Burning acidic diarrhea- possible Gall Bladder issues

The yellow, burning stuff is bile acid. This can be caused by a bad gall bladder, but sometimes people who have IBS-D also have this problem--not because their GBs are bad but because, I think, that their food and digestive enzymes (including the bile) are running through their guts so quickly that they don't have time to be absorbed properly. If you can't get the water and bile absorbed from your food as it should be, you end up with diarrhea.

The symptoms of gall bladder disease include some, but not necessarily all, of the following: nausea, vomiting, a feeling of being stuffed even after eating a very small amount of food, pain in the upper abdomen, but usually on the right-hand side specifically and maybe down the whole right-side of the torso, pain in the right arm, shoulder and down to the elbow, an inability to lay down while nauseated, diarrhea which is usually yellow or greenish in color.

If you suspect gall bladder problems, you should have a hida scan. Ultrasounds are usually preformed first to check for stones, but gall bladders can be bad without having stones and you have to have the hida scan to check for functionality as well (unless, of course, they find stones right off the bat).

If you don't suspect gall bladder problems, you can still take what post-gall bladder patients take to absorb the excess bile. I take Welchol and have only good things to say about it. Some people take Questran, but I have heard a number of people complain about excess gas with it. It also comes in a powder, whereas the Welchol comes in a pill. But both are cholesterol medicines which just happen to have the side effect that they absorb extra bile in the digestive tract and keep people like me from having bile poops all the time. I almost never have diarrhea anymore since I started taking it. I take one Welchol a day and most of the time one calcium pill a day to help boost it a little. Depending on what I've eaten and how my body is reacting (like to stress), I may have to not take the calcium or take an extra Welchol. You should go to your G.I. and tell him that you are having bile in your diarrhea and that you need some Welchol or Questran to stop that. It's bad enough to have diarrhea without having it burn you a new one too.

When my gall bladder wasn't acting up, I could have normal, non-bile poops. Even now that I don't have one, I can still have regular poops, even when I'm not on medicine, but I have to be on a very strict low-fat diet in order to manage that.

Have you kept a food diary. It may be some specific foods.

Wow Kix, WOW

While I am glad they finally figured out your mothers issues and helped here.

This

"Irritable Bowel Syndrome is just an "easy" diagnosis when the doctors can't seem to find anything else wrong."

Is not accurate, it is a distint clinical entity and its no longer a diagnoses of exclusion. This is important, IBS is not just any gi symptoms, there are very specific symptoms for an IBS diagnoses.

You mom had red flag symptoms the doctors should have caught to rule out an IBS diagnoses. Some of this is because they have learned a lot more over the last 5 to 10 years, especially the last five.

What your saying though is important and again I am glad they found the problem. It sounds like the intial doctor/s didn't know what they were doing.

Some people actually get thier GB out when they really have IBS. That is one reason why diagnoses of IBS is so important. You don't want to confuse the two conditions.

In my case, I always get it when I eat processed foods such as processed meals, processed meats, fast and junk foods, etc. On the other hand when I start eating healthy fiber-rich nutrient-dense foods such as fruits and vegetables and whole grains I never have any digestive problems. So in my case I'm pretty confident it's food. What are you eating? 99% of people suffer from digestive disorders due to eating crap and not because they have some health problems.

I've been having stomach and bowel problems for about 2 years now. Ever since I was diagnosed with clostridium difficile in 2011 I've had problems. I had my gall bladder removed that same week that I was hospitalized for the c. dif and have recently been treated for h. pylori infection in my stomach, which took several months to get rid of. My doctor wouldn't listen to me and told me I just had too much stomach acid and gave me some Omeprizole. I knew there was something else wrong with me but he wouldn't listen so I went to see a colleague of his who ordered an endoscopy which showed my stomach lining to be seriously inflamed and red. They took a biopsy of it and it ended up being h. pylori infection. H. pylori is a common bacteria found in the stomach's of more than half of the human population but few actually ever have it become a problem. Well, mine did. It became so over grown that I've had sharp pains in my stomach, random burning diarrhea, and pain after eating, excessive burping, and acidic gas. My primary doctor didn't put me on the right antibiotics the first time so my infection lasted for several months until he FINALLY got it right and put me on Flagyl and ugh, some other antibiotic, I can't remember the name of it. Also, Omeprizole and 4 chewable tablets of bi****h 4 times daily. After one month of taking THAT round of antibiotics, he tested my stool for the h. pylori, which came back negative. Well, all of the research I've done and several doctors I've spoken to, say that stool samples are not an accurate way to test for h. pylori. The two tests that should be performed are an endoscopy and a breath test. Now that my symptoms are back (and with a vengeance I might add) my doctor wants me to give a stool sample again. I told him I wanted an endoscopy but he isn't willing to order the test! I think I am just going to go back to his colleague who ordered the initial test for me several months ago. In fact, I think I will ask my insurance if I can just switch to her permanently, since she actually listens to me and seems like she actually knows what she's doing. Does anyone on here know anything about h. pylori infections and have some advice for me? I'm really sick and tired of being sick and tired!!!! I'm in a lot of pain, too, and the only relief I can get is if I go to an emergency room, which, obviously, I cannot do. My doctor seems to think that prescribing pain medication for my PAIN will result in an addiction to pain meds. Although he may be right about that, how are people who are in a lot of pain supposed to get any relief??? I hear a lot about how people who have chronic pain most of them can't get pain meds because they're "addicting" but if the person who has chronic pain that never goes away is going to need that pain medicine for the long term, why does it matter if they get addicted to it? People who take anti-depressants are addicted to their meds and have to be weened off of them so how is it any different?? I am tired of being in pain all the time and being told that I can't have any pain medicine because the doctors don't want me to become addicted. I have a permanent, debilitating spinal deformity that's a birth defect that will cause more and more pain as I get older and now I'm almost 40 and there's nothing the docs can do to help me. I had to practically BEG my doctor and go to SEVERAL Dr visits, one after another, and another, and another, every time telling him I was in pain and begging just for some TRAMADOL, which hardly does anything but is better than nothing. I just don't see what the big fat deal is.

I had my gallbladder removed two years ago and have had excess bile since, lately having a hiatal hernia and IBS-D whereas I take probiotics. I am also on Opiate Pain Medication for Chronic Neck and Spinal pain. In the past has caused Constipation . This is no longer the case.

I am dealing with the sudden bouts of orange burning diarrhea which lasts for days. Chronic gas where I am drinking Mylanta as much as water. I take Probiotics. Iron supplements and B12.

The pain meds have been reduced as doctors are more paranoid about prescribing them with the latest media buzz about drug addicts abusing them to point of death.

I believe this reduction is partially the cause of worsening diarrhea as back in the day ,
opiates were prescribed for diarrhea as they are known to slow bowel movement.

I never had any h. pylori or dificile though after surgery i was very ill for months they never found any infection and just told me to deal with it as result of no longer having gall bladder. Though I did return two weeks after with liver stones. Don't know that is relevant here.

It doesn't sound like they've gotten any further with helping relieve symptoms of IBS-D. Just wondering if there could be more serious problem for which I should be pushing doctors to look. Mostly I've given up on their help as they just push pills or act as though I shouldn't be bothering them with same problem I'm just suppose to deal with the pain and diarrhea.