# Passing Undigested Food



## Northern_Girl (May 27, 2014)

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the forum and was tenatively diagnosed with IBS-D just yesterday. I say tenatively because my GI doc ordered some additional blood tests, including a celiac test, and we're still awaiting the pathology results from the biposies he took during my colonoscopy. He seems confident this is IBS-D though.

I've struggled for over a year with daily diarrhea and urgency along with bouts of lower abdominal pain. But more recently, the most troubling symptom for me has been passing food that appears to be undigested. Certain foods are worse than others (fibrous vegetables, rice, nuts, etc.), but it happens fairly often. There is usually mucus present too.

My GI has given me a prescription to trial a bile acid binder. Do any of you struggle with this symptom? Have any of you tried a bile acid binder and had any relief?

Any insight is greatly appreciated!

- NG


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The bile binder can help with the diarrhea, but probably won't change the amount of food in the stool other than making it harder to see.

Tough fiberous things you do not chew enough will always come out the way they went down (with the water soluble stuff leached out). The structure cannot dissolve and there is nothing inside to grind it up after your teeth are done with it.

Bits of food that come out the way they went down is a common way of studying what something eats when it doesn't like to eat when the scientists are watching, or all we have is fossilized stool.

Try chewing more thouroughly and see if that helps with how big the pieces are in the stool, and as I said looser stool makes it easier to see the bits, so if you take the bile binder and the stools are more solid it may appear better even if you don't chew more.


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## Northern_Girl (May 27, 2014)

Thanks, Kathleen. It's becoming difficult for me to tell what's "normal" any more as far as the toilet goes! I have been trying to chew better and have also been considering digestive enzymes.

With the bile binder - do you know if that's regulary prescribed for IBS-D? Or would it be because my GI thinks I have an issue with bile absorption? He didn't talk to me that much about it (likely because I'd had conscious sedation and was a bit loopy, lol) and I don't have a follow up until my other results are back.


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## BQ (May 22, 2000)

Some Drs have been known to prescribe it just to help with IBS D in general.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

It is more commonly used for people without gall bladders or who have had part of their small intestine removed, but it is also on the list of things to use for IBS D (from a 2001 or so Review article in the New England Journal of Medicine)


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