Do people with Severe IBS have it worse than people with IBD?

Sorry, but I didn't know how to word this question.

I was curious. My doctor said that while the medical field knows a lot about IBD and its causes, it knows nothing about IBS, and it's cause...

How can you effectively treat something without knowing what causes it... At least they know that IBD is autoimmune.....

I wouldn't say they know alot about IBD, they certainly don't know near enough about it to cure it anytime soon...many IBDers suffer with IBS as well...you could take a mild IBDer and put them up against a severe IBSer and definitely say the IBSer is having a worse go at it.

IBD is chronic but many if not most IBSers are chronic too, although the medical field may not lable them that way, that doesn't mean they aren't.

:)

Agree with "not creative" - while the physical symptoms may be the same (cramping, diarrhea, etc.) it is much "easier" (loose quotation marks there) on your body to have IBS because it doesn't have the long-term implications IBD does...inflammation, intestinal scarring, increased risk of colon cancer, likely surgeries. I wonder if anyone with IBS has ever had to have their colon removed...I'm guessing no.

I've been diagnosed with IBS and I would say IBD is worse for the same reason bookgal77 mentioned. However, there are a very select few that usually have very intense IBS-C that have had their colon removed. There are some people who have IBS-C so bad that they have like 1-2 bowel movements per month. My personal worst was a 10 days and that felt horrible. I can't imagine a whole month.