

There is also parenteral nutrition which is a liquid formula that you get through an IV, where it passes through the GI tract, and then goes into the bloodstream, where a catheter is placed on the vein by the heart, and then, you’re given nutrients. 

Surgeries 

Finally, there are surgeries that you can get if the medication is not working, or if there are complications for the condition. 

Crohn’s disease and UC are treated in different ways since this does affect the digestive tract differently. It eventually depends on the type of disease, the location, and how this is spread. 

It’s not a cure, and it may cause inflammation down the line. 

There are ostomies you can get, which is where they redirect the bowels out and away from the impacted area, but also a resection which is where they remove part of the inflamed area, and then he healthy tissue is then put together. 

They may even do a structureplasty, which is where scar tissue increases, and then, they usually remove the bad structure, and they open this up again. 

And of course, there is also a proctocolectomy, which ix what people get where they remove the large intestine, and then the connect the small intestine to the anus, to prevent needing a stoma in most typical cases.