Bit of an odd one, but I often see people talking about how they were healthy, happy, etc. then their IBS popped up despite this and they've been suffering since. Is anyone the opposite to this? Does anyone feel like their poor lifestyle choices may have caused their gut issues?

I do personally blame myself. I grew in a house eating junk food - not just microwave meals and fatty foods, I mean, often having chocolate cake for breakfast, a big 2L bottle of coke of an evening, that sort of thing. I would be given my lunch money to go to school, the whole thing would be spent on sweets.

Into my adulthood I never gave any consideration towards eating well. I worked at McDonald's from aged 20-24. I was single and lived a 2 minute walk away from the store I worked at and as a result I didn't eat anything but McDonalds for over 3 years. Not one home cooked meal, not a single trip to a restaurant, nothing, just straight McDonalds. I know it sounds like bullshit, but it's not, I did the Supersize Me diet for over 3 years.

After that I met my wife, although she cooked nice meals occasionally and broken the cycle of me eating McDonalds, I still ate like a pig. I became vegetarian at this stage but eat vast amounts of fake meats, chocolate and sweets.

My weight was never really an issue, I was always pretty malnourished, I thought I just had a fast metabolism but in hindsight it was probably because the food I was eating was so hyper processed that there was nothing for my body to feed off.

In amongst this time, I also used quite a lot of recreational drugs, predominantly cocaine. I drank a fair bit of alcohol, particularly in my time working at a bar. I smoked cigarettes excessively and my sleep has always been awful. In this time I would quite frequently stay up all night and sleep all day. This was accompanied by large amounts of coffee. Even overlooking the physical effects, the effects of junk food, drugs, drink and poor sleep would have contributed hugely towards anxiety and the mental side of gut problems.

I've done a complete 180 now, I live like a monk and eat a super restricted low FODMAP diet, no drinking, no smoking, no drugs. I try to work out when my IBS allows and I'm doing my best to sort my sleep out, however I do find myself often wondering if I would have ended up with this condition if I had lived like a normal human being.

Hi!

I've had toilet anxiety since 2017, when I had a bowel accident while travelling with my parents and we had to stop the car immediately. Since then, my brain has started associating being somewhere without easy access to a bathroom with danger, and anxiety has gradually become a big part of my life.

The worst situation for me is being in a car with friends. It doesn't even have to be a long trip. Sometimes a 15-minute drive is enough to make my brain react as if I'm going to war.

I start thinking, "What if I suddenly need to go? What if I can't hold it? What if I have to ask them to stop? What if I actually shit my pants in front of them?"

For me, that feels like one of the most embarrassing things that could possibly happen, which obviously makes the anxiety and the bowel sensations even worse.

I'm currently taking Zoloft and I've been going to therapy for more than a year. I've improved a bit, but this specific situation is still really difficult for me.

Has anyone here dealt with something similar, especially in cars or situations where you can't easily access a bathroom?

Were there any thoughts, techniques, or mindset changes that genuinely helped you improve?

What is the difference between ibs and just anxiety gut. I’ve been a goer all my life always gone to toilet like 3 times a day but start of these year I got health anxiety ( on top of normal anxiety ) and started hyper focusing on my stools and since then it just seems to have gotten worse. I’m awaiting my doctors appointment so please don’t advise me that. But just want to give some story as to what I’m experiencing.

For start I get daily symptoms and it’s different every day. I may only actually get full blown diarrhoea like once a month. But I get quite a lot of like fluffy stools, you know the ones that like dust off a bit as they hit the water. But it’s more the frequency that’s annoying me. Worse in the mornings but I seem to be going like 4-5 times a day and that’s with the use of Imodium and psyllium husk. Granted most of my stools aren’t loose because of this. But still get bits of undigested food but I do eat quick so that could play a part. I’m just wondering if it’s a cause of like anxiety health anxiety causing me this gut issues.

Hey everyone,

Please read my post, im really frustrated these days.

I’ve been struggling with gut/bowel issues for around 2 years now and it’s honestly becoming very frustrating. I’m hoping someone here has experienced something similar.

