Bowel issues maybe tmi

I read that actimel is not enough which is why I swapped to tablet form which have 14 different strains of live bacteria, actimel and similar tend to only have one

So there are probiotics which are the bacteria and then prebiotics which is the fibre and foodstuffs that your body uses to get the right balance.

I use biokult tablets which were recommended by someone on here some time ago and I looked it up and researched it

By the way to the poster above, the drawing pin analogy is very painful on a thread where some of us have piles!!!!

If you sit on a pile of drawing pins, you need to pull them all out to rectify the problem.

Lots of good advice for cleaning up diet here but I think you need a clear plan you can try for a while, rather just eating better. For example Through quite a strict low carb diet I discovered that I really react to potatoes - brain fog- literally being surrounded by friends but not having the energy to speak, and joint pains.
It might take a little trial and error and being quite methodical to work out a good way to eat for you. I might not have discovered this if I'd only excluded dairy and wheat.

Probiotics are a good start but they act as place holders for our own good bacteria do we need to encourage those with probiotic foods.
Taking some enzymes with food may also be helpful.

Vitamin and Mineral deficiencies - it's worth getting some blood tests and getting the numbers. B12 that's in the low range seems to be completely sub optimal for a lot of people.

Due to you tests coming back clear I really do think that you actually have a lot more ability to rectify this situation than you are giving yourself credit for.

You decide what you eat and there are good or bad consequences depending on what you eat and drink.

Food is your torture at the moment but it can also be your medicine.

There is a meme about it - It’s hard eating cleanly. It’s hard feeling totally rubbish. Choose your hard.

During exploration of some ENT issues, I had blood tests for 'allergies' Im not sure exactly what test they did, it was just blood tests and Ive since learned that thats now how you test for allegeries anyway,,,,, but the point Im making is that apparently I dont have any allergies

However I cut out bread quite a while ago, although still would have the odd ryvita now and then, the difference was stark, my joints didnt hurt, my ankles werent as swollen, my face wasnt a swollen.

So I dont know if that is an allergy or what but what Im saying is that even if tests dont show you have a problem with something specific its still possible that a foodstuff isnt doing you any good.

I’m so glad you took it in the spirit in which it was intended 💐

I have diagnosed anxiety issues but I don’t suffer from health anxiety so I can relate in some ways but not in others!

There are some good books by Rangan Chatterjee about finding balance and looking after yourself generally. You could probably find one at the library. Something like that might be a good starting point.

Your body is telling you that what you’re doing isn’t working for it! Not everything is “fixable” through behaviour but good diet, sleep and exercise is an excellent start.

If your stools are loose and greasy, then they need to look more at the liver and gall bladder.

But think about it OP, you’ve had the symptoms for a long time. And the colonoscopies were to see what might be causing the symptoms. So your fear isn’t really logical: you’re worried that earlier the symptoms might not have been related to cancer but now they are? It really doesn’t make sense.

Bowel cancer is relatively slow to develop so if you had cancer now you would have had a visible polyp in 2020.

It’s true that you are not “ too young “ for bowel cancer but also if you have had these symptoms for years and nothing has been spotted in colonoscopies then it’s almost magical thinking to believe you could actually have cancer and yet nobody has been able to see it. It just doesn’t work like that in this situation.

Sorry to sound harsh but yes, IBS, too much stress, bad diet, too much responsibility, can cause all these symptoms. You’re honestly being a bit silly worrying about cancer when the answer is staring you in the face. Also, if you don’t want to get cancer (of any sort) you should address all these factors to reduce your chance of getting it in the first place!

Again I’m sorry to be harsh but I think you need to take a fresh look at this.

Windeze is great for getting rid of gas.

There's several other products as well.

If you can manage to get a mint tea into your everyday routine that will also help.

Fellow IBS sufferer.

I know how you feel about ageing. I don't have IBS as such but am prone to constipation due to genetic condition and find the older I am the less mucking about my diet can take.
I also have young children and love wine/beer and a takeaway as a treat. But I definitely have a much lower tolerance to alcohol as it makes me feel hot and itchy if I have more than one glass now.

