Mucus - am I the only one?

Hopefully this isn't too vulgar, but well - it is IBS related.

I started visiting my gastroenterologist about a year ago. Around then I was diagnosed with some very mild proctitis, for which he put me on some meds (canasa suppositories). It was very stubborn but eventually went away. However, at some point last year during the meds, I started to develop a mucus that I wasn't used to. It started to initially appear in my stool.

Then it started to get worse - to the point where over the course of a few weeks, mucus would come out from gas. It really messed with me emotionally and I kept getting frustrated because of this feeling down there. My doctor had me try some different antibiotics, and other meds. He is convinced that my symptoms (this and others with constipation/diarrhea on/off, abdominal cramps sometimes, etc.) are all symptoms of IBS.

He had me on probiotics to see if that would help after the antibiotics (Activia yogurt, which I still take). That didn't do anything, so we ended up scheduling another colonoscopy a few weeks ago. Everything came back clean. In fact my proctitis is better than when he saw it last year. No issues at all, biopsies taken etc. I even had an ultrasound done due to the abdominal cramps.

I was pretty convinced it was something related to down in my rectum, considering most of the time my stool has no mucus, yet there's still this film that appears from somewhere. I guess i'm just trying to figure out what's up. Okay - I can understand if it's IBS. Granted it seems kind of odd to me to appear out of no where so rapidly. Is that typical? And I do eat pretty darn bad, but I guess I still don't see how diet will change anything considering I was eating the same right before this suddenly came out of the blue.

Is this just a common symptom of IBS? I'm really frustrated. Thanks for listening.

I often get mucus mixed with my stools and occasionally just pass mucus alone. We do have mucus in our bowels, it is supposed to be there as it helps the stools move along. I have rectal probs as I sometimes suffer with ulcers (i also have very mild proctitis) and I use predsol suppositories but I have never noticed that these cause mucus. Mucus is very common in IBS. I only worry if I see blood streaked mucus, then I know I have an ulcer. Take care.

Thank you all for the encouraging words and support :). It's good to hear others chime in. So to clarify/understand - when people say passing mucus do they mean with gas? The symptoms I have are mainly mucus while I have gas. I guess really the worst is that it feels like the equivalent of a runny nose - just down there. I will hold in gas cause I hate the feeling afterwards :/.

Yes, there are some people on here who pass mucus with gas. So, at least by our standards, you are completely normal.