Digestive DisordersMar 15, 2026
About 60% of adults with lymphocytic colitis experience a single episode that resolves on its own. That's a striking number for a condition that can cause weeks or months of relentless watery diarrhea, urgency, and real disruption to daily life. But here's the catch: because the colon looks perfectly normal during a standard colonoscopy, many people cycle through appointments and tests before anyone thinks to take a biopsy. Without that biopsy, lymphocytic colitis is invisible.
Lymphocytic colitis (LC) is a form of microscopic colitis, meaning the inflammation only shows up under a microscope. It typically strikes middle-aged to older adults, with a median age around 59 to 67 years, and is more common in women. The hallmark is chronic, watery, non-bloody diarrhea, often accompanied by abdominal pain, weight loss, and sometimes fecal incontinence. It can significantly affect quality of life even though it carries a largely benign prognosis.
Irritable Bowel SyndromeMar 15, 2026
Most drugs for irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) get absorbed into your bloodstream and work from the inside out. Ibsrela (tenapanor) takes the opposite approach. It acts almost entirely within the gut itself, with very low absorption into the body. That local-only design is central to both how it works and why its safety profile looks the way it does.
FDA-approved in 2019, Ibsrela at 50 mg twice daily improved both constipation and abdominal pain in trials involving more than 1,200 adults. The trade-off is straightforward: diarrhea is the most common side effect, but it tends to be mild to moderate and shows up early rather than building over time.
Irritable Bowel SyndromeMar 14, 2026
Roughly one in three people with inflammatory bowel disease in remission still report the cramping, bloating, and unpredictable bowel habits typically associated with irritable bowel syndrome. Their inflammation is gone on scopes and labs, yet the symptoms persist. This overlap is one reason IBD and IBS get so tangled in people's minds, and why getting the distinction right matters more than most realize.
IBD (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis) is an immune-mediated inflammatory disease that causes visible, measurable damage to the gut. IBS is a disorder of gut-brain interaction with no detectable inflammation or structural changes. The symptoms can feel identical from the inside. The consequences are not.
