Dr. Marc Makhani is a Gastroenterologist diagnosing and treating patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis at his practice at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Towers in the Beverly Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA.
No, ulcerative colitis is another type of inflammatory bowel disease however it is not the same as Crohn's. The key differences between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's Disease are that ulcerative colitis is limited to the large intestine only and appears in a continuous pattern.
Symptoms of ulcerative colitis include rectal bleeding, diarrhea mixed with blood and mucus, weight loss, and lower abdominal pain.
Upon diagnosing patients with ulcerative colitis, Dr. Makhani will treat his patients by either prescribing the proper medications or in more severe cases, will need to perform surgery. In the case that surgery is involved, Dr. Makhani will perform a colectomy on the patient which is the removal of the large intestine.
Flare-ups are managed by a variety of therapies including diet, stress reduction, ruling out infectious etiologies and steroids when needed in more severe cases.