Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Irritable Bowel Symptoms

Question:
I wonder if you could tell me if my GI doctor is jerking me around? I am a 40 year old female college professor with a history of fairly mild IBS. Daily doses of citrucel seem to keep the bowel problems completely under control (except when I'm traveling). Two years ago I went to my family doctor with a burning stomach, he gave me the barium test, and found a stomach ulcer, and a slightly elevated heliobactyr level. The ulcer was treated with the standard antibiotics. The pain lessened, but was still there a couple of months later, so he sent me to the GI specialist who did upper and lower endoscopies and found nothing.   Anyway, in April I started having problems again, and my heliobactyr count was up some, so I went on the antibiotics again, along with prilosec, a strong anti stomach acid medicine. Well, it's September, and the symptoms have gotten much, much worse.  My stomach's burning constantly, I'm nauseated, and constantly belching, and bread and yogurt are the only things I can tolerate to eat.  The GI doc did a gall bladder scan, which was completely negative, and is trying me on different medications. He has also scheduled me for an abdominal CT scan, which he thinks won't show anything. He says the stomach burning is irritable bowel syndrome and that there's very little they can do about it, except put me on a higher dose of Prozac, which I went on this summer when I was under stress. But the prozac's fine the way it is. I'm relaxed, I've been exercising (except when I'm having severe attacks), and I've even made some new friends. Do I need to take this to the next step and find a gastroenterologist at a major medical center?

Answer:
I've had irritable bowel syndrome for 27 yrs.My symptoms were primarily severe constipation with the rare diarrheic episode. In the last 5 mos I've been experiencing stomach problems such as: excessive belching every couple of minutes or so, bloating, unable to eat large meals, nausea, burny and or crampy pain. Often when my stomach acts up I will also have an episode of diarrhea. My doc queried a reflux problem because with the constant belching my asthma increased in severity resulting in me having to go on prednisone for the first time ever. My asthma is definitely worse on the days when my stomach is acting up. My barium swallow and gastroscopy were negative. In a couple of weeks I'm having a ph test and Bernstein test done which is more accurate in diagnosing reflux than a gastroscopy.If that is negative, then I'm not sure what next. I've read that IBS is not solely in the colon but can affect the entire length of the GI tract at both ends. Because I often get diarrhea when my stomach acts up I feel that much of the problem is IBS related.Cisapride does help although not 100 % effective for me.