[notalis1970]

Hi, i'm new here. I registered because I'm desperate!I had a nasty bout of bacterial gastroenteritis this last July, then everything was fine until late October when i started getting a lot of pain in my abdomen, gas, intermittent constipation and VERY soft stools. (Not watery diarrhea, just really runny).it has just gotten worse over these last months. I had a series of tests: fecal exams--they looked for viruses, checked blood counts, you name it, they did it---and I got the results this AM: all NEGATIVE.I should be happy, right? I'm NOT.I thought that if there was something then they could treat it and I'd feel better. This pain and pooping problem, and the gas, it's ruining my life! I was training for a minimarathon, going to the gym. Now I'm afraid to get too far from the bathroom, and even if i could, I can't run with this pain.I already am in treatment for mild depression and bipolar. By mild I mean that I take the min dose of two meds for both probs: Lamictal and (oops I don't remember the name of the other and I'm too lazy to go downstairs and look.)I KNOW if I go to my doc with these negative results he'll tell me it's all psychosomatic.So, is my "crazy" causing this?

 

[Kathleen M.]

Well IBS isn't a "nothing" but it is a something that doesn't show up on medical tests that are designed to look for other diseases. There is a new test that actually looks at what is wrong with IBSers, but it doesn't change what treatment you will get.IBS is treatable. If your doctors refuse to try any treatments with you get different doctors. Lots of things we don't find a cause for (even if we can use a number to track it) and that doesn't mean they send you off with no treatment for high blood pressure even if they have no idea why you have it and can't test for it. (It is one of those idiopathic diseases for most people rather than caused by a specific thing).The "crazy" doesn't help make things better, but that doesn't "cause" it. Every single disease even if we can find it with a medical test tends to be effected by attitude and how good your mental and social health is.IBS is often fall out from damage caused when your body fights off a GI infection. Kinda like to replace the batteries in the remote you bonked it with a hammer a couple of times. You put fresh batteries in and it is "healed" but some of the buttons never quite work the same way ever again.It takes a huge amount of coordination for the GI tract to get things smoothly from mouth to anus and have the BM be "just right" (not too dry, not too wet). Anything that disrupts that coordination is going to cause symptoms.Now being on other medications may effect what treatments they can try but they don't have a picture of the damage doesn't mean untreatable or I'm just crazy and imagining the symptoms.