# To poo or not to poo, my (not too) long detective story



## Thund (May 15, 2015)

Hey guys!

First of all, I am so glad to find this forum, I have read some of the topics and they seem to be really helpfull. My story will be like a long, detective story. Maybe like a Dr. House story? Maybe not. Well at least that is what it sounds like to me. Maybe it will be a bit long and tedious story, but please bare with me. I feel I shouldnt take out any part of it as it feels everything is important. So here it goes...

My problems did not happened when I was young, but there were some serious indications. I remember untill my 18th-19th birthday my bowel habits were going on bathroom once or twice per week. I dont know why, my parents never asked, and my friends never talked about it, so I believed it was normal. Now, that was the time when we had no internet and not such stream of information as nowadays (well, it was 90s, but still big difference than today). I know, it sounds stupid, and I most probably was, and still am, but not untill my 19th year of life I found out (from Northern Exposure episode, could you imagine) that this is not normal. But it never bothered me, because I thought, hey if I started to go to bathroom every day, that would be a real nuisance. Anyway, somewhere around my 21st-22nd birthday I started to drink coffee every day and I also took some food suplements (I'm not even sure what they were) which stabilised my constipation.

Long time passed, and it was 2008, I recall it because there were olympics in Beijing, on tv. I was spending vacation time on sea, going with some people I barely knew (a bad idea), I already had insomnia back then and I slept really bad, and didnt eat all day. When I came home, I suddenly had high temperature and a flu. At that time I started to have pains in my stomache. That was beginning of the end. Pain was always there, never going away, never diminishing, and after some time my doctor said I probably have Helicobacter pylori and I underwent three weeks antibiotics treatment.

But even after that time, my problems didnt got any better. I was drinking Controloc for two or three months, and my doctor said it was normal. When I couldnt take it anymore, I ended up at public gastroenterologist (in my country medicine is splitted in public and private domain). As I already eradicated H. Pylori (so the doctor has thought), doctor asked me how was my stool, and do I have any gi sickness in my family. Back then, my stool was really this, with lots of gas going out and really loose. My ten year older brother had Chrons disease, so doctor decided I have colonoscopy. For me, colonoscopy was really long and at times painfull, but thankfully no signs of Chrons disease. In that time, doctor first time told me I could have IBS but I really didnt give much thought about it as my stomache was main concern.

It was around two or three years that I had this. I think I tried Controloc, Nexium and Lanzul, and I drank it for months and I didnt get nothing better. This really annoyed me, and with the constant irritating pain in my abdomen I also start to suffer from anxiety and depression. It was a couple of years after that I went to a private gastroenterologist who said that my H. Pylori didnt been eradicated most probably, and I need to pass second treatment of antibiotics. In that time I also started to drink omega3 pills and after some time, I really gotten better. My stomache pain didnt erradicated completely, I still felt a tiny tiny bit of pain, but it was something I could easily live with. Funny thing about this everything is, I never had a heartburn. well, maybe once or twice, but that was it. I almost never had acid from stomache to my mouth, nor a chestpain. Maybe that varies from person to person, but that was the way it was.

I also started to finally get enough guts to go to psychiatrist, to see what can I do about depression. On the end the shrink diagnosed me a bipolar disorder and I started to have medicament called Seroquel. It made me sleep for a really long period of time, around 10 - 12 hours a day, but it made feel better.

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Next years were years of prosperity for me, I finally managed to get a grip on my life. In my 27th year I enrolled university, major on archaeology, I went away from my parents in my own place and things finally started to go my way. I was happy. I slept really long, but that was really small price for everything I went through.

Untill one day, my class needed to go one two weeks terrain. I wasnt sure would we go into tents or in hotel, and day would be working from 8am to 4pm, and then fun and going to sleep around 12. I knew I couldnt go with this medication anymore, so I asked my shrink to change the pills. She gave me zonadin (it is almost the same as ambien in U.S.) and some other, I dont recall the name. But it doesnt really matter, because in that time I decided to stop taking my pills for bipolar and try to live normal. But I still decided to use zonadin aka ambien pills, because of my sleep problems.

Because I was so hooked up on seroquel, I suddenly slept for 7 hours in day (which was big change for my system), and I remember one day I went to library and rain started to fall. That day I gotten sick, and those were very important days for me on university, so I started to take coldrex, lots of coldrex. (it is over-counter prescription which helps to decrease flu symptoms) Then suddenly, my abdomen pain started to merge again. That day, when I came home from the university, I lie down for a nap, and I was suddenly awakened with a nasty vomiting. My pains in abdomens were extreme. That day I believed it was only stomache flu, as I had simmilar from before. I eat only toast and bannanas for couple of days, but it didnt got better.

