Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Symptoms

Are you worried that you might have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)? Talk to your doctor if you or someone close to you is experiencing one or more of the IBD symptoms below. At the appointment, your doctor will ask questions to understand your symptoms and may run or schedule tests. This gives your doctor the information needed to make a diagnosis and create a treatment plan for you.

Symptoms of Both Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis (UC):1-4

  • Needing to go quickly when you have a bowel movement—feeling a sense of urgency
  • Abdominal cramps and pain
  • Diarrhea or loose stool
  • Feeling tired all over
  • Fever
  • Blood in your stool
  • Losing weight without trying to or for no reason that you know
  • Not having an appetite

Other Symptoms of Crohn’s:1

  • Bleeding from your rectum
  • Constipation
  • Feeling like your bowel doesn’t completely empty even when you have a bowel movement
  • Mucus (as well as blood) in your stool

Complications:1,4

In addition to the symptoms above, Crohn’s can lead to serious health problems, including:

  • Fistulas: openings that aren’t normal and form between parts of the intestine, or between the intestine and
  • vagina, skin or bladder
  • Fissures: small tears in the skin that lines the anus
  • Strictures: the intestine becoming more narrow