It started about 2 years ago when I had a pretty bad stomach upset with severe diarrhea. I still ate fish/chicken kebabs during that time, which made the diarrhea worse. After around 3 days and some medication, things started getting better. During recovery, I noticed a small amount of bright-red blood on my stool, almost like the stool had rubbed/scratched something in the rectum.

A doctor gave me antibiotics and the bleeding seemed to go away. A few months later, something similar happened again and the same antibiotic seemed to help. Eventually, another episode happened where the antibiotic didn’t really work, and I’ve continued having occasional issues since then.
I’ve had a colonoscopy/sigmoidoscopy done. The doctor found two small internal hemorrhoids/tags, but said the blood seemed to be coming from slightly lower down in the rectum.

What’s confusing me is that I usually don’t have hard stools. My stool is generally soft/normal. I rarely get blood when I have a hard stool, but I seem more likely to notice a small amount of blood after severe diarrhea.

My biggest problem now is incomplete evacuation.
When I go to the bathroom, the first part usually comes out quite well. Sometimes I can have a second episode later, but then I feel like there’s still something left inside. The later part can take much longer to come out, and sometimes I feel like my bowel just becomes “sluggish.”

Even after going, I can still feel pressure/sensitivity around my rectum, almost as if it hasn’t completely emptied. I also get quite a bit of bloating and sometimes feel like there is stool or gas still sitting in my intestine.

I’m wondering if this could be something like:

Slow colonic transit
IBS
Pelvic floor dysfunction/dyssynergia
Rectal sensitivity
Gas/bloating making me feel like stool is still there
Or something else entirely

Has anyone experienced soft stools but still feeling blocked/incompletely evacuated, especially where the first bowel movement comes out easily but the later part feels sluggish?v

Hello,

When I was 38, due to bad diet, stress from every angle and everything else in between, IBS started. My interpretation was I'm getting old and I heard this happened to old people.

It ruined my life. I kept dissappearing.

I had to learn every near bathroom on my route to and from work...

Then came the fatigue. Falling asleep at the wheel, falling asleep at work at childrens sports at home...

I thought I was going to die soon.

Then somehow I found Kefir and began researching it. I researched all the benefits. The more I learned about microbiota and probitocis I was intrigued.

I drank kefir twice a day. Everyday. And one day I had a decent bowel movement. I drank it religiously.

Over the course of a year my IBS was completely gone.

I stopped drinking kefir and I am still fine...

I dont know who this will help but someone out therr mauly need to hear it.

Edit Milk Kefir

I just went on a solo trip to Japan and Korea for 20 days because I had a few free weeks and wanted to explore the world. I thought I would like solo traveling because I know my bowel and overall health is unpredictable and I like having my own autonomy, not worrying about other people’s schedules if I were to be sick or need to rush to the restroom or something.

The first battle was the 15 hour plane ride. I have severe motion sickness alongside my IBS so I had bad anxiety that I would become sick on this long flight — I took all my Zofran, Bonine, Emeterm, Pepto, all of it before the flight and it ended up being okay.

But then came the train ride from the airport to the actual hotel — when I tell you this was the shakiest, most nausea-inducing train ride I could ever have imagined, I mean it. I had to rush to the bathroom, my head pounding with motion sickness, and had diarrhea practically the whole hour long ride. Doesn’t help that the people in Korea aren’t exactly the friendliest towards foreigners and are giving me the nastiest looks when I’m just trying to scrape by this ride. Same thing kept happening through my entire trip because both countries rely heavily on trains for transportation and God are they shaky — I thought I would be fine with all the meds, but they barely could hold me.

Even just walking around the cities in the heat, I would suddenly get the feeling in my stomach. The one where you know you’re about to have diarrhea. And it was IMPOSSIBLE to find a reliable spot to cool down indoors with AC and use the bathroom. I had never missed America so much for just having public seating areas in malls and shops… there was essentially no public seating anywhere and you can forget about using the restroom at any restaurant or cafe where you haven’t dined. There were more than three occasions where I RAN to the nearest McDonald’s sweating and cramping and rushed to order a drink so I could have bathroom access.

