When do you know you have it? Options

[IChaseFrisbees]

Hey everybody, I'm a little confused. IBS is a "throwaway diagnosis," or so I've heard; meaning that if you have the digestive symptoms and they can't figure out what's wrong with you, then they make the diagnosis. A process of elimination as it were. This means that all sorts of problems can cause IBS: One person with Gluten Intolerance and another person with just "Leaky Gut Syndrome" could both leave as IBSers and never know the difference.

Then there is the "real" IBS it seems; the nervous disorder where your colon is spastic and your bowels move things along to quickly, etc.

My question then is when do you give up, or how do you know if you just have a nerve problem and your screwed or if you've got somehting treatable like bacterial overgrowth, a parasite or food allergies? What are all the causes of IBS, in a sense is what I'm asking:

Celiac disease
Food allergies
Leaky gut
Parasites
Dysbiosis
SIBO
Gallbladder/pancreas problems, deficiencies etc.
Candida

I've tried leak gut treatments, diets, probiotics, food allergy testing, pancreas testing, all of it. When do I know there's nothing else out there, that I have the nervous colon problem, go get my antidepressants and go to hypnotherapy? What other things could cause IBS symptoms?

[overitnow]

In my case, based upon stumbling upon a treatment while trying to address a problem of cholesterol buildups, I believe it is a low level inflammation, presumably first brought on by my smoking--although there are many other sources of a similar condition. Once this was in place, even though I quit smoking, there seemed to be a chain of events set in motion whereby any number of triggers, including just the basic act of eating, would result in repeated episodes of D, every day of my life. This lasted for 10 years before I started taking an experimental course in flavonoid supplementation to see if it would lower some cholesterol blockages. Within a month my case of male smoker's impotence was reversed. Two months later my GERD stopped. Over the next year my D slowly resolved itself. I have now been well for over 10 years, and my (unrelated) risk of heart attack has dropped from 50% to 2%. (As far as history beyond IBS, I also passed some gall stones and had a severe attack of what was believed to be gastritis.)

Mark

[IChaseFrisbees]

Goodness, that's quite an interconnected case you had going on. I'm wondering, when you say inflammation what does that mean? Because I've been tested for inflammation and I never have it, though clearly something is causing loose stools, gas etc.

[Kathleen M.]

Well some of the "other things" are things I'm not sure they can test for so I'd call those throwaway diagnoses that a lot of the alternative practioners like to use. Sometimes they can use some tests for them, but often they do something that can't really test for anything, or proves everyone has the same thing and often the prescribe about the same diet or supplements for a lot of them anyway.

Celiac can be tested for and a gluten free diet should fix that up (although a few people still have problems and may also have functional issues as that is about the same percentage of anybody you expect with IBS)
Food allergies can be tested for. Elimination diet fixes that.
SIBO can be tested for and if antibiotics make you better for a few weeks after you take them you pretty much know that is right.
Gallbladder/Pancreas can be tested for.

Most of the others what most people have that are told they have those don't get a real medical test done or are told the parasites they have cannot ever be seen in any medical test which pretty much proves you have them. (or something like that, sometimes I don't quite get the logic, but what most people mean by those are the ones doctors cannot find but you must have because you have a symptom of something).

They can actually test FOR IBS now. http://www.ibsbloodtest.com/ there are biomarkers that distinguish IBSers from healthy controls and from people with other GI stuff when you limit the IBSers to the ones that really don't have anything else any medical test for the other things don't show.

After all most medical tests were developed to look for something else and then we think it is bad that something they were never designed to test for (IBS) doesn't show up on them.

However a lot of people will never believe there is anything like IBS and will never accept the diagnosis and will always think it must be something else.

I could give you some other diagnosis to track down if you want more geese to chase.

(and if you are female do make sure that has been checked out as some of the female problem cause GI symptoms.)

Adrenal fatigue seems to be getting popular, not the one that actually shows up as Addison's disease, but causes pretty much vague symptoms of everything.
http://www.adrenalfatigue.org/

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is always a good one as well for any sort of just not well
http://www.multiplechemicalsensitivity.org...l%20sensitivity

Wilson's Syndrome http://www.mall-net.com/cathcart/wilsons.html

http://symptoms.wrongdiagnosis.com/cosympt...al-symptoms.htm can give you lots of highly improbable things (as most of them do have other symptoms or clearly shows up on medical tests)

[IChaseFrisbees]

Hi there, I've had the IBS blood test done (positive) but I'm still curious; what does it look for? I guess what I mean is are the "biomarkers" mentioned on the site you linked to cause by the misfiring of nerves/improperly timed colon contraction etc.? Or are they measures of inflammation or mineral absorption or other things?

Thanks a lot.

[Kathleen M.]

Some are markers for other diseases, some are things you see increased in IBSers. Some of the increased in IBSers seem to have to do with nerve regulation and pain sensing. The ones for other diseases tend to be immune system chemicals that go up or go down in autoimmune disease or things you find in patients with celiac.

They basically threw all the biomarkers they could find and then tested them in combinations until they found the set that did a good job of separating out the people with IBS from the people with other GI problems.