Please help. Pain since iraq.

Hopefully this is the right section. So I was in the military as an 11B (Infantry) and I was deployed to iraq. I've ate food from Iraq, and lived in an outpost for some time that didn't have running water. The whole time I was in Iraq, me and my buds all had really bad diarrhea but it seemed normal considering where we were, and everyone else said they had it to. I returned in 2008 and since then I've had the worst diarrhea. I got a check of my stool sample and it came back fine. But no matter what I will go to the bathroom on average atleast 8 times a day(and that's a good day.) I workout and eat good so I am not losing weight, i'm about 5'8 and weigh 183lbs. I don't know if some of it has to do with anxiety. I get real bad anxiety when I have to leave my house. Say if me and my fiancee are going to walmart or something, I just get nervous being in large crowds. I will complain and the moment I walk out the house I immediately have to use the bathroom. When I eat it gets real bad. I have to go to the bathroom immediately after I eat. Sometimes when we go out and eat I can hardly make it home. Sometimes its just like water, and sometimes it might just be pencil thick. I was given some medication last year but it didn't help. I really don't know what to do. I go to school for 4 hours monday through thursday, and when I'm at school i'm fine, but the moment I go home im right on the toilet. Hopefully this makes sense... a lot of rambling. I don't take any workout supplements like creatine, or anything, just a daily vitamin, and protein pre and post work out. I doubt it's those though because I've had times where I didn't take those and still am running to the bathroom. I have free medical I guess I just don't know what to tell them? They gave me pills before but they didn't work.

I posted this in the community one, but I was seeing if there was also a doctor who could try and answer.

[ggreg]

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/diarrhea/#diagnosed

The above link tells you just about everything you didn't want to know about diarrhea.  

Erik,
I am not a physician, just a regular fellow gastro sufferer, and I also post over in neuro, so take what you want of what I have to say and leave the rest.  I'll address the several problems you have.  Since you do have trouble around large groups of people and general stress-producing stuff, I hope you will go online and find a "Wounded Warriors" program in your area.  It has to do with being wounded in ANY way, be it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or loss of a leg, just anything that causes a person to feel too much anxiety when they return home.  It's only natural, after all it's not every day you're in a combat zone, and the Wounded Warrior project has to do with giving soldiers group activities with each other that will release their stress by putting them in challenging physical situations, as well as all sorts of other soldier-to-soldier assistance.  I saw one bunch do white water rapids in kayaks, it mimics the stress of war and thus releases it, and I saw another small group work with horses on a ranch.  Now, whether this will clear up your diarrhea, who knows, but at least the anxiety you report will have half a chance of clearing up.

I imagine your whole company got diarrhea from "the water" and being in another country, not supposed to drink the water, that sort of thing, and while you may not have touched the water, the food you ate may have.  But you still have it, so that indicates either the stress you mentioned or some other problem as being the cause.  If you were in Bagdad, lots of troops got this, and tentatively the military is thinking it might have been chemically induced by the enemy, but nobody has settled on this idea.  I'm assuming they did a blood draw when they did the stool sample, but if they did not, it can be helpful in detecting intestinal diseases, plus they should add on a toxic screen for chemicals and heavy metals.  There are number of antibiotics to treat all sorts of causes of diarrhea, and the one for Salmonella, for example, is Cipro, so could be you need a multi-antitiobic pill, and also some treatment for reducing any chemical/metals load you might be carrying in your body, and at the very least a pill to reduce your diarrhea.  I had diarrhea one time for six months, every morning about a half-dozen times (a medication caused mine), and I was given "Hyocscyamine," and it tends to relax the bowel and improves the diarrhea a lot.  And if they give you antibiotics, always drink Acidophilus milk during antibiotics and two weeks after.  If you are taking ANY prescribed medicines, review side effects and maybe have them changed, and since you take a daily vitamin, change brands perhaps or only take vit twice a week max.  I'm assuming you've been going to the VA to get this straight with no luck, but of course continue to go back there or to whatever military clinic is nearby.  You could always try a private doc, internal medicine groups are very good at diagnosing patients, and they can then refer you to a gastro doc or whomever to finally fix you, and either one can give you medicine to help this diarrhea not be so constant.

Some at-home things to consider are:  You need lots of fluids, electrolytes.  And try some Immodium from the drugstore to help control the diarrhea for now, and drink Acidophilus milk for two weeks from the grocery store for the probiotics in them, helps balance intestinal flora.  If you are living where it's quite hot and you do lots of activity outside, quit doing it except on cooler days or very early hours, or stay inside with A/C at a gym if you must work out.  To help calm you right down and thus get some aspects of stress out of your system, which can trigger diarrhea, several days a week for a while, find ten minutes in a place of complete quiet, lay on your back with your legs bent, arms out, stare at a shiny object on a windowsill, and empty your head of everything.  Then ask what is your number one problem right now...the answer comes quickly and may make you emotional, so let it out.  Then sit up and do deep breathing ten times:  Breathe in very deeply, blow it out, breathe normal a couple times, breathe deeply again until you reach ten.  Then sometimes playing your favorite easy-listening music after experiencing the quiet and also sitting comfortably will help you "come out of it."  Get up slowly and stretch out good, go fix a sandwich.
GG

[erik86]

Wow, thanks man. Another person had posted me about buying a simple probiotic at the store. I bought culturelle on Thursday and although my stool is still soft I am not getting that feeling of running to the bathroom during or at the end of my meal. I do go through good periods like this though but I am def. Going to look into the info you supplied. Thanks for your time man!