Irritable Bowel Syndrome Treatment

Question by : Isn’t it the gastroenterologist’s job to detect hernia instead of me visiting the ER and getting surgery?
In december 2008, i started experiencing lots of abdominal pains and various stomach discomfort symptoms. Gastro-enterologist in january 2009 did colonoscopy and it was normal. He then diagnosed me with Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

The ibs medications never worked for 5 months and i continued suffering. Then last week, I started experiencing extremely sharp stomach pains and i rushed to ER at 3 am. A cat scan was done on my stomach and it was revealed i had hernias.

The hernia was twisting the small intestine, choking its blood supply and obstructing bowel movements. The surgeons immediately performed a hernia surgey on me and i was hospitalized for a week. The surgeon said that had this hernia gone untreated, the entire small intestine would have failed.

Yet the gastroenterologist kept saying IBS only. So is this medical malpractice on gastroentrologist part? He put my entire small intestine at risk for organ failure. And it ended up with a rough ER visit.

Per the surgeon, the hernia was caused by scars of the appendix surgery i had in 1989.

The surgeon also said that to diagnose with IBS, the gastro-enterologist conducts all kinds of tests and if the tests are normal and nothing is found, IBS diagnosis is given.

However the gastro-enterologist clearly did not do all the tests as he failed to get a stomach cat scan. He only did colonoscopy and said IBS. The hernia was not even in the colon, but near the small intestine (which can’t be seen in colonoscopy).

I kept paying thousands of dollars to gastroenterologist even when i had no health insurance only because my abdominal pains were so severe. For all this hard earned money i paid, shouldn’t it have been at least his obligation to give correct diagnosis?
now i expect huge medical bills from ER for the hernia surgery and i’m unemployed and financially struggling. I will file bankruptcy.
if gastroentrologist said i have hernia, i could have gotten health insurance before the surgery. But the sudden ER visit gave me no time whatsoever, because i trusted the gastroentrologist that I have IBS
jamie: my university offers student health insurance and pre-existing conditions are covered. The only requirement is that student must be enrolled in 6 credits at least. The reason I did not take university health insurance is because i already graduated last year.

But if i knew i had hernia and would need surgery, i would have enrolled in graduate school and taken health insurance.

Also late detection of hernia posed very serious threat to small intestine. The hernia choked blood supply to SI, twisted SI and obstructed bowel movements. The SI was put at big risk for organ failure due to late discovery. I am lucky SI didn’t fail.
second gastroenterologist said IBS too.

Best answer:

Answer by Jamie M
I agree that the gastroenterologist should have run more tests to rule out anything serious, but you should have pursued the issue when you weren’t getting any better. If he blew you off, you could have seen another doctor who would run more thorough tests to find out what was wrong. It’s not the gastroenterologist’s fault that you did not have health insurance, and keep in mind, you would have had huge medical bills if he did run more tests to diagnose the hernia. If the hernia would have been caught before you ended up in the ER, you still would have had to have surgery to repair it. If you were even thinking about getting insurance, you should have done it before something happened. If you would have waited for the hernia diagnosis, insurance companies may have looked at it as a pre-existing condition and may not have covered it anyway.

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Question by Sammy ding a ling: Why does my lower stomach hurt every time I cough? And how I can I put a stop to this?
I have had a cough for a few days now, but today it is worse and at school my lower stomach started hurting every time I coughed (so I tried not to but that failed). Someone told me it might be abdominal pain or a cyst, but I do not know. Also I was wondering if it might have to do with my irritable bowel syndrome?
it doesn’t matter how hard or soft i cough..it hurts all the same. but if my cough is bigger it hurts more. very sharp

Best answer:

Answer by blondie18
Well first off you may just be having muscle cramps because your coughs are going to clench your lower stomach. I wouldn’t be concerned with serious things like a cyst, trust me. You would have noticed that before now. I get this a lot after I’ve worked out in the past week, and I laugh or cough. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. But if it doesn’t go away after you short sickness, just talk to your parents, they’ll let you know if its something to worry about.

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Question by Sophie: What race are you on the INSIDE?
Sometimes there are men trapped inside women’s body, and men trapped inside women’s bodies, so I think there can be black people trapped inside Mexican’s bodies, or white people trapped inside asian bodies.

What are you on the inside?

On the inside I am a 64 year old black women with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Best answer:

Answer by Gambler
Red. the color of blood.

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Question by WTFFTW: Really scared now, afraid of liver metastasis?
Now, I’m going to make clear that I haven’t gotten any diagnosis of anything and I had an X-ray revealing no bowel obstruction, bone or other dense tumor. That being said, I have been having a lot of abdominal issues for the past few months, such as abdominal pain (which was severe a while ago but has recently been not quite as bad since I’ve lowered my stress levels), occasional low fevers, very occasional blood in the stool (usually this happens only with diarrhea, but sometimes on a fully formed stool), and other things such as mild nausea, heartburn, and I’ll occasionally get sores on my lips and a little arthritis. Today when I woke up I noticed a pressure-like pain under my rib cage on my right side. In the beginning the pain was in my back but as time went on it became more and more of an issue in my front side. I went to the health center at my university and they found no evidence of an enlarged liver when the palpated me nor did they find anything abnormal when they percussed it. This made me feel slightly better, but then I found out that I had a fever of 99.6. Also, I took 2 ibuprofen and am currently wearing a heatpad, neither of which has done much to get rid of the irritation. My appetite has been stunted for the day, but I’m also very stressed out, so that may have something to do with it. Either way, I did force myself to eat and nothing made me nauseous or made me vomit. I don’t think I have any other liver mets. symptoms other than the dull pain (i.e. no jaundice or hepatomegaly) but I’ve heard that cancer that spreads effects everyone differently and may even be asymptomatic. Btw, I’m 18 years old with no family history of any specific cancer, but my mothers side has a variety of bowel issues such as Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Does this sound like liver metastasis? As I’ve said, I have had arthritis in my knees, fingers, and shoulders, but this pain under the rib cage only began today and got worse fast. Could some sort of benign condition be causing all this? I am seeing a specialist soon, but I need input before then so I can maybe sleep tonight…

Best answer:

Answer by hotpocket454
Oh yeah, I’ve just been diagnosed with Crohns Disease, and it IS hereditary. My mom has it, and these are most of the symptoms she’s had right before she had to go to the hospital and get surgery. I don’t want you to panic, but I think you should really talk to your doctor about this and get some scopes. I’m talking colonoscopy, andoscopy, fluoroscopy. I also have Rheumatoid Arthritis, which is a symptom of Crohns. I’d be very careful, and act fast. Good luck!

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Question by : Keep on having black stool?
This has happened a lot over the past five months. It’d last a day or two and go away. I went to a doctor a month ago and he said he didn’t feel anything wrong in my stomach, so I have no idea what it is.

I know Pepto can cause this, but I haven’t had any lately and I know iron can do it too, but I have no idea if I’ve had anything with a lot of iron. I haven’t been eating foods that can cause this, so I have no idea what the problem is. I do have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Could black stool be a symptom? I just have no idea what is wrong with me or why this keeps happening. No one is giving me a straight answer as to what could be going on. Please help.

Best answer:

Answer by Alec
lol maybe u just poop darker than most people. who cares?

hmm bad advice my bad

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