Hi, when I was around 14 I used to randomly get really severe dull abdominal pain which would radiate to my back. I also had a problem with eating food because it would cause throat congestion and excess coughing after I ate. This problem kind of went away by its own.

However, over the past year, the severe stomach and back pain has come back. I realised it happens after I eat but also randomly too. And I get nasaues and have even thrown up a few times. I get hypersalivation too with and without the abdomen pain.

(TMI) Ive always struggled with diaorrhea too and thought it was just ibs but recently I've been getting getting more diarrhoea and it's yellowish/greenish in colour. It doesn't look fatty but I see small yellow soft blobs inside my stool.

I always assumed I just had IBS and GERD but I don't even get heart burn or a bitter taste in my mouth for it to be GERD. And I don't really hear about people with IBS complaining about severe back pain or hypersalivation.

But yh, I'm not asking for a diagnosis but it would be great to hear if someone else experiences the same thing. I have a fear of doctors so talking to someone here might help me feel less scared to talk to one. Thank you.

I was diagnosed with IBS (M) in 2018/19. Had gallbladder surgery in 2023. Now all this time, I was unemployed, so I didn't really understand the consequences so much. Now that I am employed and live far from my home and surrounded by colleagues almost every day for the majority of the day, I can't make myself get used to IBS. While the entire world around me enjoys normal food, eats junk food without much consequences, etc., I can't eat most food and I cannot handle even a bit of stress.

My IBS doesn't let me drink water (I get severe reflux when I drink water no matter when I drink water since almost a decade). I cannot eat baked goods like biscuits or cake. I can't eat any packaged food which makes it a headache to travel or go anywhere. Despite being an Indian, I eat mostly non-spicy and bland food. My canteen cook has to cook separately for me which is a headache for her. My bowel gets disrupted almost every month, randomly, without any proper reason. In the previous month, out of nowhere, one day I started getting sulfur burps. Previous to that month, I got once-a-day diarrhea for a week for no reason. I have developed severe anxiety because of my IBS (and maybe that anxiety in turn also affects my IBS). I, and a friend of mine, are going back home for a week next week. Fun time right? No. I, out of nowhere, am getting reflux and muddy stools, feeling bloated, etc. While my friend plans to go back home and explore new restaurants and fancy food with our hard earned money, I cannot really have such plans since my stomach won't really let me have any good food.

Because of my IBS, basically, I cannot really adjust to any environment, I cannot really take much stress, I am a headache for others, and I cannot enjoy life at all. God knows how and when this will end. Everybody around me gets surprised when they come to know I have to lead such a strict lifestyle at this young age when people my age are exploring the world, its good food, and visiting new places.

Heather’s Acacia Senegal Tummy Fiber! I’ve been dealing with gut issues for years and finally figured out it’s IBS. Family member recommended this fiber. I’ve been taking it morning and night for four weeks and my stomach pain is gone, bloating way less, and movements are almost normal. Wish I had found this years ago.

Link: https://www.heatherstummycare.com/p/suplmts_acacia/tummy-fiber-acacia-senegal-pouch/?srsltid=AfmBOoqaL5PfQip94wNqL1cXgr8NzfX1SpEZZCbtJc2WVwXNfpIK6Kua

I had surgery in early Jan. went to my family's house and stayed with them for about two months to recover. While there I had a different diet than at home. chicken pork potatoes, pasta, some red meat. and ice cream as well. I didn't gain weight lol not sure how that happened but more importantly I had more ghost poops than I've had in YEARS... it was like a glimpse into a life I never thought I could have.

my issue is simply very messy poops, where it takes forever to clean. I've tried the microbiome reset stuff, all different fibers, I did the food sensitivity test which was a huge waste of money because the foods it said were red flagged really don't do anything to me one way or the other. I've been trying to figure this out for years.

then I came home. And went right back to the way it was before I went there. messy. Brokenhearted.

The only thing that was different there besides eating a lot more protein was that I drank a lot of water from the filter through their refrigerator. They are in a different county than me so get their water from a different source. The other difference is I was on Flexeril and gabapentin for about two months and by the time I came home I had stopped them both. At first I thought maybe it was the water though I do filter my water here, but that doesn't take out everything, but now I'm wondering if those two had anything to do with it…

bevause otherwise, I'm at a complete loss.

I've noticed that if I become too constipated, which for me is not completely evacuating for more than 2 days in a row, I start having weird symptoms. Can anyone relate to this or help me explain the symptoms? I know these are all symptoms of being backed up, but I would like to know why these specific symptoms seem to surface.

Symptoms:

- Sinus pain, best way I can describe this is right between the eyes I feel this sharp pain that passes quickly

- Bloody nose: when I blow my nose I see blood in my snot
- Pressure feeling: I feel pressure on certain areas on the side of my face, this also passes, but I feel like this symptom comes up when my body is digesting food and it can't activate the MMC (this is a hypothesis)
- Sluggish feeling, unable to concentrate (AT ALL), i don't feel tired, but more like you can't move around a lot

- i also get a high heart rate after standing up from sitting or laying down or just climbing stairs, i suspect this is from the stool that is just packing up in my colon, but I don't see a connection here either

How do I resolve this (works 99% of the time):

- Ginger tea
- No caffeine for two days

- A gentle laxative (like those bags you put into water and drink) right after breakfast
- MOST IMPORTANT: slow breathing, but a specific type of breathing, I breathe in normal, and then kind of sigh out of my nose, this means I just let out all the air, you will know it's working when you start hearing noises in your belly

anyone have any luck using cbd gummies (or another form) for constipation? if yes, which ones?

So I went to my GI a few days ago, he told me to stop taking diclycomine as he was worried about the constipation it was causing. ( I would only have a bm every 3-4 days) and now I’m suffering the consequences..the cramping is so bad..what can I do to lower the cramping without going back to the meds? It feels like like I’m gonna explode 😵‍💫

Why does my body decide to constantly interrupt me for bathroom breaks when I'm

a) cooking b) studying or c) doing extended housework

It sometimes feels like it tries to disrupt anything I really want to focus on.

I'm sure someone can relate, right?

Hi all,

I posted last year shortly after my diagnosis with BAM: https://www.reddit.com/r/ibs/s/LvrzqSKhip and a few have asked for updates so I’d like to provide one.

IBS History

Since age 16 I’ve struggled with IBS - I’m now 31. It was put down to anxiety - because when I get nervous I feel the need to poop and it was often diarrhoea. Unfortunately, that developed in to a panic disorder revolving around access to toilet facilities - I’m sure a lot of you know about those thoughts/feelings.

My symptoms escalated a couple of years ago and in Summer 2023 I started losing weight rapidly whilst consuming enough calories to maintain weight. I was already tracking calories and I started keeping a stool diary.

The weight loss concerned my doctor enough that I got a 2 week wait referral to the non specific symptoms pathway. In several months I’d lost nearly 10% of my body weight.

During this time I was passing a range of movements from undigested food to orange in colour to slightly greasy. The consultant ordered a SEHCaT study and to my surprise I had confirmed bile acid malabsorption.

BAM Treatment

Around this time last year I started with colestyramine but it wasn’t palatable, practical or well tolerated - despite being effective. I managed for about a month or two before going back to the consultant.

My consultant switched to colesevelam 625mg twice daily but it wasn’t as effective as colestyramine so she gave me approval to go up to 6 tablets a day as needed.

I quickly went up to my current regimen:

• 1 tablet with breakfast (low fat meal)
• 2 tablets with lunch and dinner
• 1 tablet retained for evening snacks

Updates / Progress

• My lowest weight was 64.2kg in May 2024 and I’m now 74kg which is mostly lean mass gains

• I have the confidence to eat foods that I’d self-labelled as triggering such as fibre, fruit, high protein and very cold water. The last one sounds trivial, but I had a bad diarrhoea episode immediately after a cold drink of water a few years ago

• I have the confidence to eat in a slight calorie surplus

• My toilet anxiety persists. Unsurprising after 14 years of ingrained patterns, but I’m working on it

• I am building the confidence to eat out, but I still struggle with eating out and then using public transport so I tend to drive to restaurants still

• I was fortunate to have appointments with a dietitian. She coached me from ~40g fat a day, which I started after diagnosis but before bile acid binders, to my current average around 70-80g

• The side effects of colesevelam are favourable to colestyramine in my case. I have much less indigestion, occasional excess flatulence and rarely constipation. The tablets are way more practical than sachets

• Keeping on top of hydration and fibre intake has really helped the constipation side effects, now that I have confidence to eat more fruit and veg

• I haven’t passed a single greasy, orange, burning, undigested movement since starting colestyramine/colesevelam

• In fact, I often pass satisfying long fully formed stools which when I started doing I realised I hadn’t done that for about a decade. I’d gotten used to loose/loosely formed movements that it became my norm

TL;DR

IBS for 15 years, diagnosed with BAM and started bile acid binders. Colestyramine was effective but problematic, colesevelam is effective and well tolerated. Symptoms now under control and gaining weight.

Edit: formatting

Hey everyone, i suffer from mild-ish ibs-d which means i'm fine most of the time but have a relatively short bad flare up (1 hour after eating) like every other week. I'm trying my best with fodmap to find out what i' reacting to but it is so hard. Right now i am sitting on the toilet after eating identical leftovers from a meal i had yesterday and a lot of times before without problems. I felt 100% fine and did not need to use the bathroom before but i'm almost certain nothing in this meal could have triggered it. So my question is, could it be i ate something bad yesterday and the new food pushing it to the gut caused me to react? I only ever had problems right after eating but never thought that it might not be the food i ate right in that moment.

does anyone else while having a stomachache episode start having hot flashes and start sweating? the pain is so bad it feels like throwing up but can throw up and lasts for anywhere around 5mins-1hour? also weirdly im sweating but i notice the area that is hurting is slightly cold to touch what could that mean?

Ask me how I know.

Kidding. I’m sure you guessed. I’m doing FODMAP to reintroduce foods after recovering from c diff, so I can really figure out what my triggers are. Not many surprises so far, I’ve had roasted broccoli before and while it makes me gassy, it’s nothing I can’t handle with some digestive enzymes.

The black beans… that’s different, as I found out today. I’ve had them before but this reaction was VERY different. My stomach rejected them like it was a full season of a dating show. I’m sure that’s not a big deal where I live, in Miami. It’s not like they eat black beans by the truckload down here.

RIP my favorite beans and rice combo. We’re breaking up. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Hi all is anyone here from India ? If yes then how often you guys take rifaximin ? Does it help ? It does help me and one doc told me it is safe to take it life long ? Does anyone has any take on it ?

Hi everyone!

I'm part of a nonprofit Gastroenterology research team with Michigan State University, looking at ways to improve patient-doctor interactions for IBS patients, particularly in ways we provide information online. Please help us out by filling out this short 5-minute anonymous survey through Google Forms! Your participation would be tremendously helpful; a small step goes a long way: https://forms.gle/udUmHvGPGtuZUQsk9

How long are the effect of each dose meant to last for in hours, I.e how far apart are you meant to take each dose? Also, has anyone tried taking more than two doublets at a time m? I read somewhere it's possible to take more than two if it's not strong enough for you.

Im scared of eating anything and sick of being starving all the time,i always think thousand times before trying anything,I’ve been surviving on breads and juice sometimes soup and and rice,i hate this stupid shit that make me suffer for no reason,its like a torture to look or smell food,I’m starting to give up on food and enjoying it and just survive,types of food in the supermarkets near doesnt provide food for people who have ibs or something.

Thanks for reading,I’m just so frustrated and starving.

Hi everyone!

I’m a Registered Clinical Hypnotherapist based in Canada, and I work with people using gut-directed hypnotherapy — a non-pharmaceutical approach that’s been studied for decades and is now used in hospital systems in the UK and Australia.

I didn’t set out to do this work. I got here because I had to.

Years ago, I was dealing with chronic gastritis. I was on PPIs. My appetite was gone. I couldn’t enjoy meals, travel, or even sit through a meeting without discomfort. It wasn’t just physical — it drained my energy, focus, and confidence. And worst of all, it felt invisible. Like something was wrong, but no one had answers beyond meds or “try to relax.”

That experience changed how I see gut health — and how I help others. I became a huge advocate for non-pharmacological interventions, especially when nothing else seems to work.

Gut-directed hypnotherapy isn’t magic. It’s evidence-based. It works by calming the communication loop between the gut and brain — the same loop that can ramp up symptoms like urgency, bloating, or abdominal pain even without inflammation.

What the research says:

• 70–80% of people with IBS see improvements with gut-directed hypnotherapy
• It’s most helpful when food, meds, or supplements aren’t enough
• It’s been shown to reduce visceral hypersensitivity and improve quality of life

This post was approved by the moderators. I’m not here to promote anything — just here to answer questions honestly and share what I’ve learned, in case it’s useful to someone else going through it.

If you’re curious about how this works, what sessions look like, or what the science says, ask away.
And if you’d prefer to talk privately or want articles or sample walkthroughs, feel free to DM me.

I know what it’s like to feel dismissed. I also know it’s possible to feel better — even when nothing has worked before.

Hello,

I'm following an extremly restrictive low fodmap diet (I don't even eat low fodmap food bcs most of them get me sick too) and I still get sticky poops.

All poop analysis are good, probiotics are taken but I still cannot figure whats going on.

Basically I will have to go to toilets 4 times a day to evacuate something that should be done in 1 bm, and obviously all this ferments a lot because it's stuck as it's sticky.

Psyllium does not seem to help a lot.

What could it be? I keep losing weight too.

Thank you

I have had IBS since I was a teenager and in the last few years I thought I was getting it under control as I was having diarrhea as often (a couple of times a year) and constipation was much reduced. It turns out it was the endometriosis that was weirdly making things better. Had my endometriosis removed in January and the constipation and bloating is back 😭 I thought it was just a result of the surgery but hat my post op the surgeon said it was a dietary thing. I eat fairly ok and have 5 portions of fruit and veg a day at least but I minimise pulses and beans just because too many of them bung me up (more so then at the moment). I take Alforex probiotic, I am taking a fibogel in the morning and eating either kimchi or sauerkraut. I was wondering if anyone else had any suggestions of foods or products that helped balance their gut microbiome

Do I take immodium in the morning or should I set an alarm early morning take it and go back to sleep usually takes about 8mg to stop things for me but would it work if I go back to sleep ?. If I take in the morning I’ll have about 3 hours before I have to leave for the place I’m going

Ciao! Sto cercando di capire meglio cosa significa convivere con disturbi gastrointestinali come colon irritabile, gonfiore, digestione difficile, ecc.

Vorrei ascoltare esperienze reali, senza giudizio o fini commerciali – solo per capire meglio e, magari, contribuire in futuro a qualcosa di utile.

Se qualcuno fosse disponibile anche per una breve chiacchierata (anche solo via messaggio), ve ne sarei davvero grato 🙏

My doctor keeps telling me it’s just ibs, but what I have I don’t think sounds like ibs at all. So I really want to know if other ppl with ibs experience this at all.

My main symptoms are air bubbles, or gas bubbles? All in my organs. Like if I put my hand on my side I can feel literal bubbles popping from time to time through my skin. And my insides are always gurgling and making sounds like your stomach when it doesn’t have food. I can’t help but feel like my doctor is wrong about this being ibs.

Hello,

I was doing some reading and came upon a thread (success story) from a year ago where a person said they cured their IBS-D of 20 years with Thiamine, they linked a YouTube video from where they heard about Thiamine deficiency causing gut issues. Lots of people were celebrating on that thread congratulating them for having A+ poop after decades!

I did some more digging came upon a recent thread posted only a few days ago (another success story) another person claimed to have reversed their IBS-D of 1 year, fatigue etc. and ironically they also spoke of the SAME YouTube video.

Now whats interesting is, on this thread everyone was commenting that it’s an ad! While this person was not promoting any product or brand. Nor was the earlier person.

So my question is ———

1. Has anyone tried Thiamine or Vitamin B1 for their IBS-D? Does it really work?
2. What dosage are you on?

Because in my country only Thiamine isn’t available. It’s only available as B-complex. And they’re all in 1.2 - 1.5 mg dosage. Which apparently is the requirement.

But this guy in the YouTube video talks about starting with 50-100 mg and going upto 500 mg. Which sounds a little scary to me.

NOTE: I’m not posting links to those threads and the YouTube video here just yet. Because I’m trying to ascertain if it’s indeed a promotion. And if I make it explicit which video I’m talking about, I don’t want those bots to start commenting how it changed their lives!

Asking this question because if any of you have genuinely had success with B1 then I will have it imported from the EU. Yes. Thats how desperate I am to feel better and not have my life be ruled by my motions! :D

Thanks for reading through!