IBS or GERD?

Hi - new member here.  Went to GP with some GERD-like symptoms: fullness after only eating small amounts or even after waking up in the AM not having eaten in hours, burping a lot, pressure, etc.  He put me on Prilosec and Zantac, did blood work, sent me to gastroenterologist.  He immediately said it was IBS when I said once in awhile I have diarhea.  He also put me on dicyclomine and I have an EGD in 3 weeks.  This med causes headaches and makes me sleepy but doesn't relieve any of my symptoms.  Any ideas?  Thanks!

Hi antifield,
Welcome to HealingWell!
How long have you been on dicyclomine? Usually your system needs a little time to get used to any med. If the side effects last longer than a few days then I think you should call your doc or pharmacist. They might be able to offer an alternative (maybe even one that works!). Hope you feel better...

IBS vassilates between Diahrea & constipation.It's the nature of IBS.

Hi antfield,

   I'm curious......what gender are you and how old are you?  Are you on any meds for any other problem?

Are your stools when you have D out of the oridinary (I mean, out of the ordinary for even D stools). Are they ever yellow? Do they ever burn? Do they smell (worse than usual)?

Hmm... Gall bladder problems can cause a feeling of being overly full and cause pains in the chest and right arm, but they typically are also accompanied by burning yellow (bile) stools. Bad bacteria can also cause a bloat which could be causing your stomach pressure, but they often cause stinky poops--or, at the very least, a very bad taste/smell in your mouth. Doesn't mean it can't be either of those, but a bit more likely it's GERD.

Make sure your GI orders an endoscopy on you to check the condition of your stomach and esophagus; if you have an acid problem, it will usually leave tell-tale marks in there. If that's clean and the acid medicine still isn't helping, then see if you can wrangle a hida scan of your GB; not everyone has all of the usual symptoms. In the meantime, if you can do dairy, try eating Activia yogurt; it has good bacteria, so it can help fight off bad bacteria (if you have any); it certainly won't hurt you any. If you can't do dairy, you can try acidophillus pills, Digestive Advantage or Culturelle (there are many more kinds of probiotics, but those are the three easiest to find--any chain drug store, Wal-Mart and probably most grocery stores will have them).

Oh, and they have checked your blood pressure, right? My husband got these odd, throbbing pains in his neck when his blood pressure got elevated.

Someone else on here had a very odd experience; something about coming off a medicine, I think it was for blood pressure, made her bowels worse. I don't think she's ever been able to find a connection between the medicine she was taking and it relieving (or causing in withdraw) the symptoms of IBS, but I wouldn't put it past a change in your medicine--even a withdrawal of one--to cause you bowel problems.

That explains a lot. You probably do have an acid problem then. My GI's NP said that when you remove the GB, there's no longer anything to contain the bile when you don't need it, so it just drips out. And sometimes it goes up and sometimes it does down. In my case, it goes down--I struggle with D. In my mother's case (and probably yours too) the bile goes up. Since it's not really the same thing as stomach acid--and therefore prodcution of it shouldn't be stopped by drugs that stop the creation of stomach acid--that's probably why you're having problems with regular acid medicines not working very well. Of course, it helps if you can stop adding additional stomach acids to the mix, but my mother is on PPI's and has been for years and still has heartburn some. She can't eat raw veggies--especially not cauliflower or broccoli; that leaves her belching it up for a day or more and causes heartburn.

I take Welchol for my D problem. It absorbs bile in the intestines. What I don't know and what other people probably don't know either is would it absorb bile in the stomach as well? The use of Welchol for D is off-label--it's really a cholesterol medicine; I don't know if anyone's tried using it as an acid combatant for people with bile acid problems. Probably worth trying, though. It doesn't absorb into the body, so it doesn't cause any side effects, except consipation in some people. Although, because it absorbs stuff in your digestive tract, you can't take it with medicines that have to be very precisely absorbed by the body--namely thyroid medicines, but it may also nullify diabetes medicines. In some cases the timing of taking it can be adjusted so that it doesn't interfere with other meds--except in the case of thyroid medicine. A lady on here has tried it, but has never managed to be able to take it and take her thyroid medicine too and have her thyroid medicine work at full strength. But, if you're not on any drugs like that, might as well see if your doctor will give you some to try. My GI even had samples of it in his office, so the company that makes it obviously knows now that GIs are using it to treat problems. I've heard it's not that great at reducing cholesterol--although it has its uses in cases where people can't take something that will interact with something else, say heart meds. I keep saying they should re-market it as a post-gall bladder D drug.

Oh, by the way, Questran is in the same drug family and also works the same. It, however, comes in a powder that you mix into a bit of water. People that have been on here say that it works to stop the D, but that it also seems to give them excess gas. Welchol has never given me gas, and I find that the pill is easier to take, but given that you have bile so high up in your digestive tract, the powder form might actually work better for you.