[Benfrain]

I am very worried and getting more worried by the day so I hope somebody here can help... I am a 27 year old male with no previous serious health problems. I am average weight, get exercise and eat pretty healthy. For the past few months I have had bloating every now and then and slight constipation along with stomach pains. Before that I went to the toilet about once a day but when constipated it could be 2-3 days without having a BM (although felt like I needed to go each day). In the last month I had a fairly regular pain which had been constant in my left hand side just under the bottom rib of my rib cage. If felt like stitch so I went to see my Doctor. I told him about my bowel issues and the pain in my side so he felt my stomach, asked if the pain was worse when I moved or coughed etc and it wasn't and so told me he thought it was muscular. However, I then made the mistake of reading about cancer and started to panic when I read that one of the symptoms is bowel changes! Whether it is coincidence or not I cannot be sure but over the next few days I started to get frequent urges to go to the toilet and the BM was far looser than usual, thin and feathery and often contained what looked like undigested food (please forgive the emphasis on detail here!). I went to see the Doctor again (same practice, different Doctor) and told him about my differing symptons and he too felt my stomach and then prescribed me Fybogel (fibre suppliment?) to try and bulk up the stools. This imrpoved matters slightly, although I was still seeing a large amount of undigested food in my stools plus I was needing to go to the toilet upto 8 times a day! I was also starting to get anxiety attacks (something I started getting irregulaly in July this year) so decided to visit the Doctors again. Because I was suffering bad with the anxiety at that point and the BM had become mostly constant diahorrea the Doctor (a different one again!) also physically checked my stomach and agreed with the other doctors that it was IBS and suggested I could try betablockers to try and calm me down. Well, I didn't take the beta-blockers and decided to try and 'get a grip' by myself and tried to chill out and went running every couple of days and did some physical work with a friend to try and take my mind off things. However, although a few days ago my BM seemed to be getting a little more solid, in the past 3 days I have suffered diahorrea from the moment I woke up. After about 3-4 trips to the toilet (in the space of an hour) I am then usually OK for the rest of the day with no compulsive desire to visit the toilet, although my stomach has some (bearable) pain nearly all of the time. I know that after 3 trips to the Doctors I should be convinced it is IBS but I am not. All these pains and feeling seem so strange to me, I can't help wondering if it could be something more serious which warrants more serious attention. Syptoms: - Often need to have a BM the moment I wake up (certainly within 30mins) and this is preceeded by very 'burbly' stomach noises Varying pain - feeling of stitch in left bottom rib, general stomach ache, feeling like there is something under my rib, sometimes similar pain on the right hand side (these pains tend to alternate) Often need to burp a lot after eating, although this can be worse after certain foods - especially if they are greasy Sometimes feel a little sick at the thought of eating or after eating (usually have very good appetite) When stools are not diahhorea they look like they have undigested food in them - there does not appear to blood in any of the stools I have had I have had diahhorrea failry constantly for the past 2 weeks I have not been sick I have lost about 3 pounds of weight in the past 2 weeks Sorry for the super long post - didn't want to leave anything to chance! I hope you can offer me some advice/support and tell me whether these are all just syptoms of IBS? If I can be fairly certain it is IBS I will be a lot happier - my concern at the moment is that it could be something more serious such as cancer and I/my doctor is not heeding the signs... Thanks in advance - Ben

 

[Kathleen M.]

Every single person on the planet has some undigested food in their stools.This is normal.This is how they tell what ancient people ate. You find the latrine. This happens to most animals. Animals that are shy and don't eat much in front of researchers do leave poop behind and analyzing the undigested food in the poop tells you what they eat.Signs that is something other than IBS. Bloody stoolsInexplicable and often dramtic weight loss. Losing a couple of pounds is normal based on the fact that people often do not eat the same amount all the time. If you lose 20-60 pounds in a short period of time eating sometimes even more than you really need to that is inexplicable weight loss. Losing a couple of pounds because you aren't all that hungry right now is normal. Pain that wakes you up from a sound sleep during the night. Rare in IBS, common in other disorders.Abnormal results on your blood tests, especially an elevated sedimentation rate.In otherwise apparently healthy people the types of problems you describe are almost always IBS. Very rare it is something else when you aren't having other problems (anemia, other signs of ill health).When you wake up in the morning the colon wakes up too. In every single person. This can be problematic when the colon is irritable and this normal signal to be 3X more active than in the middle of the night (when the colon is least active) can be too strong for some colon's and cause urgent morning BM's.The location of your pain is pretty common. The "splenic flexure" is often a spasm hot spot. Where the colon goes from going across the top to going down the side.K.PS. By the time colon cancer causes symptoms it is very advanced and you would likely not be among the "otherwise healthy" Colon cancer is rare in people under about 50. Blood in the stool is usually the first sign. The bowel changes and pain come much much later.

 

[TH3255]

Ben, I hope I can ease some of your worry. First of all your worry is probably a very big contributor to your diarrhea. As soon as I'm worried about health issues, I am constantly having D, especially if I'm preoccupied with the thought that I might have a major illness and not know it yet. The chances of you having cancer are slim to none at your age. But I do think you have something going on, which might just be IBS or a slight inflammation, so you should see a GI doc and get a colonoscopy. That will put your mind to rest. The bloating you're feeling sometimes goes along with an irritated colon, like after I've had Diarrhea I am sometimes bloated for a half a day until the colon can recover from all that action. Pain, the same thing. And definitely that pain in the rib area in the left is very common, I get it frequently with my IBS. Just as the previous poster said it's where the colon bends, and pain in that area is extrememly common in IBS.As far as the undigested food, you should track what foods go undigested. For me whenever I eat spinach, either cooked or raw, it comes out practically whole. It might be that you've developed some food sensitivities to certain types of food and your body is not digesting certain types.If the anxiety gets too bad, you should talk to a psycologist or something, mainly because you will create a viscous cycle with your mind and your colon and you will keep this thing going if you don't find some releif for your thoughts. Believe me I know, the hard way.Also another thought about the blurbly stomach noises and the D, could it be some type of parasite, for example salmonella? I've never had it but I did once have a very bad parasite (c-diff) that antibiotics can cure. You may also ask for a stool culture. Just some ideas there for you, but I'm not a doctor or a medical professional, just an IBS sufferer who's been through lots of unfortunate stuff.TH