Overview

The predominant symptom of ulcerative colitis is diarrhea, sometimes associated with blood in the stool. Frequent bowel movements are common, as a result of irritability of the inflamed rectum. In severe cases, people may have eight or more bloody bowel movements a day. Other symptoms include abdominal or rectal pain, fever, and weight loss. In some cases, anemia and weakness may result from blood loss.

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About 50 to 60 percent of patients have mild disease, marked mainly by diarrhea and some bleeding. These cases usually respond well to drug therapy. Moderate disease occurs in about 30 percent of people with UC and is characterized by bloody diarrhea, cramps, abdominal tenderness, and urgency to defecate; sometimes these symptoms are accompanied by anorexia and weight loss, fever, or mild anemia. Only about 10 percent of UC patients have severe cases of the disease. The symptoms involve six or more bloody bowel movements per day, abdominal pain and tenderness, fever, anemia, an elevated white cell count, and a low level of albumin, a protein in the blood. People who suffer severe UC may develop life-threatening complications, such as severe hemorrhage, or a condition called toxic megacolon," where the colon swells and may damage other organs.

Sometimes, people with ulcerative colitis experience symptoms that affect other systems of their body. This section contains more on systemic symptoms.