# okay what do you call this..diarrhea or constipation?



## TVgirl (Sep 16, 2009)

Seems an odd question to ask if these symptoms are of diarrhea or constipation because they are so opposite one another but...My symptoms: I get them coming back every couple weeks and they last a few days. I get the crampy, burning urgency feeling in my intestines, mostly low and straight across the abdoment then it radiates burning cramping feeling throughout abdoment. I get the urgency feeling to go...but when I go to the bathroom it doesn't all come out so easy...it is like piece by piece...not hard like constipated stool, kind of more on the soft side...but in pieces and I have to push as if I am constipated and it is so hard for me to get it all out. Then when I think I am done...(although not satisified) but can't get any more to come..I finish up and then all throughout the day I have to make trips like this to the bathroom.So it is like I have the pain and cramping you get with diarrhea but the difficulty like constipation to get it all out. Stool soft and more on the mushy side than hard. Then after a few days when my system is emptied I guess, I may not go for a couple days and may return to somewhat normal for a couple weeks till it starts up again....any ideas....is this constipation ??? like maybe I am backed up so much that I get all the cramping and then spasms to go....or would you call it diarrhea because of the urgency and frequency.It is confusing because I don't know what treatment I should be using.


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## Bonzi (Mar 18, 2010)

I get like this when Im stressed out. I too would like to know the classification.I wake up and have a BM within the first hour of being awake EVERY morning, like clockwork. But when I go its usually soft, even more so when Im stressed, and at times in pieces. But every day. And then later that day I will have a very normal BM, which is weird. But the morning BM sounds alot like yours. Everything but the strain. I never have to strain.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Could be a couple of thingsMaybe alternating is the best category.Backed up for a couple of days then all that harder stool has to come out then a bunch of backed up stool comes out.Now if you strain a lot even with normal/soft stool that can be a pelvic floor issue where you don't relax when you should.


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

I used to have these symptoms every day (except I never was constipated for a couple of days following passage of stool). The straining to pass soft and mushy stool is called incomplete evacuation. I had this exact same thing, and it turned out that I had a bacterial overgrowth in my small intestine. You may want to ask your doctor about that. Antibiotics usually get rid of it, but for many people it's recurring. Do you have any other symptoms?


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## cecross (Apr 29, 2010)

Hi there, I am new to this board. I haven't gotten the official IBS diganosis and am currently going through tests. But this thread caught my eye as it describes me to a tee!! This is the longest time that I have had to deal with it, going on 5 weeks now, I wake up, or it wakes me up, between 4 and 5 am...uggg and I go 2 or 3 times and by 7ish I am good. If I do go again that day it is normal. And I get breaks, usually over the weekend, I will go 2 or 3 days with just normal BM's. The only other real symptom I have is weight loss. I have lost 13lbs over 6 months, not a huge concern if i was trying, but I wasn't. I don't get the horrible cramps some of the people talk about on this board, or anything else really. Sometimes my BM's are quite loose, but still not really diarrhea....when I am not having an "attack" I am usually more of the hard side, but still able to go regularily.I am pretty sure that it is stress triggered, if the Dr doesn't find any other cause. Food doesn't seem to make a difference. What bugs me one day won't another. The only things I have done is to elinminate all coffee and basically all alcohal. I limit my intake of milk products, but only a bit. And I decided to try the Calcium trick. Taking 1/2 at supper and 1/2 at brakfast. We will see if it helps at all. So far so good and no side effects. When I really think about it I can see a pattern of weight loss and bowel issues in my past during high times of stress.I really want to manage whatever I have as natrually as possible. I really don't want to go on any medications, other than suplements, that will casue side effects worse than the systoms I have.I am glad I found this board, lost of good info here....


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## Martin21 (Apr 23, 2010)

Wow, I am totally having these symptoms right now- large, soft movement (sometimes loose D-ish) in the morning, then throughout the day every hour or so, an uncomfortable urge, then just a few pieces and feeling incomplete...even when I have immodium in me. Faze Action - if you don't mind me asking, how were you diagnosed with bacterial overgrowth? SIBO breath test? Stool culture?...? Did you try antibiotics and if so, which one?Has anyone heard of someone having success with probiotics for this? To me this whole thing sounds more like d - if there is urgency and you don't get really full/bloated/backed up for a relatively long period, I don't thing this can be called constipation. My doc told me how a dysbiosis of the gut can cause this sort of thingM21


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## faze action (Aug 6, 2009)

Martin21 said:


> Wow, I am totally having these symptoms right now- large, soft movement (sometimes loose D-ish) in the morning, then throughout the day every hour or so, an uncomfortable urge, then just a few pieces and feeling incomplete...even when I have immodium in me. Faze Action - if you don't mind me asking, how were you diagnosed with bacterial overgrowth? SIBO breath test? Stool culture?...? Did you try antibiotics and if so, which one?Has anyone heard of someone having success with probiotics for this? To me this whole thing sounds more like d - if there is urgency and you don't get really full/bloated/backed up for a relatively long period, I don't thing this can be called constipation. My doc told me how a dysbiosis of the gut can cause this sort of thingM21


Hi Martin.Yes, I was diagnosed with SIBO with a hydrogen breath test. I think it's the only way to get a semi-accurate DX for SIBO. False positives are possible, but I was diagnosed twice, 6 months apart, so I don't think mine was false.I was prescribed rifaximin antibiotic 1200mg , for 10 days. I think that is the usual course prescribed. The first time I took it it worked WONDERS. Within 48 hours my stool was completely normal. After the first course I felt great for about 4-6 weeks or so, and then symptoms started coming back. About 4 months later my symptoms were fully back, although not as bad as they were initially. Second round of rifaximin worked, but I did not see the marked improvement that I noticed the first time.I did also take probiotics for 2 months following this second course of the ABs. Stopped the probiotics in mid-December.Since then I have had ups and downs... my symptoms come and go, some days (and weeks) are better than others.I think the probiotics mainly helped in delaying the return of my symptoms.I think with SIBO the most important thing to remember is that something caused it in the first place... antibiotics treat the symptoms, but whatever caused the overgrowth needs to be addressed (if it's possible to figure out what the cause even is).


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## tattooedapril (May 4, 2010)

I sometimes get something similar to what you are describing. I call it "constipated diahrea" its the only way to explain it. I feel like I need to go, but then I have to sit there for a while to work at it and then when it finally comes its diahrea and most of the time I still feel like I have to go. And about half the time I end up back in the bathroom with in a hour going again and sometimes I'm fine.


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