1. Recognize the Key Symptoms
Educate yourself about the symptoms of diverticulitis, a disorder in which small pouches in your digestive tract become inflamed and possibly infected. Unfortunately, you may not know that you have diverticulitis until the inflammation is quite severe. In this case, the main symptom you'll display will be pain and tenderness on the lower left-hand side of your abdominal area. Sometimes diverticulitis pain can be mistaken for appendicitis, because the discomfort is in the same area. You might have rectal bleeding and feel bloated. People who have developed an infection of the diverticula might exhibit fever, chills, nausea, vomiting and constipation as symptoms.
2. Visit Your Doctor
When you experience any type of persistent stomach pain or digestive abnormalities, make an appointment with your doctor for a physical examination. He will take your full medical history, palpate areas that hurt and perform a digital rectal exam (inserting a finger into your rectum) to check for bleeding. All of these things can help diagnose diverticulitis and get you on the road to feeling better.
3. Go for Medical Tests
A variety of medical tests can accurately diagnose diverticulitis. Since people who are beginning to develop diverticula don't show outward symptoms, you may learn you have it through tests for another gastrointestinal disorder. Routine preventative tests for colon cancer, such as a colonoscopy, may show that you have diverticulitis. Your doctor may also order a CT scan of your abdominal area to allow him to see the inflamed or infected pouches. You might have blood tests to check for an increased number of white blood cells. Increased numbers are usually present in your body when you have an infection. X-rays can tell if there are any potentially dangerous obstructions in your digestive tract that need to be repaired or removed.
