Irritable Bowel Syndrome

[Dr Steve]

Over the past 2 years or so I have been having odd digestive problems. It started out as a morning thing, where during the first 3 or so hours after waking up I would get really bad stomach cramps and have to run to the bathroom 3 or 4 times. It got to the point where I was taking Imodium every other day just to get through the day. Realizing that it's probably not good to be taking it on a regular basis I decided to go to the doctor. He took stool samples and checked for parasites, blood, and any signs of stomach cancer. All came back clear. He told me that my stomach fluid was more acidic than normal and wrote me a prescription for Zantac. I gave up coffee for the acid and took the Zantac. It helped for a while, but then all my symptoms came back after about 2 months. Then I decided to go to a Gastroenterologist. He checked for intestinal swelling and asked me a few questions, then wrote a prescription for Imodium. So getting annoyed that after trying to get this thing resolved I'm back at square one. It's getting to the point where I dread going out anywhere because I might get the cramps, have to try to seek out a bathroom, and ultimately feel miserable when I should be enjoying myself. Then the mind games started. I would feel fine, but then worry if I would get the cramps and by stressing myself out and dwelling on it, I would bring them on. I wasn't sure if the I was still suffering from the cramps or getting the cramps because I was worrying about them so much. Two weeks ago I was researching online and was reading up on Acidophilus and its digestive benefits so I started taking it. It definitely works well, but then I would get a slight cramp and then stress myself out again thinking that I'm going to get an attack. Both doctors said I didn't have IBS, Colitis, an ulcer, or any other condition. I don't want to live like this. Having daily stomach cramps, worrying when I leave the house, and pretty much feeling uncomfortable a lot of the time. I have a pretty healthy diet. Oatmeal, Fruit, Vegetables, Whole Grains, and lean meats. I drink a lot of water throughout the day, and have 1 or 2 beers at night.I have no idea what to do. Is it mental? Can it be an allergy? I'm just at a loss.



I'm amazed that your doctors told you that you don't have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, since you have all the symptoms:


from http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/ibs/#what

What is irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)?

Irritable bowel syndrome is a disorder characterized most commonly by cramping, abdominal pain, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. IBS causes a great deal of discomfort and distress, but it does not permanently harm the intestines and does not lead to a serious disease, such as cancer. Most people can control their symptoms with diet, stress management, and prescribed medications. For some people, however, IBS can be disabling. They may be unable to work, attend social events, or even travel short distances.

As many as 20 percent of the adult population, or one in five Americans, have symptoms of IBS, making it one of the most common disorders diagnosed by doctors. It occurs more often in women than in men, and it begins before the age of 35 in about 50 percent of people.



I'm assuming you had a colonoscopy and/or upper GI endoscopy? If they've ruled out Crohn's disease and Ulcerative Colitis, then really the only common thing left is irritable bowel syndrome.

I have it pretty bad, myself, and stress definitely makes it worse. I've found relief with CITRUCEL (labeled as a "laxative" but it's actually a bowel normalizer), and a medication called "Bentyl" which is an antispasmodic.

Also, make sure you're not lactose intolerant...the way to figure this out is to take LACTAID supplements when you eat (follow the directions); if your symptoms go away, you've made the diagnosis.

BEANO is another enzyme pill that helps digest undigestible things in your diet; it reduces flatulence and diarrhea from undigested sugars in the diet. You could try it as well.

Stay on the gastroenterologist...it took mine three visits and a couple of scopes to finally get me on the right medication. If you've never had a colonoscopy, it'd really help to make the diagnosis. Read my treatise on colonoscopies at http://www.drsteve.com or listen to the first 30 mins of the second Weird Medicine show at http://www.atomsmotion.com/weirdmedicine.htm for more info on this fun procedure.


I hope this helps. As always, check anything I say with your regular medical professional.


your friend,



Steve

[Sue_Bender]

Finally a thread I can identify with.



Doctor's told me that I have a "cranky pooper".



My social calender has been greatly impacted.

[Dr Steve]

My social calender has been greatly impacted.

...so to speak :king:



(oh, crap (there I go again), I just realized that "impacted" is a medical term that isn't used in "normal" conversation; it refers to constipation so severe that it won't come out in the normal course of things. If someone is "impacted", someone else gets to "disimpact" them manually. Fun! So my "...so to speak" might have been funny if that was common knowledge, and really, not that funny even then. So why am I going on and on about this? Because I had a really, really bad day at work and I'm out of my mind.)

