Wherre is YOUR abdominal pain?

Diseases & Conditions Irritable Bowel Syndrome
1
 With so many illnesses being so vague it is hard to know what to believe. So it goes with IBS; when it says abdominal pain that can mean LOTS of things. I read that it can be right-sided abdominal pain, either low, or tucked up under the right ribs that does not not always get better on opening the bowels.
Then I have been told that it is left lower quadrant pain. The Rome II says:

Irritable Bowel Syndrome can be diagnosed based on at least 12 weeks (which need not be consecutive) in the preceding 12 months, of abdominal discomfort or pain that has two out of three of these features:

1. Relieved with defecation; and/or
2. Onset associated with a change in frequency of stool; and/or
3. Onset associated with a change in form (appearance) of stool.
 Again, it does not specify what TYPE of abdominal pain.

What does abdominal pain mean to you? I have read so many conflicting definitions. What type of abdominal pain do YOU experience with your IBS?

I know that there are so many differentiating factors and tha no two IBS sufferers share all of the same symptoms. I just wondered if there was a specific pattern of the type of abdominal pain of IBSers.

Thanks for putting up with this hypochonriac. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and am scared of what she is going to tell me.

 Any input would be greatly appreciated,

Sylvia

 

I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said, "That cannot be true. You haven't met everyone yet!"

2
Hi Sylvia!

I usually don't have a whole lot of pain - the discomfort that I do get usually feels like gas bubbles - and I feel it in different places. Once in a while I will get worse pains which are usually on the lower left side and are followed by terrible diarrhea. The other pain - the "poop pain" as I have heard it referred to on other posts, goes away after I go.

I hope all goes well at the doctor's for you tomorrow. Keep us posted! I'm a hypochondriac, too; so I know how ya' feel.

sami
3
My pain has always been vague. When I was having gall bladder attacks I would hurt up along my diaphram, but not worse on the right side than the left. It was all just sort of there in the upper half of my abdomen. Always a dull, cramping pain. Now, when I get messed up, I just hurt somewhere in my abdomen. It's not localized at all. It's just "there".
4
My pain is usually in the waist area.  Sometimes it's a general all-over dull ache in that area.  Other times it's a stabbing pain that bends me over into tears in my umbilical region, pretty much just under the belly button.
5
I usually get pain above my bellybutton.  It has landed me in the ER on numerous occasions for narcotics, which dull it to a tolerable level.  I haven't had that kind of pain in a few months now, but oh my goodness it can be bad!  When I had a gnarly parasitic infection in Africa, even the roar of the lions couldn't get me up and out of my 12938-degree tent with that kind of pain.  Lesser pain comes to my lower right quadrant.