I realised this isnt going to go away, so I went to a private gastroenterologist. He said i need to go to gastroscopy, so I did. My stomache lining was in inflamation, but no signs of nothing serious. They took biopsy, and it was negative on helicobacter pylori. As I was desperately tried to find some evidence what is going on, i went again, on helicobacter test, this time with poo. Nothing again. Month passed, and I still had, constant, non-passable, chronic abdominal pain. It was past all over again. I decided I am going to pause my university untill I manage this thing. Sometimes I had, rarely, pains in left and/or right side of abdomen, but only temporarily, not so terrible.

Oh yes, when I had my gastroscopy, they found hiatal hernia, but they said they couldnt do nothing about it. For a short time I also had troubles for a swallowing, so I thought there is something wrong with my esophagus. But nothing was wrong, most probably acid going up the stream. Doctors prescribed lanzul, then emanera (both PPI), but didnt helped me at all, again. As I checked on internet, hiatal hernia caused problems in GERB, but was never too serious

As days passed by, my anxiety started to kick in. Funny enough, I didnt had so much of a bipolar disorder, but I had enormous anxiety and nervoussness. As there were no indicators that what is happening to me, i started to believe i have or will have cancer, and this fear really engulphed me. For day and night, I only had fear that I could have cancer. It was excruciating. Voluntarily, I went to xrays with barrium swallow for a stomache and esophagus. They didnt find nothing.

As time passed by, I was still drinking PPIs, this time emanera, but thing didnt went for better or for worse. Only that stupid, excrutiating pain. When I went to a second gastroenterologist, she only said to me it must be dyspepsia, dont worry about it. So i stopped taking PPis and started taking Iberogast, with no help at all.

To shorten what happened this last two years, I was five times on gastroscopy, and one time on colonoscopy. I was on xray couple of times, had lots of blood tests and one ultrasound. A year ago they found out that I have gallstones. I was quite happy, because I thought when they remove my gallbladder I will be ok. But the truth was, I didnt had gallstones attack, gallstones were too small.

And then this year around first month, my pain gotten better, and i start to poo a lot. Three times a day, in very thin and very small dosages. I started to be on bathroom, even when i already pooed, i still felt i needed to go. I felt that all day. Then I went on another visit to gastroenterologist, this time public. He told me that was normal because I most probably have internal hemmerhoids, put me on Colospa Retard, and two PPIs, one in morning and one in evening. Also he diagnosed me with IBS, again.

The story is getting to an end, I promise. I felt a bit better for some time, but still not better enough to go back to university. As luck happens, in march this year I had flu again, and this time I decided to try aspirins. This really took my health for worse. My pains started to be worse and worse.

Just last month, I couldnt take it anymore, and I went to forth gastroenterologist. This one was pretty cheap and not really recommended, but as I stopped to go to college and do not work, I am really having problems with money. He gave me gastroscopy with oldest machine I ever seen untill now, and everything was so bad that I started vomit tiny bits of blood, which never happened before. (it was nothing serious, Im just trying to depict how bad was it). He said my stomache was fine, and after that he gave me an ultrasound, and he told me that I dont have gallstones anymore. If this is true, that means i couldnt blame gallstones at the beginning.

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So, this is my conclusion. For all of you guys who bared with me through untill this point.

Pains I endure in my abdomen are most probably from IBS I always had within me. Yes, I could have gastritis too, but very often the sign of gastritis is acid reflux, which I dont have so often. Coffee doesnt bother me, even helps me. I can say the same for some alchohol. Some food which I often should ignore, doesnt bother me at all, and some food, like pasta or even an apple, makes my pains worse. And every time I take some anti-flu medicine it immediately gets me worse. Yes, I also have very loose stool, and sometimes constipation, and sometimes i go on bathroom three times a day. That doesnt bother as much as pain. This pain is constant, and only time when it is much more decreased is when I am asleep. It also could be because I am pretty much bloated and my GI tract suffers. Or it could not be my stomache at all, as the pain is maybe one inch (couple of cm) above my belly button.

So, if anyone has any simmilar experience or advice, please share it. I just wanted to get to my normal life and go back to university again. It is so hard to live with this, because when people usually dont see how someone else suffers, they think he or she is making it up. Especially if this chronic pain is lasting as long as mine. Although I am now 31, I look I am more in my 20s, and people just cant believe (this is true even with my gastroenterologist) that such a young person can have so many problems, and often think everything is in my head.

So guys, if anyone can help please. I decided to go for a food allergy testing, called Imupro, to see are there any food I am intolerant off. I hope this will help. After that, I dont know what my next step will be.


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## jaumeb (Sep 1, 2014)

Thanks for sharing your experience. Probably you can find many ideas in this forum.


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## Thund (May 15, 2015)

Thank you for your welcome! Maybe I overdid myself and wrote too long post with too many unnecesary informations, I realise that now. I already did found some good ideas and hope to use it for a future reference.


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## jaumeb (Sep 1, 2014)

It's good to provide all the details. We don't know exactly what we are dealing with. Maybe some of these details can be the key to understand the problem.


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