[Soupy_Dreck]

i don't know if this is related but i noticed that when i have raw tomatoes or chunky pasta sauce, within 45 minutes i am in the bathroom. it doesn't happen with ketchup (catsup) or processed tomato sauce (prego, francesco rinaldi, etc). depending on the amount of tomato that enters the system, the bathroom gets a workout up to 3 days. i've been to 2 g.p.s and a gastro (who gave me a scope for another reason) and all they told me was it could be an allergy and to avoid raw tomatoes. what do you think, dr steve?

[Jujubees2]

Finally a thread I can identify with.



Doctor's told me that I have a "cranky pooper".



My social calender has been greatly impacted.


Sue you can bring your cranky pooper over to my house anytime!

[PhishHead]

I have been diagnosed with this disease since I was 17 (27 now).

I hate it and everything about it the worse part is that it effects every single person differently that has it.

I believe the only way to rule out IBS is to have a colonoscopy to make sure it is not something else. Normally IBS is what you are told you have if you have nothing else but still have problems, so very surprising your doctors were freaking horrible and said that.

I am also Lactose Intolerant with it and that sucks even worse.

I have been medicine free though for about 6 years as none of them ever worked. I was going to start Lotronex but decided not to since I have been able to manage my symptoms and pains by a simple restrictive diet.

I wouldn't wish this disease on my worse enemy and I am sorry Dr. Steve has to suffer with it as well.

[Dr Steve]

i don't know if this is related but i noticed that when i have raw tomatoes or chunky pasta sauce, within 45 minutes i am in the bathroom. it doesn't happen with ketchup (catsup) or processed tomato sauce (prego, francesco rinaldi, etc). depending on the amount of tomato that enters the system, the bathroom gets a workout up to 3 days. i've been to 2 g.p.s and a gastro (who gave me a scope for another reason) and all they told me was it could be an allergy and to avoid raw tomatoes. what do you think, dr steve?

for awhile, if I drank any kind of red wine, I'd get screaming abdominal cramps that would only subside if I completely emptied my bowels of the raw sewage therein contained. That went away. Subsequently, a bunch of us noticed that if we ate at the local Japanese restaurant, the "shrimp sauce" (that is totally as American as apple pie) would have the same effect. We all called it "Fuji House Enema", respectfully naming the syndrome after the aforementioned eatery. That too, eventually went away.

My advice on this is to follow your gastro's advice; the old joke goes "Doc! It hurts when I do THIS!" "So don't do that!" Well, calling it a "joke" is a stretch, but you get the point. The good news is, whatever is causing this may be a temporary thing, as mine was.

If you want to try a thing or two, you could take a BEANO tablet just prior to eating tomatoes and see if it still happens. If it doesn't, there's a sugar in the tomatoes that your body can't digest but the beano can. (Beano is just an enzyme tablet that helps to "crack" undigestible sugars to keep them out of the hands of pesky bacteria in your blood stream).

The most consistent treatment for irritable bowel syndrome is CITRUCEL...it's methylcellulose and sold as a laxative, but it's really a normalizer of bowel function. It's the perfect fiber supplement as it's not digested by anything in our bodies so it causes NO gas or bloating. Methylcellulose is also the same stuff they made slime out of for Ghostbusters II, so you can have fun with it in between doses.

Hope this helps!


As always, check any advice out with your regular doctor. :wink:

[Dr Steve]

I have been diagnosed with this disease since I was 17 (27 now).

I hate it and everything about it the worse part is that it effects every single person differently that has it.

I believe the only way to rule out IBS is to have a colonoscopy to make sure it is not something else. Normally IBS is what you are told you have if you have nothing else but still have problems, so very surprising your doctors were freaking horrible and said that.

I am also Lactose Intolerant with it and that sucks even worse.

I have been medicine free though for about 6 years as none of them ever worked. I was going to start Lotronex but decided not to since I have been able to manage my symptoms and pains by a simple restrictive diet.

I wouldn't wish this disease on my worse enemy and I am sorry Dr. Steve has to suffer with it as well.

IBS does suck donkey ballz.

