Very odd bowel behavior

I am a 24 year old male who has been experiencing some very odd bowel habits for the last few months. I eat pretty well and even stay away from dairy. I first started noticing a change in my bowel habits, though it was slight, a few years ago, but it never became a problem until last summer when I developed chronic hemorrhoids. They got pretty bad and would not go away, even when I ate plenty of fiber. The problem seems to be that my bowel movements are incredibly random. Some are normal, some are very constipated, and others are diarrhea--sometimes all three in the same day. I will often have a healthy bowel movement followed by a softer, diarrhea-like bowel movement maybe 90 minutes later, which often smell quote foul.

None of these seem to have anything to do with how I eat, as I eat mostly the same foods each day, so the diarrhea is rather unexplained, especially because I have tested certain foods to see if they give me diarrhea to no avail. I even cut out milk and most dairy which may have helped a little but did not rid me of the problem.

I started taking Metamucil on suggestion from a friend and it worked wonders--at first. Now it only seems to help enough to keep the hemorrhoids from hurting, and if I don't take it for a day it's like they never went away. Being only 24 years old, this seems very odd to me. I have also had some problems with pain consistent with a hiatal hernia that comes and goes, abdominal pain, probably from constipation, and unexplained abdominal cramping and nausea, sometimes lasting a few days at a time. It is difficult for me to bring these symptoms to a doctor as they are incredibly random and are not always occurring, nor are many of them readily apparent. It seems to me that there is some underlying cause of all these gastrointestinal symptoms.

I guess my main question is what should I bring to my doctor? I want to ask him to test for something instead of having him poke at me for a few minutes a shrug like he usually does. The internet tells me it's diverticulitis or parasites. Aren't I too young for the former? And I'm not sure how I would have the latter without knowing it. My weight is healthy and stable, and I exercise regularly.

Any help I can get would be excellent.

[ggreg]

Well, if you are taking any medications or herbs or supplements at all, sometimes they can goof up your digestion, so review those.  For example, ordinary vitamins can do this to a person, so you can either change kinds or just take them once a week.  If it's a medicine, ask your doc to change kinds.  If you take nothing like that at all, ignore what I said just now.

It's possible you have an intestinal bacteria tearing up your guts, so your doc can draw blood and take a stool sample, to see if you've got something he can clear up with antibiotics.  That's what I think it is, if it's not medicines.  As for a possible hernia, your doc can tell if you've got one by pushing around on your abdomen, and a surgeon can stitch that thing back together and it'll stop bothering you.

If you drink alcohol at all, lay off it a long while.  That can also cause your indigestion.  Plus, you need to drink at least five glasses of water daily, make it habit after you brush your teeth, couple glasses or so each time.  That keeps waste from drying out and creating any constipation issues, which can include diarrhea after a bout of that.  Hope some of this helps.  I feel for you, kid, I've been thru the mill with digestion all my life.