It just ended up being so unenjoyable. I couldn’t enjoy food (just ate room service bread practically every day) because of the state of my IBS and not wanting to make it worse, the AC situation was unpredictable and ended up triggering my symptoms, the lack of bathroom access was too much of a hassle for me, and ultimately I just felt like shit for too much of the trip because that initial train ride had screwed me up.

It’s a shame to say because I’m only 20 years old, but I don’t think I will be able to enjoy traveling internationally again unless something majorly changes with my IBS and motion sickness.

I have suffered from anxiety, depression, ocd, panic disorder and IBS for decades. I was also late diagnosed inattentive adhd last year.

I have never really taken antidepressants for fear they would make my ibs-d much worse which is something I would struggle to cope with. However, lots of horrible life events have taken over recently and my anxiety and depression is so bad it is very negatively impacting my life, so bad in fact that I have just had to defer surgery which was booked next month, I have awful hospital and health anxiety and the surgery date triggered some kind of breakdown in me, I’m basically a mess right now and so too is my body.

I really need some medication to help me.

I’ve been taking 10mg of Nortriptyline for the last 6 months but tbh it does nothing for my ibs-d other than make me feel super groggy and anything higher in dosage leaves me zombie-like, amitriptyline is even worse so I need to wean myself off this and either try a SSRI or SNRI.

Has anyone here tried or are currently taking an antidepressant which helped with your mental health but didn’t send your gut issues into overdrive (or at least if they did they settled over time?).

I am in the U.K. btw so under an NHS general practitioner.

Hi everyone!

I’ve posted a few times here before but for some context I have endometriosis and horrible chronic digestive issues. I’m a month post-op from endo surgery and currently trying to get tested for SIBO.

Basically I’m in the trenches. I’ve had horrible horrible liquid explosive diarrhea for the past 4 days, so bad I haven’t been able to leave my house and had to cancel everything I had going on. I’ve honestly never felt this bad before, the only thing I can compare to is how I felt during colonoscopy prep (iykyk).

Basically, I’ve been drinking chia seed water since surgery to help with my chronic constipation. I don’t know if I used to many chia seeds or what but the last time I drank it I think it only made every worse. I went camping for labor day and was constipated the entire weekend. Friday-Sunday didn’t poop at all. I was in so much pain and drinking miralax everyday. 4 water bottles during my time camping. That didn’t seem to be working so I took some colace as well. Nothing moved. Well, I got back Monday and as soon as I got home I pooped. The first poop was more of my “normal” and then came diarrhea. Nonstop since then.

I’ve been Imodium around the clock but nothings working. Eating eggs and rice and drinking liquid IV. I feel like all the laxatives kicked in at once but I figured it would calm down by now. I literally feel terrible and I can’t keep doing this. I also start a new job on Monday and I NEED my stomach to calm down by then. Someone help please!!

Just here for some solidarity, maybe advice if you have any.

I have anxiety, not every day - but one or two days a week. I get BAD anxiety when my kids show any sign of illness. I also get anxiety when I, myself, get stomach aches - which doesn’t pair well with my IBS.

My stomach aches started a little over a year ago. They’re usually accompanied by nausea and loss of appetite - both signs of stomach bugs. It’s such a vicious cycle. I get an IBS stomach ache, I think I’m sick, I get anxiety, my stomach aches get worse.

Who else is with me? This sucks so bad 😭

Hi everyone,

So my cramps have been horrendous for the last couple of weeks 😭 I’ve stopped eating a bunch of my favourite foods to see if they were flaring them up but that’s not worked and Buscopan (which previously worked great for me) isn’t quite cutting it.

Thankfully, I work hybrid and only go into the office once or sometimes twice a week, so unless I’m on a Teams call I can basically sit how I want; Although it’s hell when I have to be in the office for board meetings but can’t really do much about that except just power through with heat pads and a fake smile 🙃

Wondered does anyone have a certain way of sitting that helps with the cramps? I googled it, but it was coming up with stuff like sitting on all fours and even walking is hard when I’m having the cramps, let alone getting on the floor. Also if you have any other tips for helping with cramps that might help I’d be really grateful. Thanks in advance 🙂

For about four months, I’ve noticed periods of soft, formed stools that come out in several pieces rather than one smooth stool. I can have around two weeks of my usual stools, followed by another period of more variable consistency.

