Anyone with similar symptoms!!

[Daveo1410]

Since sept I struggled with on and off constipation and bleeding ( occ spots of blood). I managed to ease this with diet and after Ointment the bleeding stopped. Bloods normal and FIT test and Calprotectin test normal. Oddly two weeks ago I started having mushy stools, mainly in morning and stomach discomfort often, lower just below belly button, the week before I did stop all diary as I’m lactose intolerant. Has anyone experienced these kind of symptoms with IBS? Also tried probiotics yesterday and today and now few almost head flu sick and nose gassy, anyone had this with probitoctis?

[Cimmy]

Hi daveo1410 , I too cannot tolerate probiotics, it made me feel worse, handy, nauseous and a bit shaky, don’t think they suit everyone, try leaving them off and see how it goes. Sorry I cannot give you a solution but wish you well in this horrible journey IBS had to offer

[Daveo1410 in reply to Cimmy]

Thanks Cimmt. That’s exactly how they have made me feel. Shaky, heady etc. I did get 20 billion ones so maybe so extreme to start off with. Thanks for reply.

[Jocarj]

Just a thought but there's no dairy in the probiotics you are using is there...

If not, could it be it takes a little time for them to start working I wonder.

[Daveo1410 in reply to Jocarj]

No diary in the ones I bought, double checked all the ingredients. Yeah I’m wondering if body’s not used to that level of bacteria. I was taking Yakult until I found out diary intolerant on Friday.

[Jocarj]

The one thing I've learnt with the human body with my experience of various issues over the years is it is not always a logical entity and things can take time to change sometimes.

It's also difficult to know what to do.

If it were me, I'd be trying to "build up" instead and maybe take one and then try another one in 2 or 3 days time.

See if you can tolerate that pattern and then slowly increase if you can.

If not and you see no improvement after a couple of weeks, I would be presuming I can't tolerate them and leaving them for now.

[Daveo1410]

Thankfully as the day has gone on I have get better. I think it hasn’t helped my stomach has been hurting since yesterday as well. You’re quite right, human body is odd and at times needs that soft approach. I have resisted also taking any IBS tablets as well for last few weeks. Taking diary out my diet two weeks ago I think has added to the stress as I did drink a lot of milky tea and eat cheese so I think all added together has caused the d and stomach discomfort

[Maureen1958 in reply to Daveo1410]

It's best not to do too may changes at the once. Just do one thing at a time and see how it goes, if it's not good knock it on the head for a while, maybe going back to it again sometime, and move onto the next thing on your list. Might be an idea having a few days without anything so your body can touch base, if you get my drift.

[Jocarj]

Yeah.

It sounds like you need to give it some time to adjust to the new regime.

There are some good dairy-free alternatives these days if you find yourself missing them.

I found I really liked Violife and the cheddar equivalent was a good effort I thought (the closest thing I've tried yet).

[Daveo1410]

Haven’t heard of that I will give that a try. I have quite got into oat milk which doesn’t taste as bad as some of the others. Yeah I’m hoping the D stops and stomach discomfort then will feel a lot more assured. I do have a colorectal specialist appointment Thursday to hopefully shed some light on the last 3 months

[301246 in reply to Daveo1410]

Good luck with your appointment.

[Daveo1410 in reply to 301246]

Thank you

[Jocarj]

I have to confess I don't think I tried anything other than the cheddar though so not sure what the other stuff is like.

I've been on Almond milk for years and even though it turns out I don't have any issues with cow's milk, my nutritionist reckoned there was more nutrition in almond so I've continued. I've used it for so long that some things I don't actually like without it now (the exception being Latté).

Don't rule out other foods possibly causing it as opposed to a physical problem. If you have issues with one thing, there maybe issues with other things as I've found out myself.

[Daveo1410 in reply to Jocarj]

I had an intolerance test last week. Diary, Wheat, Sweeteners and yeast and mushrooms all came back that cause me problems. Don’t eat mushrooms or drink alcohol and stopped milk 3 weeks ago now so stopped wheat from yesterday. Hopefully removing these and probiotics will rebuild my stomach/bowel. Once you know it’s nothing serious I think that helps with the stress side. I have had quite a few FIT tests and Calprotectin and Lactoferritin tests that where all normal.

[Jocarj in reply to Daveo1410]

I once had one of those tests but having read into it afterwards, it seems they may be a bit snake oily.

With allergy, you are involving the immune system so you can measure the IGE response to allergens.

With intolerance, you aren't involving the immune system so despite the claim that IGG measures intolerance, it doesn't necessarily follow that you are intolerant to the results.

Apparently, an IGG reaction to something is normal.

So in the end I used exclusion which gave me not only a more effective outcome but also, I get no symptoms from the items which I was supposed to be intolerant too.

My test never highlighted Aspartame but it's pretty obvious it doesn't agree with me from an intolerance perspective.

The other thing is people will do these tests and cut things out but then you need to be sure you are replacing what you are missing to avoid other problems later.

If you exclude dairy and issues clear up for you, it would seem likely you are intolerant to either casein, whey or both.

If you exclude wheat (more likely Gluten is your issue there) and things improve, similar story to dairy.

However, I think you need to exclude one thing at a time like I did to be able to work out what it causes.

It is hard work but worth it when you get to the end.

I now have a list on my phone of things to avoid with a passion and just things that cause an annoyance.

[Daveo1410 in reply to Jocarj]

What symptoms do you get if you don’t mind me asking?! My looser stools seem now mainly centred first stool in morning at worst second, afternoon stool not as big but firm and normal. My stomach pain normally starts when I wake up in morning, by early afternoon it’s less noticeable. I have read morning Loose stool is as red light for IBS. Lost how for months I had intermittent constipation to 2 weeks now off looser stools.

