Steven’s Personal Story: Functional Dyspepsia and IBS
I’m a 26yr old male from Australia, with mainly dyspeptic symptoms of bloating and tightness in the stomach/upper abdominal area. It started a few years ago when I had very large meals I would noticed I get bloated and feel constipated afterwards. I attributed it to just eating too much. Since 2013 these symptoms came on more frequently and with just regular sized meals, primarily the bloating and a feeling of my stomach becoming really tight and heavy. In the past 6 months the feeling of tightness kind of just lingers around even hours between meals and its just a frustrating sensation to have to deal with constantly. It really puts me off going out with friends because I find it difficult to be “in the moment” when I’m consistently in discomfort. Nowadays I accept that is the case and I just go out when I’m not feeling so bad, and I don’t feel guilty anymore for turning down events (well much less so).
Interestingly, I always read stories about people with dyspepsia having reflux and gastric pain but I don’t have any pain whatsoever (thank god), but the discomfort/tightness is terrible. Anyone else have symptoms like mine?
I’ve had the usual upper/lower endoscopies with no findings, so the doctors just labelled me with functional dyspepsia to explain the bloating/stomach discomfort and IBS to explain the constipation. I’ve taken some prokinetics (motilium and reglan) but they didn’t seem to do much. Although I’ve read some very promising studies regarding a drug called acotiamide that helps with the symptoms I have. I really encourage you guys to check it out on google if you’re in my boat!
Anyway, I would love to hear stories from anyone out there who are sharing a similar experience to me. And as always, best wishes to you all struggling with these nasty GI illnesses!
