Hello, I am just in here looking for help. I am at the end of my tether and losing my sanity.


Here's my story with symptoms, treatment, etc:

at the very beginning of this year (jan 1st) I went swimming in a public pool. This may very well be unrelated, but I feel I should mention it as it may be very important from a diagnostic standpoint. I was a perfectly healthy and normal 23 year old female before this event.


Approximately 10 days after this event at the public pool area, I began to experience mild gut pain (especially on the lower area of my belly, 2 inches right and 1.5 inches down from my navel) and light-coloured (like peanut butter) loose stools. I went to my local gp after the problem persisted for more than a few days, and he suggested that I was ill with giardiasis. I was given a container to give a stool sample at this point, to hand back on my next visit. My local gp also perscribed flagyl (metronidazole) for me to take until the test results came back. When the result did come back from the local laboratory, the results of the stool sample were negative for giardiasis, and every other waterborne parasite.

The first course of flagyl ran for 8 days and I was relatively fine. However when they ran out, my diarrhea returned. My gp placed me on another course of flagyl. When this second course ran out, my diarrhea and gut pain returned with a vengeance. Panicky relatives had me sent to my local hospital's er room. From here, the doctor in the er room gave me a rectal examination to look for damage or bleeding. When they found nothing, their advice was to go back to my local gp with a reccomendation to see a gastroenterologist. My local gp set that appointment up and gave me a course of lomotil to take to keep my diarrhea under control. He also decided to do a blood test to see if anything was arwy there. That test came back negative for anything. According to the blood test, I was fine.


I relayed this entire story to my gastroenterologist on my first visit to him. From here, he wanted to do a lower and upper endoscopy to check my entire digestive tract for any serious underlying causes to the problem. On my next appointment with my gastroenterologist, he told me that no underlying condition was found. He then suggested that I have spasmy bowel, a leftover complication from the infection.


At this point he had placed me on a high fibre diet with lots of vegetables, fruits and cereals. When I do not take the lomotil, the high fibre diet does nothing to control the diarrhea. My gastroenterologist said that a spasmy bowel can take up to four to ten weeks to settle down. I made another appointment with him a few weeks ago when the diarrhea did not dissapear, and he said that it still needs to run further and continue to settle down.


Approximately 12 weeks has now passed since the endoscopy and the suggestion that I have a spasmy bowel. I am on the high fibre diet and I still experiencing wind, diarrhea, and when they are not loose, my stools are not much more than bile (the yellowy colour and acidic burning when they pass makes me guess that) and bits of leftover fibrous matter from my food.


I am basically at the end of my tether and do not know what to do now. Taking lomotil temporarily quietens the problem for a good number of hours, but it's just a bandaid patch treatment. I would just like advice on what to do now, and possible suggestions on how to fix this annoying problem!


So yes, any help, advice would be a godsend. Thank you very much for your help!

- poccaro