# Feel like I'm constipated but not?



## Matt b

The last couple of days I have felt severly constipated. I have the bloated trapped gas feeling I get when i am constipated. I also have pains on my sides like when I'm constipated. At times I have had lower abdominal cramps also. I keep having a strong sensation like I need to have a bm! I ha e been passing gas occasionally yet I feel lke I have a lot of trapped gas. Sometimes my stomach makes a lot of noise also.I have been having daily bowel movements but I figured they were small and I could still be backed up. Seemed unlikely but that was the only explanation I could come up with.Well on Thursday night I did kind of a colon transit test. I ate some corn with my dinner. The first and only corn I have ate in a while. Yesterday considering I didn't feel so good I barely ate anything. I took milk of magnesia for the first time in a week last night also.Well this morning in my bm I see the corn from Thursday! Now unless I am severely backed up this has to be the corn from two days ago. The last time I ate corn before that was like two weeks ago.Wouldn't that mean I couldn't be constipated? The only things that could be in my bowels would be what I ate yesterday right? Which would be almost nothing. It comes out in the order it goes in right?What could explain the feeling I am having??? It feels like my entire colon is stuffed full!Last night I could barely sleep I was in pain and my anxiety was terrible for some reason. I had serious brain fog yesterday also! I just have a very confused feeling in my head. Last night I was having a lot of the problems I have when my anxiety is really bad. Sweating a lot. Feeling hot for no reason. My left thigh and left shoulder hurt. Chest hurt. Fast heart rate. I took my anxiety medication last night and it did nothing!I also must add that right now I am going through one of the more stressful periods of my entire life. This is the first time in my entire life where I don't know what I am going to do. I am about to go through serious life changes that I am not ready for. Money problems. Where I am going to live problems. How I am going to afford my doctor and medicine problems. Basically everything in my life is about to completely change and I am not ready for it. I am also going through all of this completely by myself.Maybe this has all caught up with me and I am going crazy? Cause that's how I feel right now. You throw in these physical symptoms and I am close to losing it! On the outside I try to keep it together but on the inside I am going crazy! Yesterday I forgot what day it was! I was three days off!I haven't been eating right the last week or more. I actually cant afford to eat a real dinner! Could that be causing some kind of problems? Yesterday I took a multivitamin to make up for some of the vitamins I have been missing out on.I have feared that I have some kind of intestinal parasites for a while and now I am even more worried about that. I have every symptom.


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## Kathleen M.

One of the problems with how the abdomen feels is that it really only has a few different things it can do to complain.So different things can feel very similar. Things come out pretty much in order (there is some mixing) so the at home transit test came out in about the middle of the normal range.With IBS sometimes the problem is you feel the normal things that shouldn't be felt, and the only option to feel those things is a "something is wrong" kind of feeling. Even though it is just a relatively normal colon doing all the normal sorts of things, it can feel like something seriously wrong.Constipation can mean speed or stool consistency so hard dry stools may need treatment even if they come out on schedule.See what you can do for stress relief, either take a walk, or practice a couple of minutes of mindfulness a couple of times a day, anything like that. Getting all wound up doesn't make the IBS better, but it can be hard to release stress in a healthy way when you have a lot of change going on in your life, so you might need to work a bit more on that.


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## smr77

mattb,I have had the same thing for a long time, and recently have found great relief in the low-FODMAPS diet. You can find plenty of info on the internet about it. The theory goes that there is some kind of sugar or saccharide you can't digest, and so some other microbe is in your gut digesting it for you, causing bad gas that goes back into bloodstream, poisoning you and causing the brain fog. When I eliminated fructose, fructans (wheat and onions are the biggest offenders), and lactose, I had a 99% improvement in symptoms (90% in the first two weeks and then a gradual improvement over the next few weeks).


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## Rift

I frequently have the same problem: A reasonably sized BM in the morning but still feel constipated afterwards, and it gets worse through out the day each time I eat a meal.


smr77 said:


> I have had the same thing for a long time, and recently have found great relief in the low-FODMAPS diet. You can find plenty of info on the internet about it. The theory goes that there is some kind of sugar or saccharide you can't digest, and so some other microbe is in your gut digesting it for you, causing bad gas that goes back into bloodstream, poisoning you and causing the brain fog. When I eliminated fructose, fructans (wheat and onions are the biggest offenders), and lactose, I had a 99% improvement in symptoms (90% in the first two weeks and then a gradual improvement over the next few weeks).


might give it a go too as I eat a lot of fruit and veg each day, would be difficult to know what else to eat though


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## annie7

i've been trying the low FODMAPS for quite a while to help alleviate some of the bloat--not sure it's working yet-- and yes it is a bit limiting for me especially when it comes to fruit because i also have reflux and cannot eat any citrus or any acidic fruit.you've all probably seen the threads on the gas/flatulance/bloating etc board about fodmap--thanks to all the terrific help from common response. http://www.ibsgroup.org/forums/topic/138274-printable-fodmap-diet-chart-for-your-convenience


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## sara1991

Hi guys,

I know this is an old thread but I have a quick one to ask because I seem to be going crazy here! The past week, I've been having daily BMs of decent size (this was a good week for me since I upped my magnesium citrate intake). Today I haven't gone though and feel very constipated although it's only been one day!!

I had a gastro appointment yesterday and when he tapped on ym belly he said I was full of stool although I've gone everyday. Now my question is can this be gas causing this false sensation or can I really be backed up still?

I really need some answers so appreciate anyone who has this symptom?


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## annie7

i always felt very constipated whenever i had a day that i didn't go or didn't go much.

whenever the doc felt my belly and said i was full of stool, i was, even if i had been going some. it wasn't gas.

you could still be going everyday but not going completely and so developed sort of a backup......i think it sort of depends on how much you eat and how slow your colonic transit time is. plus there's always some stool in the colon since when you do go, you don't dump the entire colon unless you're having lots of D.


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