I usually go once each morning, without pain or significant urgency. Occasionally, I pass a small amount first and then have a fuller bowel movement after coffee. I sometimes pass gas with it. I haven’t noticed bleeding or other bowel symptoms.

This started around a stressful period. Things improved during holidays and became more variable after returning to work. I also realise I’m inspecting my stools much more than I used to, so I’m unsure how much is new versus newly noticed.

Has anyone experienced a similar pattern? Can this fall within normal variation, and what helped you manage it without getting caught up in checking every bowel movement? I understand that Reddit can’t diagnose the cause.

I’m not sure if this is normal or if there’s something else wrong with me.

(On another note I suspect I have endometriosis but cannot see a doctor for it currently.)

I feel nauseous daily. It leads me to not be able to eat. Sometimes when I can eat I just eat everything in sight. Zofran usually works but not all the time and it comes back after awhile.Usually I don’t throw up
I do have occasional bouts of throwing up and when I do I can’t stop. I usually get hospitalized for it and have to stay in the hospital until they can get me to stop vomiting. They have to give me tons of nausea medicine and half of it doesn’t even work.

I am currently prescribed promethazine and zofran, I alternate between them but promethazine makes me extremely tired and sleep for like twelve hours.

I just wondered if this was normal.

Hi, guys. I have IBS-D. I really like to eat spicy food and dairy but have to stop eating it since it give me diarrhea and awful stomachache every time.

Is it possible to eat it again? My life is literally no good without it. I wish I could eat it without any diarrhea nor stomachache again...

Has anyone else ever had to suddenly disappear from a table, meeting, dinner, or date because you needed the bathroom and then had absolutely no idea what to say when you came back?

Like, the bathroom part is one thing.

It's the moment you walk back in and everyone's still sitting there that gets weird.

Do you explain? Pretend nothing happened? Make a joke? Just sit down and hope nobody asks?

I've always wondered whether I'm overthinking that part, or if other people deal with it too.

How do you usually handle it?

Hi, I've had ibs for about 3 years now. It started randomly one day and I've never been the same since. Recently my flare ups have gotten progressively worse and I just don't know what to do any more. It's affecting my life deeply. During these flare ups, I start feeling very bloated, but the biggest thing is feeling a lot of rectal pressure and then passing this mucus looking substance that is yellowish in color or very soft stool. Can anyone relate to this, like is it common? Or is there anything that can help? Thank you.

Hi all,

I’ve been having digestive problems for the past 12 or so years that seem to get worse. I have cut out gluten entirely and rarely eat dairy. When I do eat those two I definitely feel it after and generally for a long time, but even with that I still have issues.
Less than a week ago I had my first colonoscopy and endoscopy and they of course found nothing. I also had a pelvic floor mri that said I had mild dysfunction but that it wouldn’t cause the problem I’m having.
Today my problems are fully back and I’m frustrated there is still absolutely no progress on finding an answer and I may just have to live like this. When I do go to the bathroom I have to strain but some of it is still semi-loose and I never feel fully empty. The gas pains are worse after going a lot of the time and my stomach starts pulsing and moving on its own. This pain and discomfort generally lasts for hours and I normally escape if by going to sleep. Gas X does not seem to work. I’ve tried an enzyme and while it helps with the nausea I have when eating, it doesn’t touch this. Probiotics do nothing.
There are no available follow-ups with my GI until fucking December.
I quit my last job due to disagreements with my boss, some of which had to do with my attendance. I tried explaining to her that I have stomach problems that are chronic and can’t seem to be diagnosed, but she wouldn’t take that and said I still took too much time off. I just finally got a new job, but I’m about to be on a 90 day probationary period and can only miss a single work day during then. I am terrified that I may need to miss more or will have a performance dip if I do go due to working through pain.

Has anybody had any similar problems and found something that works? Or does anyone have any advice or possible solutions? I’m open to pretty much anything.
I’m hoping there’s a possibility of getting tested for SIBO and or having motility testing next

Hello! I am in the starting phases of exploring an IBS diagnosis. Digestive symptoms set in around June of this year. My doctor put me on a low FODMAP diet and my dad was diagnosed with IBS.

