[excusemeflo99]

I am 20 years old and an otherwise healthy young adult. Very rarely drink. For almost 2 months now I have been struggling with abdominal pain. At the end of February after a beef stew meal, I got really really bad cramping abdominal pain. Those first few weeks were terrible, the pain was almost unbearable and I didn't want to do anything but stay at home and lay down. I have been to the hospital 3 times, gotten blood work, 2 CT scans, stool test for parasites and all have turned up nothing. My pain is in the mid-lower abdomen on the left and right sides, like around the small or large intestines. I also have increased gas and I've noticed that I can eat some cheese but ice cream seems to just make my intestines hurt for up to an entire day. In fact I ate some ice cream last night to experiment and this morning it hurt so bad on my right side and I had some red streaks in my stool. Do not know if the two were related because about a month ago I had a stool with red streaks. Other than that my stools have been normal, I have been going once a day regularly since I started the probiotics. Whereas before I started the probiotic supplement sometimes I would go multiple times a day. I went off dairy for almost 3 and the symptoms were still there a bit so I don't think it's total lactose intolerance. The pain for the first month or so was there almost all the time, but in the last 3-4 weeks I've been taking a probiotic supplement with 35 billion bacteria as well as digestive enzymes. It has helped a lot, I will be symptom free for 2-3 days thinking whatever it is is over, but the symptoms return and I get really stressed out. It really wears on my nerves not having been able to get a definite diagnosis. The pain is bad but the mental toll it takes on me is just as bad. I have not been to a GI specialist yet because I have a deductible medicaid which means I have to pay out of pocket for most things. Does this sound like an onset of IBS or something else?

 

[Kathleen M.]

Could be on the way but usually they wait for a minimum of 6 weeks of symptoms over the course of 6 months as some things clear up in the month or three range.So far it sounds functional more than anything else but I'd a least get CBC with a sedimentation rate test done (complete blood count).You don't seem to be complaining of other things, although may not be a bad idea to also have the run a blood test for celiac disease as well as the other blood test.May be more CFAP than IBS since the stool is pretty normal (although the probiotics may be normalizing that) CFAP is all the pain of IBS with normal/near normal stools. The pain is treated the same way. If you won't go to get a prescription med for that see if peppermint tea or even candies with peppermint oil in them (I use Altoids, so much cheaper than buying capsules) and see if that helps.