If you're lactose intolerant, did you try LACTAID, though? For true lactose intolerance, it really should work almost 100% of the time.

Citrucel has been a lifesaver for me. I'm not perfectly symptom free, but it's manageable.

[PhishHead]

IBS does suck donkey ballz.

If you're lactose intolerant, did you try LACTAID, though? For true lactose intolerance, it really should work almost 100% of the time.

Citrucel has been a lifesaver for me. I'm not perfectly symptom free, but it's manageable.

I take lactaid all the time it works wonders.

[Alice S. Fuzzybutt]

i don't know if this is related but i noticed that when i have raw tomatoes or chunky pasta sauce, within 45 minutes i am in the bathroom. it doesn't happen with ketchup (catsup) or processed tomato sauce (prego, francesco rinaldi, etc). depending on the amount of tomato that enters the system, the bathroom gets a workout up to 3 days. i've been to 2 g.p.s and a gastro (who gave me a scope for another reason) and all they told me was it could be an allergy and to avoid raw tomatoes. what do you think, dr steve?

You should be very wary of raw tomatoes these days. They have been related to recent cases of salmonella (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/07/09/salmonella.tomatoes.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch). Peppers are linked to the recent outbreak too.

[Dr Steve]

You should be very wary of raw tomatoes these days. They have been related to recent cases of salmonella (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/07/09/salmonella.tomatoes.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch). Peppers are linked to the recent outbreak too.

I thought of that as well, but this sounds more like an acute reaction to the tomatoes rather than a salmonella infection. But a good idea, thanks for mentioning it!

On that subject, didn't I hear they're now calling the whole tomato/salmonella thing into question? I feel bad for the tomato farmers who have been absolutely destroyed this year if the epidemiologists blamed them incorrectly.

Ha, I've been avoiding tomatoes too, but I'm paranoid by nature. I wish I could be more like Anthony Bourdain, who eats everything and anything and doesn't care if he pukes afterward.

[Soupy_Dreck]

for awhile, if I drank any kind of red wine, I'd get screaming abdominal cramps that would only subside if I completely emptied my bowels of the raw sewage therein contained. That went away. Subsequently, a bunch of us noticed that if we ate at the local Japanese restaurant, the "shrimp sauce" (that is totally as American as apple pie) would have the same effect. We all called it "Fuji House Enema", respectfully naming the syndrome after the aforementioned eatery. That too, eventually went away.

My advice on this is to follow your gastro's advice; the old joke goes "Doc! It hurts when I do THIS!" "So don't do that!" Well, calling it a "joke" is a stretch, but you get the point. The good news is, whatever is causing this may be a temporary thing, as mine was.

If you want to try a thing or two, you could take a BEANO tablet just prior to eating tomatoes and see if it still happens. If it doesn't, there's a sugar in the tomatoes that your body can't digest but the beano can. (Beano is just an enzyme tablet that helps to "crack" undigestible sugars to keep them out of the hands of pesky bacteria in your blood stream).

The most consistent treatment for irritable bowel syndrome is CITRUCEL...it's methylcellulose and sold as a laxative, but it's really a normalizer of bowel function. It's the perfect fiber supplement as it's not digested by anything in our bodies so it causes NO gas or bloating. Methylcellulose is also the same stuff they made slime out of for Ghostbusters II, so you can have fun with it in between doses.

Hope this helps!


As always, check any advice out with your regular doctor. :wink:

You should be very wary of raw tomatoes these days. They have been related to recent cases of salmonella (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/07/09/salmonella.tomatoes.ap/index.html?iref=newssearch). Peppers are linked to the recent outbreak too.

this has been happening for years so i don't think its salmonella...i will try the beano though. at times immodium was the only thing that helped. its just odd that it happens irregularly and not every tomato product affects me the same way

[Dr Steve]

Hey Steve,

How's it going? Hope everything is going well by you. After our conversation last Monday I went out and picked up some Citrucel and have been taking it since. It has completely alleviated all of the digestive issues I was experiencing. It's just amazing stuff and I feel better than I did. I'm not stressing out when I have to be somewhere or worrying that I'll get an attack. I honestly don't know how to thank you. I feel like I have my life back and I'm so thankful there are people like you out there who are willing to help and give guidance to anyone. I know this email might sounds a little 'over the top', but as you know feeling like this can greatly impact your life and I feel like myself again. Thank you so much for your help, I'm looking forward to thanking you in person the next time you're in town. Rounds are on me.


