[SteveE]

To shed light on this disorder and how patients experience its symptoms and treatment, the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) sponsored and collaborated with the University of North Carolina (UNC) Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders to conduct a comprehensive online survey of persons with IBS; IBS Patients: Their Illness Experience and Unmet Needs.

The survey results at the link below are an interesting read. One item in particular made me feel less alone. When I look around this forum I see people talking so much about the C and the D that I feel like a bit of an outsider in symptoms I have. I would not classify mine as either...and I really wouldn't call it an alternating pattern precisely either. This survey seems to show that there are more of us feeling as I do than strictly suffering from C and/or D. I wonder why those two symptoms seem to dominate the conversation, then?

Here >>

[Kathleen M.]

I think that the drugs developed for IBS are D-only or C-only tends to make people think they need to fit into one category or the other.

There are a fair number of people where one or the other predominate. The diagnostic criteria do not require either one to predominate. It only says change in stool consistency or frequency. I also think there is a fair amount of overlap between IBS and all the other functional bowel problems and there aren't clear cut lines. Of course it doesn't really matter which of the functional bowel problems you fit in as the symptoms that are most bothersome are treated the same way whether they are IBS or functional diarrhea or chronic functional abdominal pain, etc.

The other thing to remember is support groups tend to accumulate the worst cases so you probably find more of the extremes here than you do with a survey that gets the full range of IBS sufferers.

[journ3]

Steve, I've never fit neatly into the D, C, or A boxes either. My frequency has never yet been out of medically "normal" range, but form, timing, reflexes etc. are all off and very inconsistent, definitely and chronically altered from my pre-IBS patterns. I was badly pain predominant for a long time. Post-hypno, I'm not really that anymore either, but I still have up to 14 GI and related non-GI symptoms every day, none of them individually that bothersome anymore, but cumulatively still more disruptive than I would like, and not amenable to more than a few of many interventions. It can be hard enough having textbook IBS-C or IBS-D, but when nearly every book, website, professional, pharmaceutical company, research questionnaire, etc that I've encountered seems focused on those, I wonder when and if those of us who don't fit the boxes are ever going to get useful answers or additional effective interventions for our needs. I hope it's in my lifetime.