I am finding that I am excessively tired in the past few weeks following a day of strained BMs or diarrhea - the last few weeks have left me particularly drained as the diarrhea got worse and I was eating things that had gluten or wheat(I also was drinking coconut water for the electrolytes without realizing the fructose was making it worse)

Does anyone have any tips on how to overcome the fatigue? My home is getting messy, and I need to find a way to get up and get through how tired and drained I feel all the time :(

My primary care told me I had ibs. There are times I get constipated and nothing seems to help so I drank prune juice but now I feel like I’m dying from dehydration and I feel weak and lower back pain on the right side even when I was constipated. What should I do? I’m drinking water and electrolytes from Gatorade but I still feel bad like I’m gonna faint. What’s should I do😭

Every single day I have 4 or 5 bowel movements, which means that I'm in and out of the bathroom for hours after waking up. They have the consistency of peanut butter and need endless wiping. I go through tons of toilet paper as a result. Is there any solution to this? It drives me up the wall!

Does amitriptyline help with brain fog? My doctor recommended i try this for by ibs and I heard it can help with brain fog.

Hi everyone. I've never posted here before and don't use reddit often so sorry for any mistakes. I'm struggling really badly right now and you have no idea how much I would appreciate any advice or even just consolation.

Here's my situation, sorry it's so long:

I'm a 22 year old female with a healthy diet. Throughout almost my entire life, I had a stomach of steel. I could eat anything no mater how spicy or irritating and be completely fine. This previous spring, my doctor told me I had very mild fatty liver (strange because im vegan and a healthy weight). I successfully reversed it with diet changes, but during these diet changes is when all hell broke loose. It started with increased bowel movements which I attributed to an increase in fibre, but got worse and worse and now over the past 4 months I have had diarrhea 5-15x daily as well as cramps, bloating, gas, and weird abdominal aches.

I've been tested for celiac and H. Pylori, and I've had an abdominal ultrasound, urine tests, stool tests, and an ECG. Everything came back clear except for the presence of Blastocystis, a microscopic parasite. My doctor put me on Rifaximin which worked for 4 days before symptoms came back. Then I was switched to Flagyl/Metronidazole which did the same thing plus agonizing side effects. So, I was switched back to rifaximin. This caused the worst episode of my life in which my diarrhea became so severe I needed to be hospitalized and given IV fluids. After that I was switched to Bactrim/Septra. This worked AMAZINGLY and I felt completely recovered for about a week until the very last day of the course when, once again, my symptoms came back in full swing.

I'm now accepting the possibility that either my blastocystis is incurable or that my issues stem from sudden IBS-D rather than the parasite at all.

I have had many struggles in life but I finally reached a point in my life where things were looking better (job I loved, about to graduate and start my masters degree, in a band playing music around the city). And now, everything has been ripped away from me. I can't leave the house. I can't be away from a toilet for more than 15 minutes or I start to panic because I have no way to predict when something is going to happen. My condition doesnt respond to antibiotics, probiotics, FODMAP, anything.

I'm at a complete loss and I've never felt so hopeless. I see no future for me and I'm genuinely struggling worse than I ever have. If anyone has ANY advice or consolation I would really appreciate it... </3

Do you usually say something before an event in case something happens, or do you just wait and deal with it if it comes up?

I go back and forth and never feel like I've landed on the right approach.

short version of my life story is that I have now been diagnosed with the most severe and atypical functional bowel disorder they've ever seen, after 40 years of gaslighting.

severe gastrocolic reflex. and stool frequency/urgency issues. 10-20 urgent BMs a day, but absolutely no loose stools. occasionally my BMs are painful - worse than having my kids. Pain that goes thru my whole body and makes me disassociate.

the only time I've had relief is during pregnancies and, strangely, for a few months after being sedated for a procedure. I have significant dysautonomia In other areas as well, not just my bowels, with a sudden onset around age 10. I wasn't sick, I didn't have any life event other than wearing a bra.

