Chronic Diarrhea

[Rob]

Hello, I am 29 years old and male. I have been suffering from chronic diarrhea for the past 7 months. I am currently seeing a gastroenteroligist for my problem. He is struggling to find out what is wrong with me.

My symptoms first started just a few days following taking malaria tablets, prior to going on vacation to Hondurus (Central America). While on vacation the diarrhea started badly, which followed eating some 'home made' soup (tripe).

Upon returning home I still had diarrhea, but it had subsided. Then a couple of weeks later I found myself going to the toilet up to 20 times a day. I have found that it is when I eat I need to rush to the toilet. I sometimes have cramps, although not often. I also only have wind occassionally. The stool has never contained blood. The stool also varies from liquid to semi-formed (in the morning). When semi formed it floats. The colour varies from light brown to almost white.

I have had the following tests:

Blood Tests
Stool Culture Tests
Fecal Fat Test
Hormone Test
Barium Meal X-ray
CT scan
Abdomen x-ray
Nuclear Isotope Scan
HIV Test
Pancreatic (Urine) Test
Other Urine Tests
Endoscopy
Flexible Sygmoidioscopy

All the tests are normal, apart from the fecal fat test which showed that I am not absorbing fat and producing a huge amount of stool. The doctor described this as gross steattorrhea.

I am otherwise healthy apart from the diarrhea. I have lost 30lbs in weight due to this. I am also suffering from depression due to the diarrhea. I have been off work for 5 months.

I am currently taking Codeine Phosphate and Cholestramine, which don't seem to do anything. I have previosly tried Loparamide, Lomitil and Colafac also (to no avail). I am now on Fluoxetine for depression.

I do not smoke and only occassionally drink alcohol. I have never had surgery and never had a serious medical condition. I have never suffered from diarrhea before. I have not changed my diet apart from cutting out dairy products (as advised by my doctor)

Please give me some help and advice!!

Regards

Rob.

[judi]

I have a question and the forum is not acepting anymore questions to be posted so I figured this was one way to do it. First off lets me start at he beginning my son was 3 weeks old and diagnosed with urinary reflux. This mean that when he eliminates his bladder his urine back up into his kidneys. Then we found out he had GI Reflux. This cause him to have apnea (stop breathing) bradycardia ( low heart rate and stopping) and techicardia ( fast heart rate). He was put on meds for all of this which caused major direah for him. It was to the point he had up to 30 BM's a day. Sense then he has had a large number of medications and all of them seem to cause direah. The thing is now the dr thinks he is lactose intollerant. he has had a large number of tests done so far including Thyroid test, liver function test, alergy tests, CBC lead test, and a few others that are starting to blur now..( toomany to remember them all) The dr now has to do a stomach biopsy on him to see if his stomach lining has the prober enzymes the break down the lactose that is in the milk. If he does then it is the protien in the nilk he is all ergic to if not then it IS lactose intollerance. The dr also said that he may have a bacteria in his bowel that is causing the direah on top on the lactose intollerance. The way to fix that is with a anitbiotic that stays in the stomach and bowel and does NOT go throug the blood stream. My question ( I know may of you think about time :) ) is what is the stomach biopsy like? What kind of pain is he going to be in when this is done? Mind yu he is 21 months old. And one more question if it is a bacteria in his bowel and he gets the meds to fix it.. how is he going to be able to have a regular BM when he has had direah all his life so far.. he has never had to push a reqular BM out and I dont think now that the muscles in his bowel will be strong enough to do so.. What do you thinkI should do to help that? Any comments or answers would be great. Thank you for your time and I hope that the issue of the bacteria in the bowel might help you out ROB.. ask your dr about that and see what he tells you. It could be the same for you as we..thank you again and good luck :)

[Dyanna]

HELP... i am having diarreah for about 3 weeks now and constant...i mean constant rumbling and groaning on my left side of my abdomen.  This has been so loud it keeps me up at nite.  I am a VERY HEALTHY 33 yr old female and am on low fat / high fiber diet... please tell me how to stop this!

[opengate]

Lyme Disease - Check out this site:  http://www.chronicneurotoxins.com/learnMore.cfm

[lurker_no_more]

Sounds like tropical sprue to me. Your doctor should put you on tetracycline for 6 months or so.

[Rick]

Rob , I was diagnosed for chrons' in 1995 , i had surgery in 1996 , my doctor says the chrons' is gone , but i have exactly the same symptoms you do . Plus I am always tired , i could sleep for a week straight and still be tired .. I asked my doctor about this , and he gave me a powder to drink with orange juice , but it made me gag , almost like drinking barium . I plan to go see another doctor or maybe even a specialist soon to find a solution , i know there has to be one , somewhere . You can e-mail me , or anyone can also at ***@****   Thanks , Richard

[Kelly B]

My husband had the same thing.  It got so severe that he could not work for 6 months.  He finally was diagnosed (through our suggestion that he be tested) with Celiac Sprue or Ceoliac.  There is a mulitude of information on it at www.celiac.com.  It is an intolerance to gluten.  It causes the small intestine to be unable to absorb any nutrients and in turn you become malnourished.  Some of the symptoms are weight loss, diarrhea, floating stools (due to inability to absorb fat).  It is something that GI docs often fail to dignose despite the fact that it is common. It can have sudden onset like yours did.  You should check it out!  Good Luck.
P.S.  He now feels MUCH better.