Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Heather, the common wisdom here as well as Heather's own advice is to push your doc to do a colonoscopy. There are however dissenting opinions in respected medicial circles that say if an otherwise healthy young person fits the IBS diagnosis perfectly and shows no other symptoms that would contradict that diagnosis, that the expensive and invasive test is NOT indicated.

We have to be very careful what we say here because goodness knows we don't want to talk someone out of a colonoscopy who turns out to have colon cancer or something! That would be practicing medicine without a license. But I can say that I'm one of the few people who's been here awhile who has NOT had a colonoscopy and I am totally comfortable with that. I trust my doctor and intuitively the diagnosis of IBS makes sense to me and the IBS diet has taken care of all my symptoms so I would be astonished to find out I had anything else wrong with me.

So you just have to go with your "gut" feel (sorry for the pun!). If you won't rest easy til you get it confirmed, then push him or her. But if you trust him, then go with his advice.

(NOW, BEFORE ALL MY FRIENDS START PUSHING ME TO GET A COLONOSCOPY, FORGET IT! YOU WON'T GET ANYWHERE WITH ME!)

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Laura
Keep it simple!

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