My IBS causes me dreadful pain except when I have a cold!!!!!

[Smiles-are-free]

Hi there I wondered if anyone out there experiences the same thing? I have chronic symptoms (16 years) and no food in particular sets it off. Constant stabbing pain on left side, constipation, occasional diarrhoea, migraines, frequent weeing, joint pain, brain fog, weight loss, always cold to name just a few of the symptoms. Doctors are at a loss. Had cameras, scans, barium meals, laparoscopy, biopsies, stool tests, blood tests. But the wierd thing is that tummy-wise I feel on top of the world when I have a cold...

[MinaFox]

The body is a funny thing especially when you consider the body and mind! ive read that IBS is something to do with the connection to your brain and your stomach / intestines..i know for sure that stress can set me off and when im feeling happier it is a lot better..so i wonder if when you have a cold because your body and mind have other things to deal with your IBS symptoms lessen? I suppose that isn't too helpful, but i suppose if that was the case then you can maybe try ways to distract yourself / meditation, different things that distract and relax you maybe? Short of that it could be a type of medicine that you take while having a cold that helps ease your symptoms! I hope you figure it out and feel better soon! I do believe the power of positive though tis a big thing - even if right now im struggling to keep it up myself haha!

[livini]

The same thing happens to me but also during hay fever season. I have wondered if the body is fighting something else it may not be fighting itself as it were with my ibsd. I haven't found much information on this so it is good to know I am not the only one this occurs to.

[Eternity78]

may be you feel better when having a cold because of the cold anti-histamine meds that you might have taken during your cold ?? there are many medical articles out there pointing at the pain relieve effect of antihistamines on ibs sufferers ..So check what medication did you use when you had the cold ..it might be the factor responsible for this temporary relieve ! Also the immune systom shifts its focus temporarily from attacking the digestive systom to handling and coping with the cold ..that is why we notice that we feel our ibs symptoms get better during a cold .For me least ..when i have a cold with fever ..i notice remarkedly that the higher the fever the better i feel with ibs !! how strange yeah 🤔 i think doctors and the medical community must put more research effort on this issue to get to the root if ibs ..which i think is a sort of immune System disorder or malfunction ..hope you feel better soon and good luck 🌹

[Boodaloo]

Hi!

I have experienced that exact same thing! I don't get too many colds, but when I do, the gut problems are gone. Well, not gone, because they always return when my cold is finished.

I've thought about different reasons why this happens - not drinking coffee, not eating something that I haven't realized is a trigger, or even just the misery of the cold distracts me from my bowel problems.

It could be that my (our) gut problems are improved when the immune system is mounting an attack on the cold virus. So, is it possibly an autoimmune disorder causing my bowel problems, which gets forced into a mini-remission when my immune system has a real illness to attack?

Work with helmiths (parasitic hookworms) has shown promise in stemming or even curing some autoimmune disorders (MS, asthma). The theory is that the immune system is changed by the presence of the hookworms in the gut, that the worms tamp down the immune system so it does not mount an attack. This, in turn, causes autoimmune responses to decrease as well.

I don't have UC or Chron's, at least not at last check. But, I do have autoimmune thyroid disease, and when you have one autoimmune disorder, you're much more likely to have a second or third one as well.

Whatever the cause, the mini remission is a silver lining to catching a cold.

I believe that it's an important clue as to what's wrong with me.

Or...maybe chicken soup really is the cure for everything!

[casares8 in reply to Boodaloo]

Yes its the chicken soup I bet!

[a1m1m25]

It's interesting isn't it? I get the same thing and wonder if it's to do with extra mucus production. I always feel like I'm carrying round a belly of mucus during a cold. The immune system thing makes total sense to me too though.

I take no anti-histamines or painkillers even, unless things get really bad. I do drink my own body weight in ginger tea, made by steeping ginger root in boiling water for aaaages so perhaps there's a link there? It was recommended to me by a lady I used to date a while back of chinese descent.