Hi Everyone,
This is very hard for me. So here goes... in an ideal world i would get a response like: "oh my gosh thats exactly what happened to me and this is how i got better...". But that is unlikely.
4 years ago i started running to lose weight as i was about 17 stone (i am 6ft3 also, so am a big lad lol). When i started exercising i got constipated, so started taking laxtives (on and off) to help my bowel movements. I done this for roughly 4 months, at that point i thought it was getting out of hand so i stopped taking them and just handled the constipation.
For the last 3 years i have had faecal urgency and diarrhoea EVERYDAY. At first it was just the morning and was very gradual. When i get up at 7am, i have to go straight to the toilet to empty my bowels. I was usually ok for the rest of the day.
My symptoms then get progressively worse. Every morning i need to stop at the tesco 2 miles from my house to goto the toilet cos i can't last the journey to work. At this point i decided to try and take something to help me. I trawled the Internet and i tried the following:
At this point, I was sort of losing the will to be honest! I cant travel on buses as they don’t have toilets. When I travel on the motorway sometimes I need to stop at the hard shoulder and do the toilet by the road!!!
I then decided “enough is enough”- I need to goto a doctor.
After 3 years of all these symptoms I finally went to the doctors. Embarrassed. Drained. I didn’t mention the laxitives that I mentioned at the start as I didn’t want to introduce a red herring and for just to put it on that.
He initially did a prostate exam which came back fine. I done a faeces sample and a blood sample to apparently check for Crohn's disease and other conditions. They all came back negative. The GP has given me lomotil (Diphenoxylate and Atropine), which is SORT OF working. When I take it, I can have normal bowel movements for like 3 days. Then on the 3rd day I go back to runney bowel movement again!
The GP has referred me to a gastroenterologist on 13th Nov.
I am just getting to the end of this. I really can’t do it anymore. My fear is if the specialist does the scopes and other tests and doesn’t find anything and just puts it down to IBS.
I hope someone can give me some feedback or opinions…
This is very hard for me. So here goes... in an ideal world i would get a response like: "oh my gosh thats exactly what happened to me and this is how i got better...". But that is unlikely.
4 years ago i started running to lose weight as i was about 17 stone (i am 6ft3 also, so am a big lad lol). When i started exercising i got constipated, so started taking laxtives (on and off) to help my bowel movements. I done this for roughly 4 months, at that point i thought it was getting out of hand so i stopped taking them and just handled the constipation.
For the last 3 years i have had faecal urgency and diarrhoea EVERYDAY. At first it was just the morning and was very gradual. When i get up at 7am, i have to go straight to the toilet to empty my bowels. I was usually ok for the rest of the day.
My symptoms then get progressively worse. Every morning i need to stop at the tesco 2 miles from my house to goto the toilet cos i can't last the journey to work. At this point i decided to try and take something to help me. I trawled the Internet and i tried the following:
- Acidophilius capsules- these started to have an effect for a few months. But I grew tolerant to them.
- Calcium- no effect.
- IBS tablets from Tesco- no effect
- Fybogel sachets- made my symptoms worse
- Psyllium Husk- no effect
- Loperamide- This started working for me. Then my body became more and more tolerant to this and eventually it had no effect
- I have tried cutting out dairy and wheat at different time. No effect.
At this point, I was sort of losing the will to be honest! I cant travel on buses as they don’t have toilets. When I travel on the motorway sometimes I need to stop at the hard shoulder and do the toilet by the road!!!
I then decided “enough is enough”- I need to goto a doctor.
After 3 years of all these symptoms I finally went to the doctors. Embarrassed. Drained. I didn’t mention the laxitives that I mentioned at the start as I didn’t want to introduce a red herring and for just to put it on that.
He initially did a prostate exam which came back fine. I done a faeces sample and a blood sample to apparently check for Crohn's disease and other conditions. They all came back negative. The GP has given me lomotil (Diphenoxylate and Atropine), which is SORT OF working. When I take it, I can have normal bowel movements for like 3 days. Then on the 3rd day I go back to runney bowel movement again!
The GP has referred me to a gastroenterologist on 13th Nov.
I am just getting to the end of this. I really can’t do it anymore. My fear is if the specialist does the scopes and other tests and doesn’t find anything and just puts it down to IBS.
I hope someone can give me some feedback or opinions…