# waking up in middle of the night



## Arch-Angel

So tonight, i woke up about 5 AM, had some pretty intense cramps(not the worst i've had) and of course like always it seems like my entire insides blew out. after it was all done and over with, the pain is gone, i'm left with just a slightly queasy feeling.This has been happening to me for years now, every so often, once a month maybe twice, or three times at most a month. i'll wake up in the middle of the night and get D. I know this is a red flag symptom of not being ibs, but every time i ask my doctor he tells me it's possible that ibs could do it. I nearly worried myself in to an ulcer over things like chrons, or UC. However let me explain a few things.the other 98 percent of the month, I get sick to my stomach when i eat, it usually feels better after a movement, i rarely get d, infact my "ibs" is C / P where painbeing the symptom that troubles me the most. I do not go more than once a day, if even that. Even on these nights where i get woken up from the pain, I still only go once, MAYBE twice that day. I have no fatigue, no fever, no chills. So i'm at a loss, all my symptoms don't point at your usual IBD's infact minus the waking up in the middle of the night, i don't seem to have a single symptom of any that i'm aware of. My question is this then is this IBS? I was diagnosed with it, although admittedly not much more was done to test for it than a h.pylori culture.Or is this something else, what else can it be; i've learned to deal with it pretty well since it happens so infrequently, and this morning it wasn't paticularly bad, i grabbed my laptop, put on some music, 10 minutes later, i felt better pain was gone.but there are some nights where you'd perfer the one bullet to the head thing it hurts so bad. but even then, once it's over with. it's done, and pain is gone.P.S.I'm back.







I'm figuring i need to get my life in order, so I need to handle my issues one issue at a time, with my stomach imo being my worst problem lets start here. Long time no see guys, most of you probably don't remember me.


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## Kathleen M.

5 am really isn't "middle of the night" they are talking about.Mostly from 5 am towards dawn is when the colon normally wakes up in all of us.2 am is more middle of the night when the colon is normally resting.I read the study where the "pain at night" thing came from.It is more of a "pink flag" rather than a red flag.Much of the pain at night is often from an upper GI disorder that was in the study like GERD which typically gets worse when you lie flat.Something like (pulling from memory so the numbers are NOT exact but in the right range).5% of totally healthy people had some kind of abdominal pain in the night.30-40% of IBSers had pain in the night and50-60% of people with all other things (not just IBD, but also GERD and other things like that) had pain at night.So it was NOT some clear cut IBSers only get pain from 8 am to 10 pm and never at any other time and everyone else always gets pain at 5 am. It really is a very fuzzy somethings are slightly more likely to do it than IBS, so we might want to look at people who have that more than IBSers who don't especially if they have some other non-IBS symptoms of things that tend to happen more at night. The more clear cut red flags are things like bloody diarrhea where the blood is maroon and mixed into the stool or losing weight even when you eat like a sumo wrestler--if that is new for you. After all a few people just have really fast metabolisms but they usually have always been that way.Really, it isn't a serious red flag, and abdominal pain can happen to healthy people from time to time.When the pain goes away after the "blow out" or BM of any kind that is a very classic, typical, IBS symptom. That is not a clear symptom of something else and usually "seals the deal" for an IBS diagnosis.The only other "at night" thing to worry about you probably don't have. Microscopic colitis typically causes several episodes of watery diarrhea at night and usually isn't as painful as IBS is.IBS is probably the most painful of the GI disorders. That it only hits a couple of times a month also tends to point to mild IBS (even if it is really painful) as MC or IBD's tend to flare up for weeks or months at a time, not do a one day then go away for a couple of weeks thing.


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## Arch-Angel

> 5 am really isn't "middle of the night" they are talking about.Mostly from 5 am towards dawn is when the colon normally wakes up in all of us.2 am is more middle of the night when the colon is normally resting.


Well my sleeping schedual is off, 5AM is sorta the middle of the night for me. I have chronic tinnitus, in my left ear; sleep doesn't come easy.


> Much of the pain at night is often from an upper GI disorder that was in the study like GERD which typically gets worse when you lie flat.


I do have gerd, pretty severely i think. infact i'm sure i'll die of esophigal cancer later in life. ._.


> The more clear cut red flags are things like bloody diarrhea where the blood is maroon and mixed into the stool or losing weight even when you eat like a sumo wrestler--if that is new for you. After all a few people just have really fast metabolisms but they usually have always been that way.


i've never had blood in my stool, ever. i've had mucus but never blood, the only time i've ever seen blood, is when it was the size of a buick coming out(sorry you probably didn't need that mental image.) and no, i wish i could lose weight like that..


> When the pain goes away after the "blow out" or BM of any kind that is a very classic, typical, IBS symptom. That is not a clear symptom of something else and usually "seals the deal" for an IBS diagnosis.The only other "at night" thing to worry about you probably don't have. Microscopic colitis typically causes several episodes of watery diarrhea at night and usually isn't as painful as IBS is.IBS is probably the most painful of the GI disorders.That it only hits a couple of times a month also tends to point to mild IBS (even if it is really painful) as MC or IBD's tend to flare up for weeks or months at a time, not do a one day then go away for a couple of weeks thing.


yeah, the pain sometimes, is mind numbing, where you lose your breath, for just a moment, as you try to regain focus, but it goes sometimes just as fast as it came, and it's not always that strong.And no, i've never had a incident that lasted more than a few hours to a day. as for mild ibs, maybe, but i do get sick everytime i eat. I have to plan my activities around eating, it gets really.. *really* annoying. alot of gas, bloating, and pain. having severe panic disorder *really* doesn't help either.now that you've put my mind at rest a bit, i had been thinking about trying this medicine that was mentioned on the wiki entry on IBS.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberogastbeen thinking of giving this a try, what do you think? worth a go?


