Irritable Bowel Syndrome

[liamthelion]

Dr. Steve,

You hear it a lot, but THANK YOU for the great show. Looking forward to hearing it Sat!

The day before Sept 11th I finally went to the Doctor to have my stomach checked out. I was sure I had stomach cancer. He told me to calm down sounds like Gastritus, prescribed me previcet?? not sure how to spell it correctly. With the diet change and the meds and reassurance from him my symptoms went away fast. Oh yeah, symptoms would be a good thing to give you.
Upper middle abdominal discomfort, sometimes pain, sometimes ache, occasionally I would feel a flutter in that area. This feeling would move to the right side sometimes, just below my ribs, and every now and then to the left side just below the ribs. But it mainly would bother me in the middle, just below the breastbone. Sometimes I do experience acid reflux. Again it is not something that causes me to double over, just almost like a bloated feeling.
I have noticed that a bad diet and stress can make it worse. Could this be IBS? My wife has IBS but her discomfort is in the lower abdomen.
I keep having these OCD that I have some sort of cancer. I have had these sypmtoms off and on for the past 9 years. Yes, I would consider myself an "anxious" individual with some slight OCD!
Thanks,
Jp

[Dr Steve]

Dr. Steve,

You hear it a lot, but THANK YOU for the great show. Looking forward to hearing it Sat!

The day before Sept 11th I finally went to the Doctor to have my stomach checked out. I was sure I had stomach cancer. He told me to calm down sounds like Gastritus, prescribed me previcet?? not sure how to spell it correctly. With the diet change and the meds and reassurance from him my symptoms went away fast. Oh yeah, symptoms would be a good thing to give you.
Upper middle abdominal discomfort, sometimes pain, sometimes ache, occasionally I would feel a flutter in that area. This feeling would move to the right side sometimes, just below my ribs, and every now and then to the left side just below the ribs. But it mainly would bother me in the middle, just below the breastbone. Sometimes I do experience acid reflux. Again it is not something that causes me to double over, just almost like a bloated feeling.
I have noticed that a bad diet and stress can make it worse. Could this be IBS? My wife has IBS but her discomfort is in the lower abdomen.
I keep having these OCD that I have some sort of cancer. I have had these sypmtoms off and on for the past 9 years. Yes, I would consider myself an "anxious" individual with some slight OCD!
Thanks,
Jp


JP: thanks for the kind words!

Irritable bowel syndrome causes bloating, cramping, abdominal pain, diarrhea, and constipation. Many people complain of alternating diarrhea and constipation, but some have predominately loose stools and some predominately constipation (IBS-C). It's certainly worse with crappy diet and stress.

If you can get rid of the symptoms with increasing the fiber in your diet, and you've had the symptoms for 9 years, it's very unlikely that cancer is causing your symptoms. Depending on how old you are, if you're still suffering, a scope would certainly be an acceptable next step. You may even want to get the upper scope done at the same time as the lower scope (ha, they don't use the same scope for both, don't worry). If normal, this would go a long way to reassuring you that it's nothing serious.

I, too, have IBS, and I, too, convince myself that I have cancer from time to time. It's just fear of the unknown. You have the same risk as anyone of developing cancer in the long term, though, so don't neglect routine screening for cancer. A colonoscopy by age 50 (assuming you have no first degree relatives with colon cancer, or any other high risk), prostate exams yearly after age 50, stopping smoking, etc., will go a long way to either reassuring you or catching something EARLY.

hope this helps.


your pal,


steve

here's an article from the NIH: http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/ibs/