IBS-D, nausea and burping

[Tokai335]

So after a few bad flareups over the last few months, I had bloods and stool tests done again at the doctors a month or so ago, everything came back normal - like they did a few years ago, although I had a sigmoidoscopy back then as well. Bloods were FBC, liver, thyroid, inflammation, celiac and some other markers. Stools were for infection and inflammation.

During those flare ups, and again recently I get quite bad nausea. The past 3 days I've been going three times a day (I'm usually twice a day person), and sometimes in quick succession - twice in the space of an hour for example. Cramps more painful than usual too. Stools are either mushy, or very soft and formed. Although that's been the norm for me for years.

But the symptom that's scaring me a bit at the moment is that my stools have been quite yellow/orange after I switched to a bland diet to try and combat the IBS-D. I've also been taking some immodiums as well as my mebeverine prescription.

We've recently been on holiday and eaten out a few times, and I probably ate things I shouldn't have - curry sauce with chips, a tapas platter with onions, gherkins, peppers, garlic aioli dip. A few fizzy drinks and snacks/sweets. After those days I started going more frequently, and had my recent flare up.

I'm also stuck with nausea and burping again. Is this to be expected with IBS? I suffer from extreme anxiety, and find hospital tests unbearable, so I'm not sure whether or not venture back to the GP for more tests - maybe things like BAM, stomach issues, liver issues, pancreas issues, gall bladder issues.

I also suffer from health anxiety, and this has been made worse because last year I lost my father to liver cancer as well as my uncle (his brother) to pancreatic cancer. Both died within a month of each other in July 2021. Since then I've been living in fear of something like that happening to me, and I don't know if those anxieties and fears are making my symptoms/IBS worse. These are the reasons why the recent yellow/orange stools have panicked me.

I've been told my quite a few doctors that my symptoms line up with IBS, espeically given I've had tests but I struggle to accept it.

[Nikon1972]

Hi Tokai335. Life with IBS can be tough, can't it? I suffer from it too, and like you I also get anxiety. My mum has just been diagnosed with cancer very recently and doctors seem to think she hasn't got much of a chance of surviving the treatment. It did make me panic about every little symptom in myself, my partner, and my now grown up and teen children. It's exhausting.Of course I'm not a doctor, but I'd say that if your bloods just all came back normal, you can probably relax a little bit. Yellow/orange stools are very scary if you google them, but there are many explanations for them from what I understand, having looked it up myself. IBS and anxiety, for instance, both affect digestion, usually accelerating it a lot (hence diarrhea), which means the body has no time to process your food as it normally would. Bile from the liver is what makes stools brown (some food also affect colour - I eat a lot of turmeric, it makes a difference, and don't get me started on beetroot), so one worry when stools are yellow is that the liver wouldn't be producing enough bile, but actually in case of IBS and anxiety, it can just be that the liver is fine but there isn't enough time in the body and gut for the process and therefore it affects stool colour.

If it worries you, I'd give your GP a call to ask to discuss this as a query following your blood tests, but as I said keep in mind that during IBS and anxiety the digestive system does get a bit over-stressed so all kinds of symptoms can appear.

One feeds the other too. My anxiety makes my IBS worse, and then the IBS gives me pain and discomfort which makes my anxiety worse. It can be tricky to stop the cycle. I have hemorrhoids too and a fissure from the long term IBS and was in so much pain for so long it was driving me insane. One doctor just told me to live with it and take pain killers. Long term pain killers made me feel nauseous, especially as I couldn't eat well from the anxiety. Recently I saw a doctor again and she took me more seriously, prescribed a different medication, which took the edge off the pain and now my anxiety is settling and I can eat again properly and my IBS is not flaring up as bad, so it goes to show how little things can spiral making our life either a lot harder or a lot easier very quickly.

Is there any option for you to get help with the anxiety somehow?

Wishing you all the best, you have all my sympathy. And I'm sorry for your losses last year. My partner also lost his father and we are now losing my mother, those are hard things to deal with. I hope you feel better soon. Take good care.

[Glitterpants]

I know exactly how you feel as I have IBS & health anxiety too. Every time I get cramp or wind I imagine all sorts things like bowel cancer the list goes on. I cant advise on the colour of poo as I have not had this but if I have a flare up through anxiety I have noticed undigested food in poo. Once I settle down again it returns to normal. The meds that have helped me the most is low dose of Amitriplene. I am on the FODMAP diet & have to be so careful what I eat no fizzy drinks & no alcohol 😔