Gastrointestinal disorders

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Awareness Month

As many of you may know I cut my teeth, jobwise, as a market researcher. You know one of those poor saps who tries to persuade you to take part in a survey when you would much rather be having your dinner.

In fact in my later years in the trade a worked in the field of healthcare. This meant that I have to persuade people with particular conditions, caregivers, doctors, nurses and a whole bunch of other people to give us their valuable time to tell us what they think about a whole raft of products and services.

Since then I’ve been working, among other things, on this blog. One of its objectives has been to support various healthcare awareness initiatives.

So today is one of the odd occasions where the strands of my working life come together.

How so – I hear you cry?

We as you can see from the headline of this blog this month is Irritable Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month.

Well the International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders (IFFGD) has decided to run some research this month. The aim of the research is to answer the question:

“Have you had bad or good experiences being treated for your bowel symptoms by your health care provider?”

You can take part by clicking here http://www.aboutibs.org/pages/1228. Indeed we would encourage anybody who has IBS to participate. The more knowledge we have then the better the quality of care!

Couple of things.

Firstly we have no affiliation with IFFGD. We only discovered the survey when we were doing some research for this blog post and decided to make it the main feature.

If you would like some more information on the early signs and symptoms of IBS please check out our blog post here – https://patienttalk.org/irritable-bowel-syndrome-what-are-the-signs-and-symptoms-of-ibs-and-how-can-we-treat-it/

Oh – the IFFGD describe themselves as follows “IFFGD is a nonprofit education and research organization that addresses issues surrounding life with functional gastrointestinal (GI) and motility disorders. Founded in 1991, IFFGD helps improve care by enhancing awareness, educating, and supporting research into treatments and cures for GI disorders. “

Diverticulitis

Many years ago I shared an office with a guy who suffered from Diverticulitis. Most of the time he was fine but during a flare up he would often, in mid conversation, leave our office and make a run for the bathroom. He could be there for, literally, hours.

He mentioned after the first episode that he had Diverticulitis and it being England no one enquired further.

It was only later when I started working in the healthcare branch of the market research industry that I found out more and realised how difficult life must have been for Edward.

So what actually is Diverticulitis?

Well actually it is a bit of a long story. As you may know there are bulges which may appear in the colon (large intestine) which are called Diverticula. These are very common and are normally related to the body’s aging process. Indeed they are also associated with the passing of hard stools. When you have Diverticula and no other symptoms it is called diverticulosis.

Diverticulitis is when symptoms do occur – which happens in around 25% of cases of people with Diverticula. These can include:-

Constipation or diarrhoea. Or indeed both in succession.
A bloated feeling
Bleeding from the back passage or bottom.
Stomach pain.
In some cases Diverticulitis can be associated with a fever.

Obviously if you have any concerns about Diverticulitis we would strongly suggest you contact a healthcare professional as soon as possible. In fact the sooner Diverticulitis is treated then the lower the risk of any complications developing.

Treatments are pretty much as you might expect. A high fibre diet is recommended. This would include plenty of fruit and vegetables as well as whole grains and pulses such as lentils and beans. But go easy to start with on such a diet as you run an increased risk of flatulence. If you do develop flatulence (or high levels of gas in the bowels) then this blog on prevention may be of interest and value – https://patienttalk.org/flatulence-three-natural-ways-of-fighting-flatulence/.

Diverticulitis

Antibiotics are valuable as a way of eliminating infection from Diverticulitis. In some very rare occasions surgery may be employed if symptoms are serious enough.

As regular readers of this blog will know, one of the aims of these kinds of posts is to get our readers to share their experiences of different medical conditions. So we were wondering if people who have had or still have Diverticulitis would be interested in sharing their stories with our readers. It would be great if you would use the comments box below to do so.

It would be useful, but not essential, if you could think in terms of the following questions:-

1) What were your first symptoms of Diverticulitis?

2) What impact did it have on your lifestyle?

3) How was the Diverticulitis treated and how successful were the treatments?