It's amazing how something so simple can be so effective. I'm really glad this helped; don't forget to follow up with your regular medical doctor.

Also, you may have some recurrent symptoms, even on the citrucel. The thing is, they should be less frequent and less intense, so your life should be much more manageable. I say this only so you don't get too stressed out if you do happen to have some symptoms in the future. :-)

your friend,


steve

[SouthSideJohnny]

The most consistent treatment for irritable bowel syndrome is CITRUCEL...it's methylcellulose and sold as a laxative, but it's really a normalizer of bowel function. It's the perfect fiber supplement as it's not digested by anything in our bodies so it causes NO gas or bloating. Methylcellulose is also the same stuff they made slime out of for Ghostbusters II, so you can have fun with it in between doses.

Dr Steve - Is there a difference between the tablets and the powder? Do you recommend one over the other?

PS - Thanks for taking the time to post here!!

[Bob Impact]

If the word impact gets used one more time in this thread i'm suing.

[angelinad128]

Finally a thread I can identify with.



Doctor's told me that I have a "cranky pooper".



My social calender has been greatly impacted.

:lol: I have been away from here for awhile & I have to say your posts are great.

[BrentfromTN1]

Metamucil saved me. I started having stomach and pooping problems in college and now I take some every night (for about 10 years now) and I am still doing great. I love it and I do not care if it makes me seem like an old man. I am 28 and I take Metamucil!

By the way Doctor Steve I would love to meet with you next time I am in East TN. I am in medical sales and travel all over TN and Ark. I really do not have anything for the area of medicine that you do, but I would love to stop in and say hi to you sometime.

[PhishHead]

I would just like to state that people with IBS-D should not always take metamucil or CITRUCEL. I have had IBS-D for many many years and metamucil or citrucel would absolutely destroy me and leave me crapping for many many hours into the day.

Normally from what I have researched and learned those fiber supplements are only given to people with IBS-C.

[Doctor Z]

"That's called irritabowel syndrome."

[Dr Steve]

I would just like to state that people with IBS-D should not always take metamucil or CITRUCEL. I have had IBS-D for many many years and metamucil or citrucel would absolutely destroy me and leave me crapping for many many hours into the day.

Normally from what I have researched and learned those fiber supplements are only given to people with IBS-C.

Strangely, a lot of people with IBS-C may respond to fiber therapy as well, especially Citrucel. The reason for this is that citrucel is a bowel normalizer...though it's sold as a laxitive (because most people are constipated), will loosen hard tyrrdes but stiffen loose ones. It also tends to decrease the general irritability of the colon, resulting in less diarrhea. Of course, everyone is different and what works for me may not work for you, but it's worth a try for a lot of people with IBS of all forms, in my opinion.

Dr Steve - Is there a difference between the tablets and the powder? Do you recommend one over the other?

PS - Thanks for taking the time to post here!!

It's all in the number of grams of fiber you're getting. With the caplets you get 110grams of fiber for $25= $0.22 per gram

With the powder you get 304 grams for $9 = $0.02 per gram

or another way to look at it, you get 4.4 grams per dollar with the pills, and 33 grams per dollar with the powder.

so the powder is a dog by a factor of 10, financially.

[PhishHead]

Strangely, a lot of people with IBS-C may respond to fiber therapy as well, especially Citrucel. The reason for this is that citrucel is a bowel normalizer...though it's sold as a laxitive (because most people are constipated), will loosen hard tyrrdes but stiffen loose ones. It also tends to decrease the general irritability of the colon, resulting in less diarrhea. Of course, everyone is different and what works for me may not work for you, but it's worth a try for a lot of people with IBS of all forms, in my opinion.

I just remember when they tried it with me, yes it would stiffen up a little bit, but I was also going more than 10 times a day with it, which I know happens alot with people with IBS-D.

My point was just be careful if you have IBS-D and want to try fiber therapy because it may stiffen your D but may cause you to go a lot more.

btw not trying to argue with Dr. Steve, just giving my experience and research.

[SouthSideJohnny]

My point was just be careful if you have IBS-D and want to try fiber therapy because it may stiffen your D

An added bonus!!