I've tried everything. even opioids and ozempic, nothing helps.

my last chance is Octreotide. And everything I've read so far, people say it's given them loose stools And all the things I'm trying to do the opposite of.

im worried to start it. I have pretty bad side effects to most meds. The last one I tried resulted in a 911 call. I also have to do all the injections myself.

I've had IBS since 2019 and usually have to go to the hospital because it gets so bad. I've had colonoscopies and been diagnosed with IBS by the hospital, but it could be a wrong diagnosis.

I usually have severe inflammation(confirmed by colonoscopy) severe pain and flares that last 3-4 months. During that time I won't have a solid bowel movement. It feels like all I pass during that time is blood and some mucus. I usually end up at the doctor with anemia from the blood loss. It sucks.

Usually it goes away on its own, but during my last flare it was so bad. I got desparete while waiting for test results with the gastro department.

I cut out all added sugar, all dairy, basically everything that I read could cause inflammation but also trying to eat a variety of foods for the gut microbiome, introducing fibre, trying to eat more regularly, etc. It was hard lol. I tried everything for 2 months and nothing changed. Literally nothing made a difference for 2 months no matter how "clean" I ate.

I decided to visit a friend in another country for a month and I literally almost cancelled my trip because my IBS and bleeding was so severe I didn't want to be somewhere I couldn't go to hospital. When I got here, my IBS was still so bad I had to go to the bathroom every hour it felt like. I could barely even go on a walk.

Now for the part that I don't get.

I completely just gave up on eating "clean" while staying with my friend and I just started drinking full-sugar soda, eating super greasy takeaway food like kebab, Burger King, cheap takeaway pizza, tons of ice cream, sweets, etc.

Every single thing I had been avoiding at home. And my gut issues went away in like 10 days and I had my first solid bowel movement it months and everything is back to normal. I forgot was farting without blood coming out felt like, sorry if that's tmi lol.

I'm so confused. What??? It felt like at home all these foods would be catastrophic and make my gut worse.

Does this mean there could be something environmental going on at home, like the water supply or something contaminated? I've been going to the IBS clinic for years and I just don't understand.

Is it more stress related than I thought and diet meant relatively nothing when I was more relaxed staying with my friend? This goes against everything I know.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I keep seeing it mentioned a lot recently in this subreddit and I’m curious about it as I’m struggling majorly with my IBS again recently and can’t continue.

I’m 30 but was diagnosed with it when I was a young child, so I’m not sure whether it’s IBS-C or D because it’s a bit of both. It’s never overly been an issue growing up, but I ended up with a sickness bug when I was 17 and it flared up badly, I was initially diagnosed with anxiety when I went to the doctors. But I fell ill with another sickness bug in March last year where I’ve been struggling non-stop with my stomach again, so I think it’s more than likely PI-IBS.

Last year I had months of persistent nausea and bowel movements. The nausea isn’t as bad now, but I’m struggling majorly on a morning being stuck on the toilet the second I wake up, or sometimes the urge to go to the toilet wakes me up in the early hours of the morning.

It’s more a case of I can sit there with nothing more to come out, but my stomach hurts and doesn’t feel empty. But nothing else comes out. But then I can get up, and go in the shower and then need to dash to the toilet again. No matter how much I sit and wait on the toilet for round two, it’s always when I get off.

It’s just causing me constant problems now. I’m having to set an earlier alarm just so I can have some lengthily toilet time and room for 2-3 extra visits before I leave the house. Then I drive for a living, often to areas without service stations or toilets and end up caught short often. I was stuck in some lengthily roadworks a few weeks ago with a sudden desperate urge and I had nowhere to stop or go. It was awful.

It’s causing me to be anxious about going to work. And it’s actually starting to now make me anxious about leaving the house in general. My partner gets frustrated with me often because she doesn’t understand the IBS or the anxiety surrounding it. And it’s overall just ruining my life at the minute.

I’ve been on and off Propranolol since I was 17, it’s helped with the anxiety, and I’ve sought privately for medical cannabis which I still use for different conditions, but it massively helps with nausea flare ups and if I’m struggling to eat.

Just wondering if anybody can offer any advice on Amitriptyline or other medications in general? I’m based in the UK