[Jocarj in reply to Daveo1410]

I get various different things but not really IBS albeit Gluten gives me missed heartbeats and a bloated feeling so it seems I can't digest easily. I have a propensity for anxiety and Aspartame seems to amplify my that quite a lot - the more intake, the worse it gets. Caffeine affects my heart rhythm. Sucralose sometimes gives me this weird ectopic heartbeat and a shooting feeling. Not pleasant.

It's taken many years for me to actually nail down what causes what as when they are altogether, they all mix in and things happen at different times and other things build up so very hard to work out.

In my case, I know the first dump of the day is from what I ate for lunch the day before usually but we are all different.

If you know for sure you do have an intolerance for dairy for example, you need to check the food labels from what you are eating. There are a surprising number of foods that contain dairy that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

In order to really workout if something you are eating is causing it, the approach I would (and did) follow is to gear up for a few days of having plain cooked chicken and a couple of different types of vegetables and just water - literally cut out everything else including any supplements etc. After about 3 or 4 days allowing for things to settle, see if things start to improve. Then re-introduce one thing and see what you get.

[xjrs]

Odd symptoms like you mention can be typical of IBS.

Here is some information about IBS that I have shared with others in this group in case any of these tips are of interest to you:

IBS can be due to a number or combination of factors - these can be stress (including stress from early life experiences) which impacts the communication between the brain and the digestive system. There are lots of free webinars online at the moment regarding mindfulness meditation which might help. Plus you can ask to be referred for CBT or something similar to reduce anxiety - I would have thought online appointments are available. Exercise can play a major role in IBS in terms of reducing stress, helping your gut microbiome and regulating bowel movements.

There is also not absorbing certain types of carbohydrates called FODMAPs very well, the residue ending up in the colon and bacteria feeding off them causing symptoms. Ordinarily feeding gut bacteria is a really good thing - when you feed good gut bacteria these produce by-products that have great health effects in the gut and throughout the body. However, in some people with IBS bad bugs might have the upper hand over good - these bad bugs may cause symptoms such as excess gas, pain or disordered bowel movements. There is an interesting infographic on this here:

gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/....

This is why it’s worth trying probiotics such as Alflorex (which has been scientifically studied for IBS) or Symprove to crowd out the bad bugs and make their numbers die down. If that doesn't work you can try the FODMAP elimination and reintroduction diet. This is normally under the guidance of a nutritionist via GP referral - this may not be possible at the moment so you can read about it online. If you download the Monash University FODMAP app and Kings College fodmap apps, they will tell you which foods contain FODMAPs and in what quantities. You can eliminate all FODMAPs for 2 weeks and then introduce each type of FODMAP one at a time starting in small quantities, increasing over a 3 day period and wait up to 4 days for symptoms. I go much slower than this - only introducing a small amount (1/4 to 1/3 of a normal portion size) of the same food for 3 days and then increase if tolerable or no symptoms and cut back to the previous amount if symptoms for longer and then try to increment again . I've read your microbiome can adapt to handling a new food if introduced very slowly and your bad bugs are under control with a good probiotic. Ideally you want to eat as many FODMAPs as you can since they are good for your health. Many people with IBS don't have diverse gut bacteria - it has been found that people who lack a diverse microbiome are more prone to diseases in general. In the long run, if you can get your symptoms under control, the ideal situation is to have a very varied diet - lots of different coloured fruits and vegetables, a variety of protein and carbohydrate sources including cereal fibres. This may seem a long way off, but with the right treatment all of this is possible. Last year all I could consume to control my IBS was white rice, protein and limited low fodmap veg. Using the approach above (particularly introducing Alflorex) I am now able to consume far more foods - more than I've ever dreamed of including wholewheat bread which is unheard of for me.

If you are also suffering from pain, you may be suffering from visceral hypersensitivity (functional abdominal pain) - 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, but this can be helpful in people who are diarrhea dominant. Unfortunately I couldn't tolerate these. Linaclotide (for IBS-C only) & Alflorex have helped me with this intestinal pain.

Note that I've read scientific papers that IBS sufferers get on better with lower doses of probiotics (< 10 billion CFU). I took one containing 20+ billion CFU and lots of different strains; the first time I took it I had a vomiting episode and the second time I had heart palpitations. It was as if my body felt it was under attack from all this bacteria. Alflorex contains 1 billion CFU of one particularly strong strain which is passed from the mother to the baby at birth to prime the immune system in the gut. It has a better chance of reducing any bad bugs you may have whilst also not overloading your system. Note that some people also experience "die off" reactions of bad bugs which can make you feel initially unwell. The suppliers of Alflorex (Precision Biotics) have a care team who can support you through the process. I had no side effects and my pain was gone in just over a week, but other people can take 2 months or more.

You may also find assistance with anti-spasmodic medication such as mebeverine (Colofac) or enteric coated peppermint.

You can find some info on self management here:

theibsnetwork.org/the-self-...

If all of the usual IBS remedies fail and you are experiencing diarrhea, it is worth getting tested for BAM (Bile Acid Malabsorption), which can cause constant diarrhea - there is a separate test and treatment for that. Good luck.

[Daveo1410]

Thank you. Yes I did wonder if 20 million was to much in one go. I haven’t taken one today and don’t hAve that heady feeling. Stomach discomfort and looser stools this morning so the doctor has given me Mebeverine and Imodium to try and help.

[Jenny3267]

Care should be taken with probiotics. Not enough is really known about them. I took symprove and believe it made me so ill and gave me SIBO which I now cannot get under control.