Anyone here with pain predominant IBS?

[Dalph87]

Just wanted to know since I suffer from it every now and then, I'm in the middle of a flare up and get scattered cramps in my colon due to air moving, no change in bowel habits and no symptoms at all at night.

[SABAS]

I get that too, my blood pressure starts fluctuating and i get nauseous and sometimes i even sweat. I have IBS-C, so usually when i get those cramps i end up using the bathroom.

[Dalph87 in reply to SABAS]

I usually don't get upper stomach issues at all, it can happen but it's very rare, my annoyance is mostly on the lower abdomen.

[RickyW]

I'm pain predominant too, my frequency doesn't change but I get pain moving around and sometimes, like now, it feels more like functional dyspepsia. I've been told a lot of my symptoms are down to rapid transit in the past.

I'd be interested in how folks describe the pain. The moving cramping stuff is kind of a regular sharp pain but I also get this dull central gnawing that's a bit more like hunger.

[Dalph87 in reply to RickyW]

For me it's like cramping/mild colicky triggered by air moving, I'm not sure if I would describe it like sharp, it feels like spasms or a regular belly pain, just less severe, it's a bit hard to accurately describe but it's usually at most a 3.5 out of 10 in terms of pain intensity. It's usually below the belly button but can go on the right and in my rectum too sometimes more rarely on the left or above.

Do you have symptoms at night? I'm in the middle of a flare up that goes on and off for almost 3 months, some days I have almost nothing, other days more pain, but one thing never changes, in 90 days I never had night symptoms and always slept decently well.

I'm also quite regular in terms of bowel movements, I go always in the morning and my stool is most of the time normal.

Right now that I'm writing this post, I feel almost nothing, no pain or cramps at all. Been 2 days that the pain is mostly gone, hopefully the nightmare is over...for now.

[RickyW in reply to Dalph87]

Pain doesn't affect me at nights either. Interesting that all my pain is above my belly button. Again leads me to think it's more of a functional dyspepsia issue in my case.

[xjrs]

I was diagnosed with visceral hypersensitivity (functional abdominal pain) last year. There is info about it here:

iffgd.org/lower-gi-disorder...

It is where the brain interprets the normal activity of the bowel as pain - this is due to a wearing down of neurons in pain control centres of the brain which can be caused by PTSD, neglect or abuse in childhood, extreme stressful events etc. The first line treatment is nerve pain agents such as low dose amitriptyline. There is a theory that being on something like amitriptyline for 6-12 months can help the pain control centre neurons to regenerate. Note that amitriptyline can cause constipation. Unfortunately I couldn't tolerate these. Linaclotide (for IBS-C only) & Alflorex probiotic have helped me with this intestinal pain.

In fact the Linaclotide reduced my pain by 50%-60% and it reduced to zero when I added in the Alflorex. The pain tends to only come back when I introduce new foods back into my diet and before my body has adapted to them. Previously I was on a highly restricted diet to control the pain.

The reason why Alflorex worked for me is that I had a gut bacterial imbalance. If you have some dominant bad bugs in your gut, these can produce pain, particularly when these bad bugs are fed foods containing FODMAPs (hence the restricted diet I was on). There is an interesting infographic on this here:

gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/...

Since being on Alflorex I have become more tolerant to a wider variety of foods.

Some say that enteric coated peppermint can help with this pain.

[Dalph87 in reply to xjrs]

Thx for the very useful post and for sharing your experience.

[Iesgobdafydd]

I was pain predominant too, with fatigue, loss of appetite and some gas but no bloating and fairly normal toilet habits, and no problems at night. In my case it turned out TMJD affecting the connective tissue all round my body was the root cause.