HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Mild? Medium? Bad? I see these flare terms

Support Forums
>
Ulcerative Colitis
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 9/5/2021 12:25 PM (GMT -5)
I see these terms in the threads. Mild flare. Medium flare. Bad flare.

When someone says medium is that another persons mild and another persons bad.
Or…Is this kind of standardized.

How would you define each of these?

Post Edited (Rusty Barr) : 9/5/2021 12:23:56 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 9/5/2021 12:39 PM (GMT -5)
The terms are basically mild, moderate, severe...they can signify location or inflammation or symptoms. For flare, i think in symptoms because they can be in all those categories regardless of location.

q
Posted 9/5/2021 2:21 PM (GMT -5)
What would be “common” symptoms of each “level”?

Post Edited (Rusty Barr) : 9/5/2021 1:44:26 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 9/5/2021 7:32 PM (GMT -5)
Inflammation is graded as mild, moderate, or severe by our gasteroenterologist.

There's generalizations based on number of poops a day:
* 3 or less poops a day is mild.
* 6 or less is moderate.
* Over 6 is severe.
Posted 9/5/2021 9:11 PM (GMT -5)
My GI measures a flare using labwork, scopes and surveys. He also takes into consideration your body's past pattern of behavior. It works for the majority of his patients.

I am the oddball case. My blood work usually looks like a healthy persons--even when I am in a flare. So when my bloodwork changes alittle, now we know, it's gonna be bad. Last 6 changes were 3 times in the hospital for sepsis and 3 times for kidney failure...and it changed just alittle bit. CRP was at 36... Symptoms.... Sometimes I had pain, fever and vomiting and others nada... nothing... until I just dropped where I stood. Before that....3 operations for inflammation obstruction-no pain, no symptoms, labs were good -- occurred out of left field. So I probably am not the case study you are looking for.

But.....there are other people on here that probably have symptoms and can relay what they experience.
Posted 9/6/2021 1:49 AM (GMT -5)
Just a note, in my experience, symptoms can be mild but inflammation severe. The two dont always relate.
Posted 9/6/2021 3:15 AM (GMT -5)
My dr would use mild/moderate/severe to describe the inflammation seen on a scope, not my symptoms.
Posted 9/7/2021 8:45 AM (GMT -5)
There are various indexes of severity that hospitals use. My hospital uses the Harvey Bradshaw index for Crohn's. Dunno about UC, as that's not my diagnosis, but it seems like the UK uses the Truelove and Witts severity index: https://gpnotebook.com/en-gb/simplepage.cfm?id=x20131105194020216972

Clo touches upon something that can be important too. Doctors rely quite heavily on blood tests, but not everyone's CRP (a blood measure of inflammation) rises in response to inflammation. Mine does, so it's a reliable guide, but if yours doesn't you can have severe disease which won't be reflected in your CRP result.
Posted 9/7/2021 9:03 AM (GMT -5)
yes -

btw, nice to see you nice smile


TT
Posted 9/7/2021 10:46 AM (GMT -5)
Yep, blood tests are often pretty useless for UC. I've had severe inflammation and a CRP of 1.7 (where normal is <10). On the other hand, fecal calprotectin matches my inflammation very well
Posted 9/7/2021 11:57 AM (GMT -5)
My terminology:
mild flare = able to function normally but bowel movements are not normal -- maybe 1 extra/day, not fully formed, perhaps a little blood

medium flare = not formed, all loose or diarrhea, several times a day, blood with every BM, can still function mostly normally, but need to plan ahead

bad flare = more than 15x/day, all loose/diarrhea, lots of blood, severe urgency, unable to have any sort of normal life
Posted 9/7/2021 7:56 PM (GMT -5)

TroubledTurds said...
yes -

btw, nice to see you nice smile


TT

Thanks. Nice to see you too, soy. (You'll always be soy to me :p)
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply