more on IBS
Okay, I'm researching irritable bowel syndrome since that kind lady who wrote to me suggested that I might have it.
According to aboutibs.org , These are the symptoms:
At least 12 weeks or more, which need not be consecutive, in the preceding 12 months of abdominal discomfort or pain that is accompanied by at least two of the following features:
1) It is relieved with defecation, and/or
2) Onset is associated with a change in frequency of stool, and/or
3) Onset is associated with a change in form (appearance) of stool.
Other symptoms that are not essential but support the diagnosis of IBS:
- Abnormal stool frequency (greater than 3 bowel movements/day or less than 3 bowel movements/week);
- Abnormal stool form (lumpy/hard or loose/watery stool);
- Abnormal stool passage (straining, urgency, or feeling of incomplete evacuation);
- Passage of mucus;
- Bloating or feeling of abdominal distension.
Form/consistancy of stool. God, this is gross to talk about. Mine is usually very soft and sometimes looks like brownie mix, sometimes like chocolate soft-serve ice cream. The brownie-mix kind is very stinky and tends be so volumious that it is out of the water of the toilet. Those take 2-3 flushes and usually require a toilet cleaning afterward. The other kind is lots of small floaty pieces drenched in a lovely sauce of bright yellow bile. That is the more urgent kind, and the kind that I describe as "sick" when I am keeping a poop log. It definately happens after I eat fried food.
Frequency: more often than I eat. I usually go around 4x a day, sometimes more. Once or even twice before I go to work. After lunch. When I get home. And sometimes again before bed. In a given day, it seems like a lot more comes out my butt then went into my mouth. Plus I pee whenver I poop, plus about four times extra which is just pee.
I never feel like all the poop didn't come out, and the only time I strain is when I'm trying to force a poop and don't need to when I have the gas.
Okay, they go on to say:
Upper GI symptoms are commonly reported by IBS patients with 25% to 50% of patients reporting heartburn, early feeling of fullness (satiety), nausea, abdominal fullness, and bloating. Many patients also report intermittent upper abdominal discomfort or pain (dyspepsia). Feelings of urgency, and a feeling of "incomplete" emptying may also be experienced.
I do have heartburn, but I thought that was from my haital hernia. I am sometimes nauseaous; constant readers may remember my vomiting problems Fall 2004. I have no clue what "dyspepsia" means--sounds like a word for a made-up pain. My bile-y poops tend to be urgent, but the chocolate-like ones are just normal "I gotta go" feelings.
So after all that, what do you think? It's iffy, huh. Do I want to have it? Would surgery cure it or make it worse? I'd think slicing and dicing an already-unhappy bunch of intestines wouldn't improve the situation. More research needed on that...okay, after a few minutes of searching I can't really find anything. We'll leave that up in the air for now.