Sigh. Intestinal Issues Suck

[Scouzer]

Before you say it: I've been to the doctor 4x about this issue.

Symptoms:

1) Excessively tired...routinely get 8-11 hours of sleep. This could be caused, or contributed to by the fact I'm a shift worker.

2) Blood tests usually find me on the low end of acceptable for iron. Not anemic, but low.

3) Horrible diarrhea. I will ALWAYS get diarrhea within 3 hours of eating at a restaurant. There is no bearing on what I eat, I will always have diarrhea. It is explosive too, to the point if I sat a little forward on the toilet it'd go right up my back (funny yes, serious yes). Generally, if I don't eat out at restaurants, I get diarrhea for no reason twice a week. This diarrhea fortunately lacks the velocity of the eating out variant.

4) Undigested food in stool. This is rare, but for example I just ate some Kraft Dinner at about 9PM. By 12:30PM I had diarrhea with leftover undigested KD in it.

5) My skin is more dry this winter than any other time I can recall in my life. This winter is harsher than most though, so may not be relevant.

6) I eat like a bachelor, yet my weight is steady or even falls. For about 3 months (this 3 months was about 2 months ago) I ate Subway or Quizno's generally every second day. Despite this gross diet, I maintained my 6'0" 162lb. Now that I've cut the crap and I'm eating lots of bread, bagels, frozen pizza, etc. I have dropped to about 158lb.

7) Frequent small movements.

Why do I mention Crohn's

My mother's mom died of Crohn's.

What has the doctor done?

1) He did the barium test (drink barium and then X-Ray it) about a year ago. Nothing abnormal was noticed, except they normally take a picture after half an hour, and then 1-2 more after the next 30 minute intervals. For me, they got a picture of my entire upper and lower GI in the first picture. It fires through me that fast.

2) Blood tests. Mentioned earlier, my iron kind of sucks but is not out of tolerance.

3) Asked me to keep a mental track of what I eat then what results of it.

4) He offered to get the camera probe stuff done, but he insisted he was very confident it wouldn't find anything.

I was actually EXCITED, last night I had the first really healthy movement I've had in quite awhile. Now I'm back to the typical crap (pun intended).

Me

Nearly 20.
6'0"
158lb

 

[foghorn67]

Do you eat fast? Chew more consistently. I discovered that I would swallow a ton of food barely chewing it. When I mind myself (and others) things go much better. I rarely eat at good restaurants these days, when I do it's rough. But once I get a good week in, movements are much better. Radically changing a diet can throw the body for a loop.
I thought it might be IBL in my case, but I think it's anxiety coupled with a sensitive digestive system. (I don't do well with some greases or cooking oils).
I met one of my parents friends. Turns out he ate food like I did his whole life, a lot and too fast. It is causing a lot of issues. Huge wake up call for me.

 

[Aquaman]

Add some fibre? Maybe make your poop more solid?

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[gsethi]

Drink more water and less Carbonated drinks. and get a 2nd opinion.

 

[Scouzer]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention...my mom has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She has horrible gut problems, tons of pain, etc. Nothing like this though.

I eat TONS of fiber, bagels are just fiber rings lol.

As for water, I drink probably 90% flavored water (Like Crystal Light) 10% carbonated drinks.

Foghorn: I don't eat overly fast no...but maybe you have something there. I will think of that next time I eat.

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: Aquaman
Add some fibre? Maybe make your poop more solid?

Cheers,
Aquaman

Try some flax seed. Not the flaxseed oil. just the whole seeds.

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

Why did he say a scope would be useless? I think it would be helpful to at least rule some things out.

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: ShOcKwAvE827
Why did he say a scope would be useless? I think it would be helpful to at least rule some things out.

agreed.

 

[BrownTown]

On another note its funny how many diseases you can find that seem to find someones symptoms. I can really see how someone can become a hypocondriac, I look at all these diseases people have on ATOT and everytime it seems I have many of the symptoms, but its not because i am in bad health, simply because so many symptoms for diseases end up being so generic, especially in the early stages.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Scouzer
Oh yeah, forgot to mention...my mom has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She has horrible gut problems, tons of pain, etc. Nothing like this though.

IBS doesn't diagnose anything. Its what doctors label a set of symptoms when they don't know why they happen or how to fix them. Generally you end up with some kind of acid reflux prescription.

 

[Scouzer]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Scouzer
Oh yeah, forgot to mention...my mom has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She has horrible gut problems, tons of pain, etc. Nothing like this though.

