Is my IBS connected with all my symptoms or is something else at play?

Age: 25

Sex: Male

Height: 5ft 11

Weight: 60kg (recently sudden dropped from 65ish)

Race: White British

Duration of complaint: 3 years

Location: United Kingdom

Any existing relevant medical issues: IBS

Current medications: multivitamin with iron, simethicone, colestryamine

Question about symptoms and possible causes relating to IBS

Hi All,

I was diagnosed with IBS in 2020 but because of covid and things I’m not 100% convinced that it may be IBS or just IBS.

So my initial symptoms was that my BM’s were normal or my normal in the morning but by night was passing a yellow watery liquid with some squashed stool (not much stool)

I also had pain above my belly button and lower right (my right) other than that nothing really major. For so long I’ve also been quite tired and things but then I was never asked about other symptoms and stuff. These symptoms started at the beginning of October and it was after I had diarrhoea one day.

I spoke to my Gp after having had the symptoms for around 4 weeks as I’d also tested positive for covid (after my symptoms had started) with no improvement who ordered a full blood test and stool test. He then called me about a week later to say it’s an IBS diagnosis.

I tried to follow the fodmap diet, peppermint etc but changes didn’t really help and I also discovered I’m allergic to buscopan.

I kind of managed to keep the symptoms at bay as I was working from home and could take peppermint and stuff but again no major improvement with anything.

In 2021 I went back to the doctors in March basically saying nothing is working for me (tried fodmapping again) and what could we try so I was put on Amitriptyline. It sort of helped for a bit but then nothing so I went back to the dr’s around September time and they requested a gastro opinion who upped my Ami to 30mg and then also prescribed mebeverine.

Fast forward 2-3 months, not much better so they swapped the Ami to Sertraline 50mg. I stayed like this until around September last year. When I first started on Sertraline it basically started to give me Diarrhoea daily in the form of pure liquid that also floated. My stools always used to float but this may as well have sat on top of water like oil does.

I went back to the Doctor who I assume used his finger to check for haemorrhoids but nothing was found. He sent me on my way to continue as is.

I then received some advice on to try Colestryamine. This has helped a little and stopped some of the yellow liquid situation but I’m still suffering with a lot of issues. I have trialled not taking it and it does make things worse for me.

My current symptom list consists of the following:

Brain fog

Constant fatigue

Difficulty concentrating/motivating

Struggling to wake up in the morning

Orange liquid/yellow liquid in stools

Diarrhoea morning bm/constipated bm’s in the evening

Gas/bloating occasionally

Brittle toe nails, I have a spoon shaped thumb nail at present

Muscle weakness (I’ve had physio on my shoulder for winged scapular which happened in Jan of this year with no known cause)

I get lower back pain quite often with sciatica also

Constant thirst like a lot of thirst which then mean I drink around 8 pints of fluid a day.

My urine is never clear. Always used to be prior to my ibs diagnoses but never since.

There is what looks like oily film on top the toilet water when I go

Oily skin on forehead

Mouth Ulcers (previously I have found dairy tends to flare this up but I still get them even staying dairy free)

Bleeding gums

Nose bleeds

My nose always runs after eating also

Low sex drive

Constant cold feeling and cold feet/fingertips with an occasional hot flush

Apologies for the very long post I figured it’s easier to type out to see if anyone can help/point me in the right direction then try to get my GP surgery to think about my issues and not brush me off with there's nothing more they can do.

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