[peapod]

I am struggling to get a diagnosis from my doctor so I wonder if anyone who suffers from IBS can help me. I suffer from pretty much permanent pain in my upper abdomen - quite high up almost under my rib cage. It makes me feel exhausted all the time. It doesn't really change a great deal depending on what I eat and my bowel movements are completely normal. I am under quite a lot of stress as well. Can it be IBS if the pain is upper abdominal rather than bowels and is it possible to have IBS with normal bowel movements?Any advice much appreciated.

 

[Kathleen M.]

I'd suspect functional dyspepsia (upper abdominal pain from the stomach part of the GI tract) rather than IBS (colon pain with bowel changes).Although in the clinic someitmes they lump all the functional GI disorders under IBS as there really isn't separate treatments for them. Functional pain is treated the same in all of them. Sometimes FD will respond to GERD drugs even without evidence of GERD problems. So that is about the only difference between treating it and treating IBS pain.

 

[peapod]

Thank you so much for your help. I've done a bit of research and FD does seem to match my symptoms. I did take Lansoprazole for about 5 days but stopped as it wasn't improving things and was making me really dizzy. The doc then prescribed Fybogel which worked for about 5 days but then back to square one. Are there alternatives to Lansoprazole which might be worth trying that you know of?

 

[BQ]

Here Peapod some info re: treatment of dyspepsia:http://www.mayoclinic.org/dyspepsia/treatment.html