Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | New here! Does this sound like IBS??

Hello, all -- I am brand new here and think I may be brand-new to IBS. I have not been able to get a clear diagnosis yet, from either my GP or my gastroenterologist, but the gastro doc thinks it "may" be IBS. I'm late 40s and have (blessedly) never been sick a day in my life so far, except for the usual flu and cold now and then, so this is all very new to me. I am still pretty scared by the symptoms, but little by little we are ruling things out. It started last summer right around Labor Day -- I started getting crampy feeling in upper abdomen that would then move down to lower abdomen after a day or so. I noticed bowel movements shifting between diarrhea and constipation, usually a few days of each.

I actually drove myself to the emergency room on Labor Day because the unusual (for me at that time) abdominal pain was steady and so bad -- it completely freaked me out and I was convinced I must have colon or ovarian cancer, because I had never felt anything like this pain before -- it was a gripping sense of pressure that went all the way through from back to front, as if my abdomen were held in a tight vise.

The doctors at the hospital did an upper and lower abdominal CT scan and found nothing unusual -- and one of them told me that colon cancer typically would not present that way (he also did a fecal occult blood test, which was negative). They sent me home with a prescription for Vicodin, of all things, which I shredded (I'm not big on medicines, and especially not narcotics). So, that was some relief.

My own doctor then referred me to a gynecologist to see if there was anything wrong on that front, and on ultrasound it was discovered that I had a persistent cyst on my right ovary, as well as endometrial fluid (I'm post menopause, so neither of those should have been there)...after an endometrial biopsy and followup ultrasounds, it was determined there was nothing dangerous.

Meanwhile, the gripping vise-like abdominal pains would go away for a month or 6 weeks, and then come back and linger for 3 or 4 days, then go away again. I went back to my doctor to tell him of this on at least two occasions, and he said it didn't sound like cancer (which is what I feared), that cancer pain typically doesn't go away and then come back intermittently like my pain was doing, and finally that he was going to refer me to a gastroenterologist.

In the midst of all this, one night I get the gripping pain and it makes me mad as heck, so I decide to attack it on all fronts. I'd been to the health food store and they had recommended activated charcoal tablets to help with the gassy bloated feeling, so I popped a couple of those. An hour or so later, they hadn't helped, so I swigged some Mylanta. THAT didn't help, and now I was feeling gassy AND constipated, so I took some Dulcolax. (I almost never take laxatives, but I had some old Dulcolax in the medicine cabinet and was just feeling desperate enough to "get things moving"). THEN I realized I had taken an anti-diarrheal and a laxative at the same time -- on top of the charcoal. Wonder what happened?? Well, I got sick as a dog -- vomiting, unable to keep any food or water down -- while my lower half felt strangely calm. In fact, TOO strangely calm -- there was nothing happening below the waist -- no gas, no bubbling, no sounds, no nothing. In the midst of my feeling horribly sick, it struck me that there was something really odd about that.

At 11 p.m. that night I decided to drive myself to the emergency room, and they clapped me in the hospital for three days -- with an upper-level intestinal blockage. (They said it was really lucky I came in -- if I'd waited through the night I could have been extremely sick and degydrated the next day!) Three days of tests, re-tests, CT scans with contrast fluid (all of which got vomited up again, oh the fun!) and the threat of surgery -- but they treated my blockage conservatively (nothing by mouth, just aggressive IV fluids) and the blockage cleared on its own. The doctors said I probably had some kind of scar tissue (from previous abdominal surgery) that was kinking the intestine and causing a narrowing. I still think I caused my own blockage with the charcoal tablets (which can swell to many times their size), Mylanta and Dulcolax! But who knows -- nothing really could be told from the CT. And I've since eaten many things and never had a blockage again (and will NEVER take that combination of stuff again!)

So after that, when I went to the gastroenterologist, he listened to my description of symptoms, said he thought it was sounding like IBS but that he'd need to rule out everything else first, and scheduled me for a colonoscopy. Oh, joy! But I guess it needs to be done. No one has even given me an ENdoscopy yet, but the colonoscopy is scheduled for this coming Monday.

So now I am back to having the gripping vise-like pain again (for the past 4 days) - nothing helps it, not antacids or Prilosec (which the gastro doc prescribed), not milk or not using dairy, not Mylanta or probiotics, not cutting out wheat or fat or red meat. Nothing. I'm sure it will just go away when it gets ready to, just like all the other times I've had this pain.

The one thing that HAS helped me is acupuncture. I signed on for a course of ten acupuncture treatments at a local and highly recommended clinic run by a pair of doctors from Korea. They have treated me with needles and also moxibustion, which is where they burn small dots of an herb on your acupuncture points. After each treatment during an "attack," I have gone home pain-free, and the feeling of well-being lasts two or three days. Then it's usually back to feeling some kind of abdominal discomfort. So obviously, unless I can afford to get acupuncture every other day, this is not going to be a permanent solution.

So my questions are - does any of this sound like IBS to you? Am I torturing myself by still thinking this might be cancer? (Would cancer pain come and go like this, and would it go away just from acupuncture?) In all other ways, except for ongoing stress at my job (I work in PR) I feel great -- in fact, I feel energized more so than usual. Have experienced no weight loss, no anemia, no other symptoms -- just the tight gripping abdominal pressure and the alternating constipation/diarrhea. But it's nothing like the urgency/running to the bathroom that others here speak about. Could I have just the quiet gripping/pressure form of IBS? What in the world could this be??? - AbbeysMom

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