Posted 8/24/2012 9:20 PM (GMT 0)
Hi, everyone. I think I introduced myself a couple of years ago, but I'll start again as I've not been very active on this forum. I've had episodes of acute cramping and diarrhea since I was a teen. They were fairly infrequent back then and got worse as I got older. Typically I have lower abdominal pain (my warning that all heck is about to break loose), followed by diarrhea. Sometimes said attacks last a few hours, but generally I have a few bms and all calms down. I always assumed it was food my body needed to get rid of. Never thought of medicating unless I was out of town or something. Always just let it run it's course. I would also have frequent loose bowels with non-severe cramps. That was my normal.
During my second pregnancy, these attacks became super frequent and I had simultaneous vomiting with the diarrhea which made it extra fun. After he was born they continued, and at some point the vomiting left me alone. I just figured it was something I had to deal with. Part of being me. In march 2010, I had an attack after lunch one day away from home, went to the bathroom, and there was a line. The cramping got so severe I passed out. Anyway that motivated me to finally see a doctor. I got referred to a GI who scheduled a colonoscopy and the Prometheus IBD 7 panel. The scope was clear (biopsies normal) but the serology test was "pattern consistent with Crohns". Then he did the capsule endoscopy, thought there was a narrow spot, but this was shown via EGD to be sharp angulation of my intestines. The only inflammation was in my esophagus, for which I have no symptoms. He said that we'd proceed as if my symptoms were due to ibs. Took a round of Xifaxan which helped. When it wore off I took another round which helped for about a year. But I started having problems again about 6 months ago. I'll have several loose bms in the morning and I have the acute attacks with vomiting again. One woke me up in the dead of night recently. Went back to GI, and he orders an MRI enterography and another scope bc of my periods of "flaring" and remissions. Both were clear. I'll get the biopsy results in a week or so, but I seriously doubt it'll show anything out of the ordinary.
My questions are:
1. Does ibs wake people up? That seems to be one of the "red flag" symptoms a lot of sites list.
2. Can ibs flare up and go away for long periods of time?
3. Is ibs random? I have never been able to identify any consistent triggers.
4. Can ibs cause night sweats? Infrequently I have these.
Thanks, and sorry so long.
May