Help, my poop has gone crazy this week!

If I were you, I'd stop all the new meds you're taking and see what happens. Magnesium can be used as a laxative, but as you found out, that may be too much for an everyday thing. You can also try aloe vera pills as a laxative. You may only want to take one of those or the magnesium pills every other day in order to be regular without getting diarrhea. Pooping too much can bother your guts just the same as pooping too little.

Also, acidophillus pills--like all probiotics--can cause gas, gas cramps and rumblings in the stomach. It can take a week or two to get used to them. Go slow with it; only take one a day until you get to where you can handle that, then increase your dose to whatever the bottle recommends. You may even want to start off with yogurt which has few bacteria and is less likely to upset you initially. Also, I still get gassy when I take probiotics, no matter how long I've been on them, so I take a pill right before bed so that I can sleep through the gassy rumblings and not have to put up listening to my rumbling at work.

Not all doctors recommend a colonoscopy. While it's generally a good sign if they want to do a lot of tests--since the only way you can diagnose IBS is to not be able to diagnose anything else--some doctors are more judicious in their use of a somewhat invasive procedure and only recommend it to people having more serious problems. And if you're really phobic about it, you can just refuse. That doesn't mean there aren't other things they can test you for, like bacterial overgrowth, food allergies, parasites, etc. And you do know that you are knocked out while they do the test? They give you this drug that makes you forget everything and go out into la-la land. So you don't stop breathing and need to be intibated like when they do surgery, but you don't feel any pain and you don't remember anything happening either. So there's really nothing to be embarrassed about because you never know they're doing anything with your butt. The worst part isn't the test but rather drinking some nasty laxative in order to poop for 24 hours ahead of time. Oh, and you have to fast. That sucks pretty bad too, in my opinion. But the test is the least of it.

Yes the test is really not that bad. I think that if your bowel movements don't clear up in the next week or so, I would schedule an appointment with a gastro doc. A general practitioner really isn't the right person to see, as I have learned. Also don't let them just tell you "It's IBS," without giving you tests to rule out the other treatable problems that it might be. Good luck!

hi,im a ulcerative colitis survivor in remission for many years now and 3 years with no meds,i know when i have pain in my stomach or ulcers i juice green vegetables with my juice machine,it calms my stomach and colon.I also stay away from fried food,dairy products and junk food and alcohol too.The carrots and broccoli etc may have a yukki taste but it works for me.Just saying what works for me everyone is different.Surf the web for info on this.cream of buckwheat is good also,oatmeal oringinal,this plus other stuff really calms my stomach etc.