# My 2¢ -- Spend How You Will



## zekjevets (Apr 3, 2016)

I am a 29 year old White, Jewish male. No family history of GI disorders or disease. Married with a baby on the way -- wife is just under 3 months pregnant.

I found this site with standard Googling and, while this whole thing is deeply embarrassing for me, I feel like if I don't reach out to somehow with the frustrations this disease has imposed on me, I'll go crazy. So here it is:

I got some stomach bugs around Nov-Dec 2015. They were repeated and lasted for ~ 1 week. Not sure if it was chronic food poisoning from my short love affair with Chipotle (before their sanitation issues became more well-known) or stomach flu, or poor hygiene (doubtful though since I'm typically a neat freak), other dietary issues, or whatever. No idea.

All I know is next thing I know it's January 2016. I've taken a month off work for unrelated reasons (mental vacay due to job stress) and I'm constantly having to pee as well as more and more frequently have a BM. At first the peeing is the really annoying thing. Incomplete urination. Hesitancy. Extreme urgency with some discomfort/pain in the left-side in my low back. Sometimes a lot of pee, or normal, or even almost no pee.

So I go to my PCP and he thinks kidney stone probably, especially after they find microscopic blood in my urine repeatedly. X-Ray and CT without contrast are negative however. I have a bad reaction to an anti-spasmodic for my bladder (Mirabegron -- shot my blood pressure sky-high) and repeated urinalysis shows that blood still even weeks later with my urologist. We do a bladder scope in office without anesthesia except for a small local on the tip of my member. Most painful, nightmarish experience ever in my life. Like something from a horror movie; but the doc is nice about things and we find no evidence of what's causing the microscopic blood or urinary frequency.

In the meantime, my bowel and urinary issues are starting to coincide in their occurrence. My BMs are skinny like snake instead of the fat sausage they used to be and I get intervals of constipation followed by diarrhea. Sometimes bad abdominal pain. I've had to pee into a bottle in my car while driving for work a few times. My wife asks what's wrong and I downplay it for here because she's got her own stress.

Then call from my PCP. That CT without contrast showed enlarged lymph nodes in my guts. Wants me to see a hematologist to confirm if it's cancer or not. The hema says probably not but we're in the process of blood tests to make sure. He tells me go see a gastro specialist, which funny enough I'd already go ahead and scheduled to do before I even saw him.

Because, see, a week prior I had the most painful abdominal cramping with constipated diarrhea ever in my life. 10 of 10. Almost fell off the pot. Explosive diarrhea but had to strain still. No bloody stool but just about tore my asshole a new asshole. I've been freaking out, skipping work time to sit on the toilet like a crazy man for fear I'll have a surprise BM. I dreaded car rides. I became insanely detailed about going 1 and 2 before each trip anywhere, even if it's just down the corner. I stop eating. I stop eating for days at a time. No changes. I'm still having the alternating symptoms. I lose 5 lbs. I start to get panicky with constant vigilance and anxiety.

Finally, get in to see my gastro doc. He sets me right at ease. Says it's probably post-infectious irritable bowel syndrome (PI-IBS). We talk through my symptoms and options. I'm to get started on a probiotic (Align) and we're doing a colonoscopy just to be safe, make sure it's not Crohn's/Colitis/something like that. Given the intensity of the test, we have to schedule it kinda far in advance due to my work schedule.

Nowadays, my bowels alternate between constipation for 1-2 days, followed by diarrhea for 1-2 days, but the diarrhea is constipated like soft-serve yogurt and skinny snakes that I need to strain so hard to pass I feel I might give myself a hernia. Sometimes watery. Sometimes hard nuts. I can go all over the Bristol/Meyer's scale. I get pain and/or discomfort constantly. I have nausea. I have to pee all the time even when I don't need to have a BM. I have anxiety all the time -- like afraid to leave my house anxiety because where the hell am I going to use a restroom???

My wife and I just celebrated our 2 year anniversary tonight after she had a hard day of Saturday work. I was doing fine for the last day and a half, then right after dinner tonight I start having chronic EXTREME urges for a BM. I go #2 6 times in an hour. All skinny snakes that were incredibly difficult to pass, requiring a lot of time on the pot. We had to stop repeatedly to find me a bathroom to use, and on a Saturday night that's not so easy. Made it home barely holding my... you know in and she storms off to sleep because she's tired, pregnant, and frustrated after a Saturday work-day followed by this goddamn illness of mine.

So after finally having my bowels calm the hell down, I spent the last hours Googling and Googling and researching and printing out diaries and tacking dietary sheets to my fridge and reading up on the side-effects of long-term medication use in PI-IBS. I don't even have the heart anymore for this. It's not a broken bone that I can just grit through with a cast. It's not like the flu. It's like I'm a ticking time-bomb just waiting to explode if I eat, don't eat, or even wake up. I can't stand it and don't know what I'm going to do. I can't be a father in this state but that baby is coming soon enough. I have a career I need to focus on. A marriage. Friends. Hobbies. But all I can do lately is sit on the toilet waiting for a BM while staring at my phone.

I go in for my colonoscopy on 4/26/16. In the mean time, I'm loading up on Imodium, low FODMAPS, or I might just stop eating entirely again. At this point, I'd settle for slowly starving if it means not having to worry about shitting my pants in front of my wife at a fancy restaurant on our anniversary.

Anyhoo, that's my story -- so far. I'll try to add more after the colonoscopy. Thanks to everyone who has posted their own stories. They help, they really do.


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