Pseudomembranous Colitis - Signs and Symptoms

Signs and Symptoms

As noted above, pseudomembranous colitis is characterized by diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fever. Usually, the diarrhea is non-bloody, although blood may be present if the affected individual is taking blood thinners or has an underlying lower bowel condition such as inflamed hemorrhoids. Abdominal pain is almost always present and may be severe. So-called "peritoneal" signs (e.g., rebound tenderness) may be present. "Constitutional" signs such as fever, fatigue, and loss of appetite are prominent. In fact, one of the main ways of distinguishing pseudomembranous colitis from other antibiotic-associated diarrheal states is that patients with the former are sick. That is, they are often prostrate, lethargic, and in general look unwell. Their "sick" appearance tends to be paralleled by the results of their blood tests, which often show anemia, an elevated white blood cell count, and low serum albumin.

Read more about this topic:  Pseudomembranous Colitis

Famous quotes containing the words signs and/or symptoms:

    Chaucer sawed life in half and out tumbled hundreds of unpremeditated lives, because he didn’t have the cast-iron grid of a priori coherence that makes reading Goethe, Shakespeare, or Dante an exercise in searching for signs of life among the conventions, compulsions, self-justifications, proofs, wise saws, simple but powerful messages, and poetry.
    Marvin Mudrick (1921–1986)

    The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the “easy life of the gods” would be a lifeless life.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)