IBS or Crohns?

It's really hard to know without having a colonoscopy, of course. I had colitis for 8 years with those symptoms, along with mucous and bleeding. Lots of pain that I thought I was going to pass out while sitting on the potty. Then afterward, very weak and had to lie down til the pain passed. Nauseaus a lot of the time too. I am know symptom free.

I am going to suggest that you eliminate all sugar, grains and milk (eat lots of veggies, no corn(really a grain), mushrooms, or potatoes though; fruits such as all berries, green apples, grapefruit,lemons, limes if you can tolerate them, all meats, fish, poultry, eggs, nuts (no peanuts) and see if you don't notice any improvement. Gut problems often have a fungal etiology. If your problems are fungal related, and you starve the yeast/fungus, you will get relief of symptoms. It's tough to follow an antifungal diet, but consider it an experiment of sorts. Within a week or so, if you are feeling better, then you will know you have a fungal problem. If you are eating the Standard American Diet, you are feeding the fungus and won't get better. Grains are "commonly" contaminated with fungal poisons. Corn is ALWAYS contaminated with fungal poisons. Were you ever on antibiotics?- again, a fungal toxin. Also, all my doctors told me changing my diet wouldn't affect my symptoms...well, they were wrong. Within 2 weeks of following the program, I felt so much better that I knew my colitis was fungal related. If you want more info, you can ask here, or email me and I'll forward you the links about fungus and diet. Take care.

Kim :)

Bless your heart, you sure do sound like me!

I actually have Crohn's in my jujenum, terminal ileum, and ascending colon. I also have a severe case of IBS-D as well as gastroparesis (paralyed stomach)...sometimes there can be more than just one thing wrong with us, and they all have to be treated differently.

 

I would suggest maybe researching a capsule endoscopy (or pill cam test as it's commonly known). This was the first step that showed something was wrong, other than my symptoms. (I had already had a clear colonoscopy a month prior) I then did a blood test called Prometheus IBD-First Step which came back positive for CD, and then another scope which showed Severe Crohn's.

 

Sometimes the tests can be tricky, so that's why I suggest the Capsule endoscopy (but there are risks to it, so make sure you research!) to rule out anything in the small bowel.

 

Best to you,

M.

 

(Also, what about other symptoms that can come along with an auto-immune disease that you might not have with IBS? For instance, hair loss, excessive fatigue, joint pain, rashes, mouth ulcers...these don't indicate an AI disease, but may help your doctor steer in the right direction)

Have they checked your gall bladder with a hida scan? You have too much wrong with you for that to be the only culprit, I think, but pain in your arms and vomiting and D are all signs of it; you could have that on top of something else. "Nothing says you can't have more than one thing wrong with you at once."

Has anyone talked to you about fibromyalgia, which can explain the joint pains and even the disrupted GI tract? It took them a long time to diagnose my mother with that. Her sister and an uncle have/had Crohn's. Those autoimmune disease--whatever flavor--run strong in families. Even though you may not have UC like your brother, you can still wind up with fibro, Crohn's, rheumatoid arthirits, etc. Sounds like your doctor is already thinking along those lines, but you do need to make sure he's looking at fibro too because even though it's not predominantly a gut problem, it can tear the guts up (just ask my mother).

And has anyone tested you for food allergies? Some allergies are so bad, they can cause your kind of symptoms. Just a note, however. As I understand it, when you get a positive for an allergy on one of those tests, it can be relied upon. However, you can get false nagatives. In some cases this may be due to the fact that you don't have an ACTUAL allergy (which has very narrow criteria that have to be met), but your guts have a non-allergy reaction all the same. This is called having an intolerance. If you can't get the allergy testing done, or everything on it came up negative, you might try an elimination diet to see if anything helps. Some common food allergies and intolerances include:

Dairy (including the protein caesin, which is a frequent additive to a lot of processed foods)
Gluten (found in wheat and some other grain products)
Caffeine (including decaf coffee)
Artifical sweetners (Equal, Splenda, Sweet N'Low, Twin)
Preservatives, food coloring, MSG, misc. pesticides and other chemicals (go organic to avoid all of these at once)
Shellfish and regular fish (some people are only allergic to shellfish, while some can't do them or regular fish)
Peanuts
Soy
Sugar (cane sugar, molasses, honey)

You already should not consume any sugar alcohols (mannitol, xylitol, sorbitol) because they are very bad on the guts of everyone. The first five are the most common complaints here on these boards. Most people already know if they are allergic to fish or peanuts or soy, but discovering dairy and gluten seem to take longer. Other things to just avoid are alcohol and carbonation. With your guts, those are good to avoid even if you have a cause for your gut problems that's not an intolerance.

Post Edited (Keriamon) : 8/23/2007 3:18:59 PM (GMT-6)

Keri, I'm confused... my rheumatologist doc told me that even though fibromyalgia commonly accompanies an autoimmune disease, it is not autoimmune. I asked him that when I was getting diagnosed because I had auto-antibodies and I asked him if it could be fibro instead of Lupus and he said no because there are no auto antibodies in fibro because its not autoimmune. Interesting... I may have to ask my other docs about this... now you got me curious!!

Ah! If you have post-gall bladder diarrhea, get your GI to give you a prescription for Welchol; he should have heard of it by now. Welchol absorbs the excess bile in your digestive tract and keeps you from having (or having as much) D. It fixed me and my m-i-l right up. Some others on this board are on it or its counterpart, Questran, and they can attest that they really help for that problem--better than anything else.

I recommened the Welchol over the Questran in general because Welchol is a pill and the Questran is a powder that you have to mix with water, which isn't nearly as convenient, in my opinion. Some people also complain that it gives them gas, which I have never heard people on Welchol complain of. I really can't recommend it enough for people with post-GB D.

Get you some of that and then see what happens. I don't think bile D is causing your joint pains, but if you can get the D cleared up, that might make finding out what else is wrong with you easier. The other thing to try, is Caltrate 600 w/ vitamin D. You can get it in generic at most any store for pretty cheap. Inape here on the boards did all the research and found that that is the most constipating form of calcium on the market. That's all she needs to take for her post-GB D, but I and my m-i-l and some others are worse off/have more D, so we need the prescription specifically. But, I also take the calcium in addition to the Welchol because it seems to help the Welchol work (so I don't have to take as much of it) and because it seems to keep my intestines healthy and more-or-less happy. Taking calcium stopped an unexplained bout of pain that I was having a couple of summers ago; I think I had irritated my intestines due to too much bile (I was off the Welchol) and sugar alcohols. The calcium got rid of that pain and together with the Welchol again, I quit having D daily.

I'm pretty sure that I read that fibro was auto-immune. There's a fibro board here at Healing Well; they'll know for certain. They can probably also list out all of the lovely symptoms that go along with it so you can kind of see if you fit or not. There's a Crohn's board as well.

Hey mississippi_girl

Your symptoms do seem to mimic CD, especially your concerns about the skin tags, here's a link that shows pics of hemheroides and a little further down shows a pic of periananl crohns skin tags (found just outside the anus)...I have both crohns and IBS and crohns can definitely be sneaky like your GI said...here's the link...

http://www.emedmag.com/html/pre/fea/features/011504.asp

:)