I had a pouch endoscopy done and the GI saw inflamation. He took a biopsy sample and the result is that it shows that I have a case of ileitis (sp?).

Does anyone know if pouchitis and ileitis are essentially the same or different? Is the medical treatment different?

Right now I am on hydrocortisone enemas to help the inflammation.

Thanks
Abhi

Ileitis normally would be indicative of Crohn's Disease and is another name for Crohn's, but in this case could be either inflammation of the ileum above the pouch, or inflammation inside the pouch which is made of ileal tissue. I have seen my pouchitis written up on insurance billing forms as "ileitis". Ask the doctor the precise location of what he/she is characterizing as ileitis. I have both pouchitis in my J Pouch and ileitis or inflammation about 30 cm above the pouch. It's bean treated as pouchitis successully for 16 years. All testing I had done for Crohn's Disease was negative. And I only have the 1 spot of inflammation in the ileum, which could be caused by backwash from how the pouch empties.

The inflammation I have above the pouch is in the neoterminal ileum. I posted pics of my pouchoscopy in July 2010 and they are located here:

http://j-pouch.org/eve/forums/...=402101705#402101705

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DJBHusky,

DJBHusky- you're pictures were very enlightening. What did your scopes look like prior? I just had my first scope for pouchitis and the entire pouch was white with inflammation. I could not see any pink of the pouch. Things seem to be better now after 3 months of antibiotics, but I can still feel some inflammation. I'm hoping this is not a bad omen as I'm not a year out. Do you recall how bad the pouch has ever gotten for yourself and how long it took to get it under control?

Karbear-

It's been the same "simmering" pouchitis pattern for many years dating back to the 1990s. Next scope will be in December, and I will post those pics as well.

Things were much worse in the mid 1990s before it was all brought under control with antibiotics.

Thank you DJBHusky for your quick response.

It has been so helpful to rear your posts along with other who've battled chronic pouchitis as I enter this new experience. I will be starting by third round of Cipro tomorrow. As long as I'm Cipro (Flagyl did nothing, but could have been because it was too severe for Flagyl alone) I feel good. It is a comfort to see people dependent on antibiotics and still able to keep their pouch.

My next follow-up is at the end of November unless things go down hill. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can make it until November 30th. I will be interested to see your pictures after your follow up.

Again, thanks!

DJBHusky,

Thanks for leading us to your posts, it's educational for me. How do you get your medical professionals to give you the pictures. I have had several tests that I know are in the system digitly and almost asked for my last small intestine barium series to be emailed to me. I chickened out. I would also like my last CTscan and they were talking about my scar tissue in it.

I'm going to ask but do I go through the office or doctor?

You have been a great help. I appreciate your experience an posting here to help us.

tough - you should be able to get copies of any scans through the imaging department of the facility (hospital) where the scans were done. They will put them on a disc for you, and you go pick it up. When I called to talk to them about it, they asked which tests, etc., but ended up putting everything on there - CT scans, MRIs, etc. No charge, at least at the hospital that put mine together.

quote:

How do you get your medical professionals to give you the pictures.

I simply asked my pouch expert who performed the scope, and I told him exactly why I wanted them. My doctor did take some prodding (a few phone calls over 2 or so weeks), but he finally emailed the pics to me from his own email addy. He did not have his assistant/secretary do it for him. I think he mentioned to me that he had to download them from a disc and then email them to me. He works at the Yale Digestive Diseases group which is affiliated with Yale New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT. I did not deal with the hospital, I dealt directly with my doctor.

Per his recommendation I will be having another scope in December and I will be posting the pics of that study as well so that we can compare the new pics with the July 2010 study. My pouchitis pattern has basically looked the same for 15 years now but we shall see whether the next study shows anything different.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DJBHusky,

Thanks Nancyann & DBJ for the information. I'll be calling them tomorrow. I walked into the area the tech was viewing my barium x-rays in and looked. She might have thought I was invading her territory but I wanted to see what my guts look like now!

This is another reason to consider doing unsedated pouch scopes-you can watch the whole procedure, and really see what is in there! I was supposed to have been sedated for my most recent scope, but due to a screw up, they moved my appointment up and I had eaten 4 hours prior, so they wouldn't sedate me. At first I was ticked off, but then I realized it was for the best, as I got to watch the whole procedure, ask questions, etc. and understood much more about the gravity of the situation than had I just read mild to moderate inflamation of the pouch. I saw where inflamation was and wasn't, I saw the bleeding ulcerations myself, etc.

Is pouch scopes the same as sigmoidoscopy