So much pain

Need to talk so much abnormal pain I have to get colonoscopy on tuesday

IBD and IBS both cause pain and diarrhoea. I've been diagnosed with IBS and I had to call an ambulance once as the pain I was in was so bad I thought I was getting appendicitis, turns out it was just bowel spasms due to IBS. The colonoscopy will give you the information you need, but a lot of people with IBD's (Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis usually have re-occurring bouts of bloody diarrhoea.

All the best with your colonoscopy, and if you can, see if they can take biopsies as IBD can be microscopic and not visible with just the camera.

My colonoscopy was negative and my barium meal didn’t show anything either, I was originally diagnosed with ibs but have since been diagnosed with ibd as my inflammatory levels are very high, I’m now waiting for the pill cam because there’s about 18ft of intestine that they can’t see with a colonoscopy, but there are a lot of different types of crohns & colitis so hopefully they will find your problem and get your pain under control. Good luck.

All abdominal conditions can cause very similar symptoms. The bowel cannot itself feel injury but it can sense stretching so anything like a spasm can be very painful. All bowel conditions from cancer to IBS can therefore cause pain, diarrhoea, constipation and gas. Blood is a different symptom and can be caused only by certain conditions but not others (so not by IBS usually). The more important questions to get clues are: 1) have you had the symptoms for a long time and is this just a flare up or 2) have your symptoms changed or just started which can point to something going wrong recently 3) do you keep a food diary to check whether something you ate 24-48 hours ago is the culprit (too much beans, nuts, pips, fibre). You can work this out pretty quickly if you keep a regular food diary 4) abdominal pain can sometimes feel as if it is in the gut but be coming from higher up  - duodenal  ulcers are a good example - and they can cause diarrhoea and constipation and bleeding (particularly dark blood). 5) get as much to information as to when your pain comes on (pain that is genuinely there ALL the time and is severe needs urgent attention) what you eat and what meds you are on and tell your doctor. DO NOT SELF-DIAGNOSE unless it is minor or occasional. There are many, many conditions that can affect the stomach and bowel and trying to play doctor won’t help. They can now see the whole digestive tube from mouth to anus with scans and cameras so you will get the real answer. If nothing shows up at all, and it is digestive, it’s likely IBS. THE MOST COMMON BOWEL/STOMACH  CONDITIONS ARE NOT SERIOUS and the vast majority of the small number that are serious are not usually life threatening if properly treated. Cancer is very, very unlikely but can often be treated successfully if caught early.

Finally, the bowel has a primitive brain of its own and worrying about things makes it worse (as we all remember from exam time and stress).  It’s hard not to worry when in pain but the big chances are it is not at all serious. I had IBS for many years (solved it by cutting down on wheat and avoiding legumes) and the pain during attacks could be absolutely terrible and last for days or sometimes a week or two and you were constipated one minute and running to the bathroom the next. So, have the scan and get the answer. Very good luck.