I found colon irrigation helpful to clear rubbish out after was diagnosed with ceoliacs.

google SIBO can be resolved by certain antibiotic and diet

I think you need to do a proper 6 week period of time, of having fresh cooked foods, at least 5 portions of veg a day and some fruit on top, try to reduce your reliance on wheaty products like bread or pasta, cut out anything with sweetners in it or unnecessarily high in sugar

At the same time I would start taking some good probiotics like bio kult tablets, I take 4 of these a day and I would really recommend them

Then you can take stock at the end of that period to see what things are like fo ryour digestion

I would prepare properly, make sure your fridge and freezer is full of the things you need, dont have stuff hanging around that you're 'going to use up' and ruin the experiment.

One suggestion is to ask yourself, “Would my ancestors recognise this as food?”

I’m not suggesting for a moment that this will solve OP’s issues, but for healthier eating it can be a good start.

It's not easy OP, it's bloody hard. Certainly as we age our bodies can have less of a tolerance to poor diet and limited exercise. Plus, in many cases, life is more stressful as an adult than as a child/teen! And you also can develop intolerance/allergies at any point too, so that might also be a factor. But it will probably be easier to figure that out if you're basically eating better, especially if you remove/significantly reduce processed foods. Processed food has so many bonkers ingredients it can be hard to tell what it is you're actually reacting to!

As a bowel cancer survivor my first thought was to push for a colonoscopy but I see that you’ve had two already.

Unfortunately(?!) there are many things that can go wrong with the intestines that are (fortunately) not cancer. If there were polyps in your large intestine then one or both of the colonoscopies would have spotted them, let alone cancer (I know what it looks like!). So even if something had gone wrong in one colonoscopy- which is almost impossible- then the other would have picked it up.

Get thee to a dietitian and/or other specialist and follow their advice to the letter 😊

It could be SIBO.

I had bad IBS for nearly 20 years and it was really miserable at times. It really can cause awful symptoms.

Have a look at trying a Low FODMAP diet to see if any foods are a trigger. Buscopan tablets for when the discomfort is really bad.

I have discovered that when I cut out refined carbs (for weight loss) like bread, rice, pasta, anything in a packet ie cakes/biscuits etc the welcome side effect was much more normal poo/no grumbling bowels/urgency etc. If I eat toast/sandwich/pasta now it goes right through me within the hour.

I would look to clean up your diet, address the piles issue, and if you are still bleeding then insist on further tests.

Have you had blood tests or an endoscopy for coeliac disease? You need to be eating gluten for the tests to be accurate so don't cut it out of your diet.

Mint tea is brilliant for helping with wind.

Today eat plain, not fatty food. Before you eat anything look at the ingredients in it. If it’s a long list of stuff you don’t know what the heck it is, don’t eat it.

I'm not trying to be nasty OP, but you admit that your diet is poor and you don't exercise enough. Before jumping to exclusion diets and cutting out whole food groups, I think it's worth trying to just generally eat better (more whole foods, less processed junk, more water, less alcohol, more exercise) for a month and seeing what effect that has.

I have IBS and it 100% can be as bad as you're describing, and is also 100% at its worse when I've either been stuffing my face (more often than I should!) or when stressed. The reality is one leads to the other - eat too much fatty/processed stuff because on holiday, then start feeling ropey, then worry over how bad I feel makes it 10 x worse!

I'm certainly no paragon of virtue when it comes to clean earing, but it does seem like jumping from rubbish diet and limited exercise to exclusion diet, is missing a rather obvious step! And if that makes no difference, go back to the GP - they should be able to efer you to a dietician who could help make sure any exclusion trial is properly managed.

@picklepot22 don't have the best diet and lifestyle

This is where you need to start. There’s so much evidence that ultra processed foods are causing a huge number of issues. Please read up on this and illuminate them from your diet. Even most supermarket bread is full of emulsifiers and nasty chemicals which can cause stomach issues!

Todays Guardian has this research on its front page today.