4) What one piece of advice would you give to somebody who has just been diagnosed with Diverticulitis?

We really look forward to reading your comments. Many thanks in advance.

BabyFordGirl2015	I am 33 yes old and have had Crohns, Colitis, and Diverticulitis since I was 26. I got severely I’ll after having my son and was mis-diagnosed for 2 years before they had to do emergency surgery because it ate through my intestinal wall and obsessed. I almost died from lack of knowledge on my ER dctrs part. I have since had many surgeries. Removing intestine, parts of my colon, gull bladder, appendix. It has been a very rough road and seems to get worse every year. Have been on experimental drugs and known drugs with no positive long term results. Being a single parent who now has trouble working, .y stress level is severly high which only makes the symptoms worsen. So avoid stress as much as possible is my only advice.
boedi006	My mum was ill for a year before the doctor found out she had diverticulitis. By then she needed to be operated upon immediately because the bulges had been so infected during the year that she was so ill and had grown so that they blocked bowelpassage. The doctor removed the obstruction but then she got peritonitis so she had to be operated upon again. Now they performed a colostomy. She had to be in hospital for six weeks and was very poorly the first two weeks.
Tmcgrath	Diverticulitis runs in my family so I was lot surprised when I had an attack 5-6 years ago hat sent me to the hospital with a fever and stomach pains. It felt like a bowling ball wrapped in barb wire was making it’s was through my intestines. I did not want the surgery and thought I could treat any flare ups with anti biotics. That did work in the short term however the pain got worse and I was later told my colon had smal perforations. I had surgery for diverticulitis in 2010 and have not had any symptoms since. I was up and walking within hours and was out of the hospital in 3 day a and back at the gym in a week. Please do not out off the surgery because if it bursts it can kill you.
janareke	I had attack about 3 years ago, so painful. Have had couple more since but every day I have to run to toilet so many times it affects everything you do. Doctor says there is nothing they can do. Very annoying as on my mind always.
shendab	Hi same as Tony really finding the trigger food for infection is essential. I now do not eat popcorn, large amounts of onions, nuts, coffee and fresh chilli. The pain when you get an infection is dreadful, I always keep a few anti biotic just in case of flare up so I can get them into my system ASAP. My internal body temperature always goes up. As I am always cold, I know something else is going on inside. 3 years ago I was also diagnosed with Lactose intolerance which adds to the wind. Eating lots of fresh and not processed food seems to work for me.
TonyHart	About 25 years ago I was first diagnosed with diverticula. I was passing a lot of blood and was very worried. When they explained I wasn’t bleeding to death I was relieved but there was no treatment or advice offered as to what to do about it. I passed blood about once a month, but I just got used to it, you feel the gurgling in your stomach and just know here we go again. About 10 years ago I had my first experience with the infection and OMG it hurts, it’s like a kidney stone pain but in a different spot. Antibiotics fix it within a couple of days but to avoid it you need to find out what actually causes it. It differs from one person to the next so the diet mentioned above may be ok for some but not all. One doctor explained it to me as this, any food that can be passed through your intestine and come out looking like the way it went in has the potential to be trapped in a pocket, eg. corn, the string on a bean, nuts even the small grains on bread and rolls etc. My downfall is corn, I love it and occasionally risk it but recently had a piece and had to go to doctors for antibiotics and have decided the pain is not worth the risk. My wife has had similar experience only with her it is nuts. By trial and painful error you eventually find out what food is your trigger, so start by cutting out all those items and then start taking one at a time again, if you don’t have an attack then that item may be ok but sometimes it is just dumb luck that it gets through so it can take a long time to find your trigger. Good luck to all and I can only hope you don’t have to give up your favorite food because I have to and I am not happy , but hey you get used to it.

Patient Talk

Patient Talk

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) Awareness Month April 2015 – Have you had bad or good experiences being treated for your bowel symptoms by your healthcare provider?

Diverticulitis – what it is, why it happens and how to treat it!