IBS doesn't diagnose anything. Its what doctors label a set of symptoms when they don't know why they happen or how to fix them. Generally you end up with some kind of acid reflux prescription.

Well, she got probed and barium and all that. They even did exploratory surgery and found some problems and removed them, but it did not solve her issues.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Scouzer

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Scouzer
Oh yeah, forgot to mention...my mom has Irritable Bowel Syndrome. She has horrible gut problems, tons of pain, etc. Nothing like this though.

IBS doesn't diagnose anything. Its what doctors label a set of symptoms when they don't know why they happen or how to fix them. Generally you end up with some kind of acid reflux prescription.

Well, she got probed and barium and all that. They even did exploratory surgery and found some problems and removed them, but it did not solve her issues.

My ex-wife had all those procedures too. Her grandma died from colon cancer at 40. Her mom has already had polyps removed several times, and has diverticulosis/diverticulitis. In addition to upper and lower GI, my wife had several blood tests because she had problems with her sugar, but it came back fine. In the end they found she had an H. Pylori stomach infection, gave her a few weeks of multiple antibiotics and an anti acid-reflux. She's not permanently on the anti acid-reflux.

 

[OVERKILL]

I'm not an expert but for me, this site was extremely helpful. http://www.drnatura.com/

There's a ton of reviews and you may very well find a rational solution to your issues.

To sum it up: A good colon cleanse might be what your body is craving.


Good luck OP.

 

[herbiehancock]

I completely understand your frustration. I suffer from moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis, a step removed from Chron's Disease, both of which are inflammatory colon diseases.

Seems the diseases are more genetic related than anything, because MD's cannot find a root cause for them, such as a bacterial component or viral or anything else. Sometimes it has been referred to as the "White Man's Disease" as more whites are affected vs. any other race on the planet. Nice, huh?

Seems also that stress is a major component of the disease. More stress in life, the more the disease tend to break out in me, and others, from what I've read and been told.

It is very cyclical in me, at least. Bouts of diarrhea along with rather severe abdominal pain....bad enough to make me curl up in a fetal position and be unable to move for hours or longer, followed by days of pretty much normalicy, followed by constipation, then diarrhea, and the cycle continues. Oh yeah, lots of gas, too. Makes me popular sometimes. Almost forgot....sometimes the diarrhea is bloody, too. Fun, eh?

Food is quite a trigger. High fiber is BAD!!! Spicy foods are also, at least for me, a trigger. One of my favorite snacks, Cape Cod Cracked Pepper and Sea Salt potato chips, will invariably give me diarrhea and severe pain the next day or two. Hate that because I love the chips!! Best diet, I was told and have come to believe through years of experience, is a low residue, low fat diet. High residue diets, such as high fiber, just irritates the inflammed portion of the bowel and give the diarrhea you're so used to.

The disease is pretty much confined to the large intestine and mine is pretty much left sided, which is easier to control, or so they tell me. (The large intestine is like a big inverted "U" with the "legs" called the ascending, transverse and descending colon. Mine's almost all in the descending side, or left side.)

Your physician is wrong in that a colonoscopy won't show anything. If anything, a colonscopy is the definitive test to rule out ulcerative colitis and Chron's. A biopsy of the intestinal wall is usually done along with pics taken. To say a colonoscopy is useless is just dumb.....it is considered the gold standard for diagnosis of these diseases.

The colon and rectum can be examined with flexible sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy, tests in which a doctor examines the inside of the large intestine using a small, lighted scope. In general, colonoscopy is the preferred test because it can be used to examine the entire colon. However, flexible sigmoidoscopy may be all that is needed to diagnose ulcerative colitis. Both procedures can be used to take a sample (biopsy) of intestinal tissue. The diagnosis of ulcerative colitis is made by ruling out other causes of diarrhea and assessing the results of these tests.

Other testing, barium enema, CT scan, MRI scan, and others just let them look at the structure and outline of the colon, never how the actual colon does look. Only a colonoscopy will give the definitive information and allow the diagnosis to be made. If your MD says otherwise, find another GI MD!!!!!

Meds I take are sulfazolozine, Asacol, prednisone on occassion, and pain meds.....usually vicodin or lortab. But most have side effects. I've unfortunately been on such high doses of prednisone, up to 120mg in a day, which is extremely high, that I now suffer from loss of bone density and am suffering from loss of enamel on my teeth.

