Can ulcerative colitis cause death

Answer 1

The technically correct answer is Yes, this being death from complications of surgery to remove the colon, which sometimes becomes necessary in cases refractive to drug treatment. If, say, 20% of UC cases are ultimately refractive to treatment and the Death Rate from the surgery is 5%, that means the death rate from UC is 1%. So at the time of initial diagnosis chances are about 99% you will ultimately die of something else.

I actually suffer from the disease, and have done for about 15 years untreated. Now i would say these days, it's highly unlikely that you would die from Colitis. If you have regular bowel exams, say every 2 years, to check for signs of pre-cancerous changes, you should be able to live a pretty normal life. there are many treatments available to control colitis, many different diets to try. In fact the risk of cancer i think is increased 5 fold if you have the disease, which in the big scheme of things is not that high. I read somewhere that actually 95% of people with colitis do no develop cancer. Keep a positive attitude towards life and don't let the disease control you.

I was diagnosed in 04' with ulcerative colits after about 8 months of misdiagnosis. By the time I was correctly diagnosed I had to be hospitalized because my white blood cells were ten times what they were supposed to be and so high that even cancer patients have lower white cells than I did at the time. I almost died from this disease. I had been given so many different types of treatment from steroids all the way to remission medicine they give people with cancer. nothing would help I was wasting away. I was in the hospital for almost a month when the gastro doc finally consulted with a surgeon and he told me my only option was a total colectomy or I wouldn't last another week. That night they did surgery and removed my entire large intestines. I had a iliostomy bag for 6 months until they did the J pouch surgery.

Answer 2

The various complications of diverticulitis need to be treated aggressively, because the death rate from problems such as perforation and peritonitis is quite high.

Answer 3

No it isn't. It is unpleasant but not lethal.