“What I’d like to know is how did I ever get colitis disease?” This is the favorite lament of colitis disease patients. Many think that the ailment is invariably infectious in nature. The fact of the matter is quite the contrary. The majority of cases are not due to infection, as there are many reasons other than infection for the very great and constantly increasing prevalence of colitis disease.
What, then, brings it on? Well, the answer is in the old adage that nothing good ever came out of something bad. In this instance the trouble which we speak of, in a general sense, as colitis disease, definitely arises in bad things.
For one thing bad food and, what is probably rarely recognized, bad manners are often causative in the production of colitis disease. Bad judgment and bad luck are equally potent factors in certain instances we will describe. Finally, bad general health can often be the basis of colitis disease. Let’s get a general view of the scene of our trouble.
The food digestion canal is a tube, one continuous tube from mouth to rectum. Nature built it and intended it as one complete organ. I state this for the reason that many people, even we doctors, are apt to overlook this fact simply because we have given different names to different parts of this same tube. However, no matter how much we subdivide it in our nomenclature, it still is one continuous tube.
The nerves that supply the lining of this tube from beginning to end are closely interrelated. With these facts in mind, you can readily understand how a disorder of any part of the food digestion canal has a marked influence on the rest of the canal. The continuity of form, similarity of function and closeness of nerve connections makes it inevitable that anything that goes wrong along this tract is bound to affect the rest of it.
Take, for instance, badly decayed teeth or an infection of the gums. Either of these conditions can lay the groundwork for trouble lower down the tract. While it is true that the gastric juices are capable of disinfecting material which enters the stomach, this germicidal capacity has a limit. When that limit is exceeded, the flood of bacterial invaders spills over into the lower intestinal tract. This is true of a normal stomach with normally potent gastric juice, it is even a greater factor when, because of anemia or faulty nutrition, the quality of the gastric juice itself is impaired.
What happens in a situation like this is that the body defenses are overwhelmed and the bacterial invaders push their way onward through the small intestine into the colon. Here in the colon, it is normal for bacterial growth to be greater than elsewhere in the whole food digestion canal. The warmth, moisture and abundance of food and absence of deterrent factors such as has been mentioned above, promote their growth. It is in this manner that bacterial infection of the lining of the colon may take place. The symptoms which arise from this inflammation tend to localize our attention in the colon; but it must be borne in mind that the origin may be much higher as previously pointed out.
Not only the teeth may be the cause of such a course of events but any other place where infection may exist, flourish and be poured into the food digestion canal. I have mentioned the teeth and gums, but infected tonsils or sinuses may be just as much at fault.
The so-called intestinal flu is another instance of an infection which originally lodged in the respiratory tract and was carried down to the intestines by the normal passage of mucus from the upper to the lower parts of the food digestion canal.
So too, an infected gall bladder or an infected appendix may be the source of a colon infection.
It is well to bear in mind that the irritation of the lining of the colon, which we know as colitis disease, begins with an excessive motion of the upper intestinal tract. This may involve the speeded up process of swallowing, known as gulping, or it may involve the hypermotility of the stomach. Still further, it may involve the release of the stomach contents into the intestinal canal before it is physiologically acceptable to the intestinal canal. This can be accomplished artificially when a person experiencing gastric difficulty takes a “bicarb.” Immediately the protective gateway to the intestines is opened and the stomach content is thrown or excreted into the intestines.
Or to go still further along the food digestion canal, if there is an over-secretion of pancreatic digestive ferments and they are hurried along the intestinal tract before they can act upon food, they exercise their digestive abilities on whatever else they come in contact with. If this be the wall of the colon, the groundwork for colitis disease is being laid.
Naturally the tissues of the colon try to protect themselves by secreting mucus, but eventually even this defense is not sufficient and ulcers result. We can readily see how the incorrect distribution of perfectly correct secretion can give rise to discomfort, disorder and finally disease.
We need go no further than the food digestion canal itself or rather the extremities of the food digestion canal to be convinced of this fact. When a person has a severe cold and the nose runs a great deal, the nostrils become sore and inflamed simply because the mucus, a perfectly natural and normal substance in the nasal canal, becomes an irritant substance when spread over the skin. Similarly, when the excessive mucus of colitis disease leaks through on to the perianal region, this macerates the skin about the anus and gives rise to irritation recognized by the patient as itching.
The foregoing explanation is an exceedingly simple one and may lack the power to impress those who prefer abstruse terms. Certainly it is not necessary to deal in neurogenic terms or allergic terms. Instead we are coming to the primal response of all living protoplasm to injury, namely a reaction whose chief object is to fight or flee. In other words, get away from or destroy the thing which is irritating it. And now let us take a general view of the cause of our trouble. As I have said, there are a lot of things involved and nothing good ever came out of something bad.
The French have an adage: “Death enters through the mouth.” Those of us who specialize in the treatment of intestinal ailments see abundant proof of this observation.
