IBS/Bad wind/embarresing stomach noises (IBS related)

i’ve been trying to get one for ages but no luck and can’t go private i feel like i really need it though

i thought i might have sibo but the doctors don’t do anything, how did you treat it? i’ve heard antibiotics is the only way but i don’t know how to get them because the doctors don’t listen.

I've been dealing with IBS for 11 years now, I'm 29 years old , it started in the last year of high school , but it wasnt that bad then.as I started college, the first day in college , I had the worst symptoms,constipation , really gassy , loud noises from stomache. It was hell , and the problem is that my major ( architecture) was really hard and stressing, lots of sleepless nights and a lot of pressure , and that was making my symptoms worse, anyway I went to a doctor who diagnosed me with IBS, and he advised me to leave architecture school because he knew it was really stressing , and it made my symptoms worse .I didnt listen and stayed in my major, and that was the biggest mistake, I had a lot of embarrassing and humiliating situations that scarred me for life , and I will never forget , after two years of this hell I transferred to another college , and even though i studied another major for 5 years , my symptoms stayed really bad for the first 3 years , the last two years in college were better
now I'm 29 years old and almost 80% of my symptoms are gone, I dont really know how , I think because I'm not really stressed anymore , and I take probotics , workout alot, and I dont eat fast food or junk anymore. Anyway my biggest regret is going to college and studying a hard major , without resolving this dam IBS issue, so my advice for someone who wants to go to college and they have IBS, dont go , especially if your symptoms is really bad , and try to resolve it or at least be able to handle it when it gets bad , because you will really hurt your mental health if you go to college with really bad symptoms, up to this date I still sometomes think about the embarrassing situation i had when my IBS was really bad

Hi,

This is gonna be a long post, but I hope it might help some of you with a similar problem.

Gonna give my take on this. Disclaimer - I am not a medical professional, just someone dealing with this specific issue.

I first had problems about 2 years ago that gradually got worse over time. In between now and then, I have had about a dozen different medications, had many tests at hospital and have seen five different doctors including two gastroenterologists.

My symptoms:

Initially, my digestion seemed fine, then I had a small bout of food poisoning and all the problems started. The main symptom was gas moving around in my small intestine. It was like the noises you get when you are hungry, but for much longer periods of time, sometimes it would be 10+ hours with noises every 5 seconds or so. It would get so bad that I couldn't sleep, and if I was lucky enough to fall asleep, it would usually wake me up and keep me up. The noises were also extremely loud. I want to also add that going to the toilet was not an issue(I wanna draw a comparison here because ibs is a very broad diagnosis and not sure it relates to my case or op's).

At this stage I started messing around with my diet, cutting out gluten, diary, experimenting with cutting out meat etc... etc... Trust me I tried everything and it "seemed" like I was reacting bad to everything I ate.

Experiences with treatment:

When I first spoke to my GP at the time, I was told to take peppermint capsules and try a low FODMAP diet. Prior to this I had tried all of the over the counter ibs remedies. Nothing helped.

My first test was an ultrasound done by a nurse. This test showed that I had a load of gas in my small intestine. This gas should not have been there.

Second test was a barium swallow test. This showed that there was nothing abnormal with my digestive tract. Not sure exactly what they look for here but they told me that everything was normal.

I was also tested for celiac(gluten intolerance) - all clear, food allergies - all clear, and finally h pylori and parasites - all clear.

So about a year passes and the issue was still not fixed and getting worse, my GP by their own admission couldn't help and every time they referred me to a gastroenterologist which was a 4/5 month wait on the NHS.

Possible causes:

Because I had withdrawn from uni because the issue was so bad, I had nothing better to do than try to figure this out myself. I had read about a condition called SIBO or small intestine bacteria overgrowth. This condition is where there is a bacterial imbalance in the small intestine. When you eat food and it works it's way to the small intestine, the bacteria have an opportunity to eat the food(sugars and carbs) which causes it to ferment in your intestine. This process causes hydrogen gas, methane gas, or both to be present in the small intestine.

This condition seems to be a fairly new discovery and the intestinal gases can be tested for, however, I am not sure it can be done on the NHS. I can be done privately by purchasing a test kit. I am not affiliated or shilling so I wont post any links, but pm me if you want to know where I got mine from.

Anyways... The test involves drinking a small solution of lactulose on an empty stomach after a 24 hour fast. You then collect breath samples every 20 minutes over a 3 hour time frame. You send the samples back and a few days later the lab sends the analysis of the samples.

One of the indicators of a problem is a combined hydrogen and/or methane of 15ppm in the breath found at any point over the test time frame. My combined gas peaked at 116ppm at the 140 minute mark with 6ppm hydrogen and 110ppm methane - 11 times higher than the indicator for a problem.

What does this mean? Well, we do not make methane, so if we don't, where is it coming from? This is the problem bacteria(not actually bacteria, they are methanogens, but it is referred to as a bacterial overgrowth) eating my food instead of me.

Ok cool, getting somewhere. We know there is a problem, so now we can treat it and work out how it happened and try to prevent it.

So what caused it? Again, this is something I had to figure out myself, but for me I believe it was low stomach acid. Firstly, prior to all these issues I had a problem with heartburn for years and just treated it with anti-acids from the shop or chemist. At the time I didn't realise it was a symptom for something else. Secondly, the low stomach acid made sense as all of the other risk factors for the bacterial overgrowth did not apply to me specifically.

How to test for low stomach acid(probably best to do this first thing in the morning on an empty stomach):

- Put 1/4 of a teaspoon of baking soda in to a about 150ml of water.
- Drink the solution(it doesn't taste bad, bit salty) and start a timer.
- The solution should make you burp. If you burp within 5 minutes, that is indicative of a normal gastric acid level, anything longer indicates a problem with low acid in your stomach.

It is a good idea to do this test over at least 3 days so you can get an average.

The baking soda reacts with the stomach acid to produce water and carbon dioxide - this is what causes the burp. You can see this is you add a small amount of baking soda to vinegar you have in the kitchen - it will fizz and react quickly. Household vinegar has a pH of about 3 and your stomach acid should have a pH of 1.5 to 3.5.

So what does this mean? It seems like most of my digestive problems stem from low stomach acid. This issue then seemed to have caused the problems with the bacteria overgrowth. From what I have read if the acid level is too low it doesn't allow protein to digest effectively in the stomach which can then remain undigested in the small intestine. Also, low acid may not kill the bacteria from the food you eat, which can then work their way to the small intestine(where they are not meant to be) and proliferate and then cause further issues.

Sorry of this seems like a long rant, but it was taken me nearly two years to try to figure out. It has cost my an entire year of education where I had to withdraw and a load of money where I was experimenting, not to mention my uni fees and loan money. I can see by this thread that others have similar issues and I have made a little progress with mine.

If any of you reading have a similar issue, I want to give you a bit of hope. At my worst I was in so much pain I took myself to the hospital in the early ours of the morning. I am now 99% better and can basically eat what I want with no issues as long as I take certain precautions. The difficult bit is trying to isolate the problem.

Finally, I want to reiterate that none of this is medical advice and it is anecdotal based on my personal experience. Obviously it is best to speak to your GP, but in my experience the only answers they had were diets that didn't work and medication that was not necessary and very long NHS waiting times. I would definitely advise getting tested for allergies and any other tests that are recommended by your GP as they may give you and indication of what the problem is or just importantly what the problem isn't. Ibs related issues can be very different and a lot can be treated with common medication if diagnosed correctly.