What are the most common symptoms of diverticulitis?
In the gut, a diverticulum is like a little pouch that forms in the wall of the large bowel, probably as a result of spasm in the muscle in the bowel wall. Diverticulae are very common and get more common as people get older. They are uncommon below the age of 40 but by the time people reach their eighties everyone has diverticulae in their bowel. On their own they are harmless and may never cause problems, but if they get inflamed or infected, then they cause symptoms and this is diverticulitis. The most common symptoms are pain and local tenderness in the left lower part of the abdomen and often accompanied by fever. Bleeding can also occur from diverticulae. Patients often get episodes of bouts of pain that last several days and then settle for weeks or even months. The diagnosis is usually made with gastroscopy (looking into the bowel through a tube), barium enema X-ray and excluding other causes of the symptoms. Sometimes episodes settle without treatment and other milder cases ca
