If you were talking about the signs and symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) it wouldn’t suffice if you simply used bullet points to convey a list of signs and symptoms in a cursory manner. A more effective method would be to discuss each one of the signs and symptoms in sufficient detail so that the what, when, who, where and why are presented clearly and succinctly providing pertinent information about IBS to the reader.
IBS Signs and Symptoms
Irritable bowel syndrome or IBS is suffered by between 6 – 18% of people globally.
The condition typically involves alterations in the frequency or type of bowel movement that is usually accompanied by abdominal pain.
Some of the factors that can trigger IBS include poor diet, stress and anxiety, poor sleep and changes in the bacteria population in your GI tract.
However, the factors that trigger this condition are not the same for every individual, stressors and anxiety factors involved.
This means that it’s very difficult to specifically name the foods or stress factors that people suffering from IBS should want to avoid.
In this article we shall discuss the most common symptoms of IBS and advise you on what you should do if you suspect that you are suffering from this condition. Here they are:
Pain and cramping
This is the key factor in diagnosing IBS and is the most common of all symptoms that help show you have the disease.
It’s medically known that your brain works together with your GI tract to control your digestion process.
This usually happens through hormones, nerves and messages that are released by the good bacteria residing in your digestive system.
In IBS, it’s these messages that become jumbled resulting in a painful tug-of-war tension in the muscles of your digestive tract.
The pain usually originates in the lower abdomen or in the entire abdomen but is very unlikely to happen only in the upper abdomen. The pain usually dissipates following a movement of your bowel.
Modification of your diet similar to a diet low in FODMAPs can usually improve the pain and other symptoms.
Other treatmentsthat are often used involve the use of bowel relaxants such as perppermint oil, hypnotherapy, and cognitive behavior therapy.
These treatments usually work in getting rid of the pain, but if they don’t stop the pain, a skilled gastroenterologist can assist you in finding a medication proven to have eased IBS pain.
Diarrhea
IBS with a diarrhea predominant tendency is one of three main kinds of disorder that affects one-third of patients suffering from IBS.
In a study conducted on 200 adults it was found that on average, patients with diarrhea-predominant IBS, had 12 weekly bowel movements, which was more than twice that of adults not affected by IBS.
An accelerated bowel transit in IBS patients may also induce a sudden and immediate urge for a bowel movement.
In these cases, patients describe the sensation as the a very strong source of stress that forces sufferers to forgo social functions because they fear a sudden onset of diarrhea.
Moreover, frequent loose stool which are common in IBS affected patients, are also a symptom of the diarrhea-predominant type.
Constipation
Even though it’s a little confusing, the fact is that IBS can cause bothconstipationas well as diarrhea.
However, the constipation-predominant IBS is usually the most common type that affects up to 50% of people who have IBS.
The altered messages communicated between the b rain and the bowel may result in the speeding up or slowing down of the normal transit period of stool.
It has been found that when the transit time is slowed down, the bowel absorbs more water from stool making it more difficult to move.
Constipation has been defined as having less than three bowel movements per week.
Another type of constipation – functional constipation – is also a chronic constipation but is not related to IBS even though it’s very common. It’s different from IBS because it’s not painful.
Constipation in IBS on the other hand is painful but eases when there are movements of the bowel.
Constipation in IBS also causes a feeling of having an incomplete bowel movement which can lead to unnecessary straining.
For easing your constipation, you should do exercise, drink more water, eat soluble fiber, take probiotics and a limited use of laxatives.
Alternating constipation and diarrhea
Sometimes you may experience mixed or alternating bowel movements of constipation and diarrhea that also impacts the lives of about 20% of patients suffering from IBS.
This occurrence of diarrhea and constipation in IBS usually involve chronic, recurring abdominal pain. The pain is a good indication that alterations in bowel movements are not diet related or are common, mild infections.
It’s known that this type of mixed IBS has the propensity to be even more severe than other types and usually have more frequent and intense symptoms.
It’s also important to note that these mixed IBS symptoms can also vary from one individual to another. This means that the condition needs to be treated separately for each patient rather than to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Bowel movement changes
The slow movement of stool along the GI tract often allows the food to becomes dehydrated as water is absorbed by the intestine.
The absorption of water results in hard stool, which can worsen the symptoms of constipation.
The rapid passage of stool through the intestine doesn’t leave much time for water absorption and this inevitably result in in the loose stools that marks the onset of diarrhea.
It’s also medically known that IBS can be responsible for causing mucus to accumulate in stool, a process which is not normally associated with the causes of constipation.
The presence of blood in your stool may be a heads up on the presence of a potentially more serious underlying condition which warrants a visit to your doctor.
Usually, blood that appears in stool may appear red, but more often it will appear as a very black or black blotch with a tarry consistency.
Bottom line
The moment you go through information similar to that provided in this article, and you complete reading it to the end, you’ll no doubt feel that you’ve gotten more familiar with the irritable bowel syndrome IBS than you’ve ever had in your life. The good news about this is that you feel more confident in your ability to gain extra information you’ve never come across before and you feel less fearful about the irritable bowel syndrome or IBS condition which will get rid of some of your stress.
