New to this site.

Hey everyone, just stumbled on this site today, sorry for the long read but here's my story.

On July 10th, I got a stomach bug, virus, whatever you wanna call it from my cousin and we both had the same symptoms and everything so I'm pretty positive this is where it all started. She was better within 3 days, I however was plagued with continuous diarrhea for just about 3 weeks altogether.

On the 28th, the diarrhea with mucous, nausea, severe abdominal pain, fatigue, and severe panic attacks took me to the ER. From there they discovered my potassium was low (no wonder i was tired!) I was given IV potassium and oral potassium, fluids, an abdominal x-ray (nothing irregular) and sent home. Well to make the story shorter, over that next week I was in the ER 3 more times, once for vomiting(the only time I've thrown up throughout all of this) a small amount of blood which the doctor suggested was a ruptured blood vessel from retching so hard. I lost 11 pounds in 4 days from not being able to eat. Other times I went in for the severe nausea and stabbing pain (plus my anxiety disorder doesn't help this situation.) They did blood tests and a urinalysis which were both normal. They didn't do any other tests which I'm pretty mad about- I think they thought it was mostly in my head.

Well after a course of Flagyl, Lomotil, and Reglan (which seemed to help) I saw a GI specialist who suggested that my problems were maybe coming from a lingering bacterial or viral infection, but because I was feeling pretty much back to normal at the time he suggested I take it easy and see what happens if anything comes up give him a call.

Well here we go again...it started about 4 days ago with a random, stabbing pain in my lower left quadrant that comes and goes sporadically. Then today I wake up with a weird aching in my upper right quadrant. I've had no nausea but I've had diarrhea with mucous twice today. I'm curious whether this sounds like IBS to some of you. Is it possible for IBS to present itself after a bout of gastroenteritis?

This is all so frustrating because I won't have insurance on the 27th of this month until October 1st. I'm feeling helpless and worried, but trying to keep my stress under control. Just wondering if maybe this is the start of something like IBS? Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thanks for taking the time to read through!

hi anachronic, also have them check your liver as i have a friend who had similar symptoms and after 2 years, they found it was liver trouble.

Anachronic,

For the c diff, you just need three separate stool samples and the lab will have the results in 24 to 48 hours.  You might not even need 3 samples but I needed 3 for my last check to make sure I didn't have it again.  If you call your dr on Mon you should have enough time if you can give the samples that day & he does a stat order; that way your ins. will still be in effect.

Judy