Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Always pain before diarrhea?

Hello, everyone. I'm new to this board, although I've been reading posts for awhile & getting lots of helpful info.

Just a little about myself: I've had IBS for about 2 years now (IBS-A; somewhat self-diagnosed...I'll have trouble having a BM for a few days to a week, then something will trigger me and I'll have to make urgent bathroom trips), although I didn't really realize what it was until almost a year ago, therefore I didn't really realize what foods trigger my IBS (and I'm still not really sure).

One particularly bad incident involved me going out for chicken wings with friends one night, then the next night had greasy pizza & garlic fingers, stayed the night at a friend's house and woke up with crippling pain and subsequent diarrhea which lasted 4 days and ended up with me taking a trip to the hospital. It was then that I decided I should see if specific foods caused the problems. I found a site (not Heather's) which was helpful, but not nearly as helpful as this one has proven to be because a lot of the info turned out to be inaccurate. I started keeping a food diary, and cut out some of the foods the website said to, but still was having problems. Anyway, in July I was fortunate enough to stumble across this website, and I learned for the first time about soluble vs. insoluble fibre. I got Heather's book, read it cover to cover and changed my eating habits completely. I have been pretty good since then, with a few blips, most of which I can attribute to something I did wrong (going days without eating enough soluble fibre, too much beer, fried Chinese food, etc.), and I do my best to not do it again.

Last Friday I celebrated my 2 month anniversary of no incidences, and was actually starting to feel confident and less stressed about going out of my house and visiting people. However, this past Monday, I had oatmeal for breakfast at my boyfriend's, and around 8PM I had BBQ'ed potatoes and a rather large helping of caesar salad (on an empty stomach, I might add). I went home later, felt fine, other than some gurgling, but the next day, starting around suppertime I had to run to the bathroom 3 or 4 times in a 4 hour span. The strange thing about it though was there was no pain beforehand. Every other time I'll get this debilitating pain (I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about) so I know it's coming, a gurgling sound, then BAM!, it's time to go. But there was no pain this time whatsoever, just a nauseous feeling that hit me while I was in the shower and I had to get out and lie down, right before it hit me. So I guess what I'm asking is, does pain always accompany diarrhea for those with IBS-D? Did that salad cause me to have an attack? (I'm not sure if salad's a trigger for me - I've been avoiding it since July, and as I said, I never really kept track of what I was eating before and when symptoms hit because I didn't know what was wrong with me). Or could it have just been the stomach flu because there was no pain? (My dad said he felt the same way on Monday, and again today - and it is going around).

I'm just curious because it's frustrating for me to not be able to pinpoint what I did wrong so I can know for next time what not to do.

Sorry this was so long

and thanks for reading. I'm so glad to have found this site and know there are others out there going through the same thing as me!

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