Ulitmate cure is surgery. They do a resection of the bowel, that is they cut out the offending section of the bowel, sew your butthole shut, and exit the remaining seciton of large intestine out your abdominal wall, called a stoma. I've resisted this because I just don't want to go there and would rather try managing what I have as I have done since I've been 7 years old, when this damned disease first reared its ugly head. I went through the BE's and such and no one knew what was really going on. It wasn't until my first colonoscopy that a definitive diagnosis was made....and that was about 20 years ago. I'm now well over 50 years old and intend to leave this life as I came into it, unless it finally gets the better of me and I succumb to doing the surgery. Thankfully, it's not progressed any further so I've been able to manage so far.


My advice............find a GI doc experienced with colitis and Chron's and get a colonoscopy!!! For an MD to say it is worthless puts him, in my opinion, in the quack category.....or in the "trolling for a malpractice suit" category at least.

 

[eits]

sounds like crohn's to me, but go see a gi just to make sure

 

[compuwiz1]

This is not the best place to ask for medical advice, but one of the things that stands out loud and clear to me, is that maybe you should find a different doctor.
It doesn't seem like your present doctor is really listening, or taking action.

 

[Scouzer]

No no, I phrased it poorly. He does not think a colonoscopy is worthless at all. He just believes if I do have Crohn's, it generally waits until the late 20s to be discoverable I guess. Also, this is Canadian medicare, they try to avoid doing costly procedures for as long as possible...

Historically, my symptoms were much more mild than this (usually) its only been in the last few months its been really spazzing out at me. Maybe it's the bagels, I do eat too many of them. They are cut out of my diet now.

Man I'm tired, despite 8 hours of sleep and waking up at 5PM...I have only just been awake 11 hours...

I really appreciate the lengthy help and ideas herbiehancock and Sagalore.

I am going to make an appointment with the doctor and ask for the colonoscopy. He did say that if I ask for it, he has no problem referring me to it. So that's what I'll do.

 

[Scouzer]

I'll post more tomorrow, I'm too tired to think straight.

 

[compuwiz1]

Originally posted by: Scouzer
No no, I phrased it poorly. He does not think a colonoscopy is worthless at all. He just believes if I do have Crohn's, it generally waits until the late 20s to be discoverable I guess. Also, this is Canadian medicare, they try to avoid doing costly procedures for as long as possible...

Historically, my symptoms were much more mild than this (usually) its only been in the last few months its been really spazzing out at me. Maybe it's the bagels, I do eat too many of them. They are cut out of my diet now.

Man I'm tired, despite 8 hours of sleep and waking up at 5PM...I have only just been awake 11 hours...

I really appreciate the lengthy help and ideas herbiehancock and Sagalore.

I am going to make an appointment with the doctor and ask for the colonoscopy. He did say that if I ask for it, he has no problem referring me to it. So that's what I'll do.

Then do the colonoscopy. I would, just to cover all the bases.

Good luck man. Sorry, you're going thru this.

 

[Rage187]

I'm in the same boat.

I go to the GI Dr. regularly. I have severe abdominal pain and diarhea triggered by food. I have had a colonoscopy and it found diverticulitus which was supposedly treated.

6 months now and I'm till in pain and nauseated. I can barely sit at my desk without having to get up so I don't pass out from the pain.

I'm tired of taking pain meds.

Tomorrow I have another appointment and am going to request another CT or colonoscopy; there just has to be something causing this pain.

 

[LeonarD26]

I also have ulcerative colitis. herbiehancock sums up the disease perfectly..... Good luck!

 

[dabuddha]

Find out what your blood sugars are on average. Get your A1C level as well.

I dunno what to tell ya but my advice would be to find another doctor. It never hurts to get more than one opinion.

 

[Dirigible]

I thought that Crohn's disease included quite a bit of pain. You haven't described that, so I'm hoping you don't have it.

Rage 187: Another thing that causes symptoms similar to Crohn's is a clostridium dificile infection. Like Crohn's, it involves lots 'n' lots of pain and diarrhea. The bacteria is called c. dificile because it is very difficult to detect and diagnose.

 

[Gulzakar]

Have you tried eating healthy? I mean, come on, you complain of horrible bowel problems...have a freakin bran muffin.

 

[Marinski]

Breads like bagels and pizza are terrible food if you have digestive issues. Try eating some oatmeal, bananas, and yogurt. These types of foods will help with diarreaha.