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## Kathleen M.

If you are getting any cues at all your body still knows when dawn is no matter what time you go to sleep. If you see any sunlight during the day or have any interaction with other humans of any miniscule type (including TV) your body knows what time it is in the world no matter what time you went to sleep. Even people who work the night shift don't fully change what the body does as "day" and "night"Cancer is fairly rare in people with GERD it is not the path it has to take and you have let the doctor take a look in there, right? They can spot the changes long before that happens. I have one change that actually seems to make me statistically much less likely to get cancer, but could bother my swallowing so they may have to treat it at some point.Mucus is common in IBS. No bloody diarrhea is a good sign, as is a more normal metabolism. You actually don't want to lose weight like that. Everyone I know with a seriously speedy metabolism has a rough time of it. If they can't eat for a day or two for being sick they will drop a lot of weight and usually can't get well until they regain it. It is one of those that sounds fun until you actually have to live like that and being way too thin gets you just as many comments as being overweight.Well mild is if you pretty much only have a couple of episodes a month. If you have bothersome discomfort every day (even if not these dramatic episodes) that would put you in the moderate range. Some of those herbs sometimes help some people. You might want to do a price check as sometimes something that promotes itself enough to make a wiki page (I assume the company put it up) tend to be overpriced. You might check who edits the page if they identify themselves enough to tell.


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## crstar

i've written about this before..........look for HCl in my posts & it gets rid of GERD & many things that cause stomach pain & cramps.........(that's hydrochloric acid).......


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## Arch-Angel

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal...=1&SRETRY=0That's the source given on that herbal remedy, crstar, I don't think my problem is low acid production, infact i have to take medicine (prilosec) to reduce the amount of acid i have. I make so much bud that i sometimes get it regurgating in to my mouth in severe episodes.


> If you are getting any cues at all your body still knows when dawn is no matter what time you go to sleep. If you see any sunlight during the day or have any interaction with other humans of any miniscule type (including TV) your body knows what time it is in the world no matter what time you went to sleep. Even people who work the night shift don't fully change what the body does as "day" and "night"


 I see, however referring to our first posts, this doesn't always happen at 5 am.sometimes I can get an episode at 1 am, 3 am, 4 am, it doesn't matter.sometimes though rarely it happens in the middle of the day too! but they mostly always happen at night, when i get these episodes.


> Mucus is common in IBS. No bloody diarrhea is a good sign, as is a more normal metabolism. You actually don't want to lose weight like that. Everyone I know with a seriously speedy metabolism has a rough time of it. If they can't eat for a day or two for being sick they will drop a lot of weight and usually can't get well until they regain it. It is one of those that sounds fun until you actually have to live like that and being way too thin gets you just as many comments as being overweight.


you're right, I just wish my metabolism was a bit faster, though to my credit, no matter how much i eat,i can't ever seem to break 230 pounds, but i can't seem to drop under 210.


> Well mild is if you pretty much only have a couple of episodes a month. If you have bothersome discomfort every day (even if not these dramatic episodes) that would put you in the moderate range.


 well, that sounds about right. I mean, i could probably get used to the IBS, if the panic attacks didn't throw me out of wack, they walk hand and hand with eachother. it's these nightly attacks that get to me anymore. i treasure what sleep I can get, when that's interuppted, i'm thrown off like mad.


> Some of those herbs sometimes help some people. You might want to do a price check as sometimes something that promotes itself enough to make a wiki page (I assume the company put it up) tend to be overpriced. You might check who edits the page if they identify themselves enough to tell.


Indeed, I had checked that when i first heard of it, i'm weary of herbal remedies, when i first got tinnitus, we tried a handfull of those herbal remedies that swore it'd help me, never did a thing. now i live with a fan going all day and night. it's about 30 dollars for 100ml of it. a search for it on google, brings up quite a bit of mention, and the ratings on amazon.com give it 4/5 stars, with 8 reviews. I'm not sure if that's way expensive, i know one guy on here was trying to sell me some sort of herbal liquid made of a fruit, that he said would cure everything from ibs, to autism, to panic disorder.he wanted like 100 something a bottle.


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## Kathleen M.

Well like I said the difference between the people with some other GI disorder with pain at night is only a few percentage points more than those with IBS that have pain at night.It really isn't worth getting to panicked over as it is one of the "red flags" isn't all that good at telling the people apart, especially when it is by itself and nothing else is off.There really aren't that many symptoms that are 100% one thing and never seen in anything else. It is the pattern. GERD could be waking you up and then setting the IBS off, or the tinnitis, or those are days you ate something that just upsets the system a bit.


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## heyjude

I went on vacation last week and had the worst IBS D I have ever had. Actually I felt I was getting it under control but had diarrhea every day while on vacation. Usually taking 1 immodium would help but I was taking 4 a day. I have been very worried about this. Am going for a CAT scan tomorrow.For the tinnitus you might try having a hair sample done to check for deficiencies in minerals. I did that and have been taking supplements, with the one I take the most of being potassium in liquid form. I had had pain in the right side of my face daily for at least 10 years and had decided it was neuralgia. I was taking lots of ibuprofen daily. After taking the suggested minerals the pain has gone away. The minerals were actually given to lower my blood pressure and the facial pain going away was just a side effect. My blood pressure is almost perfect now. Unfortunately, it has not helped the IBS.


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## MonkeyBabyTimes

About once a month I will wake up in the middle of the night, often about two hours after falling asleep with horrible cramping and about an hour of terrible D... then as quickly as it came, it is gone, and by morning I feel fine, maybe a bit hungry. I can't explain it, but since I am an IBSD sufferer, it wasn't that surprising for me no matter what time it happened. Your situation sounds a bit different though, since its not part of your normal life. Everyone here gives great advice


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