Question for Those With IBS-A

I was initially diagnosed with IBS-D by my doctor, but the past few weeks, I've been wondering if it's actually alternating/mixed, because for several weeks I had episodes of unpredictable diarrhea, then it seemed to flip almost immediately to constipation that prevented bowel movements for three or four days at a time, as well as incidents of severe cramping and one episode of almost fainting.

My question for those who have IBS-A is, do you wear 24/7 so you're always prepared for whenever the D part decides to re-emerge, or does it seem to have a pattern so you can roughly estimate when you'll need to be diapered and when you won't? I'm still trying to figure out how I want to handle the situation, and if 24/7 is something I actually want if I don't need it. Your input is appreciated!

I'm only diapered at the end of the day, when I get home and get ready to sleep. To manage the IBS I've adopted a strictly regimented eating schedule so that I can more or less predict when the BM hits. The only problem is that my guts are so $&%!'d that I cannot predict the how of the BM. Yesterday's 5:30 might be no problem, but today's might be angry-fire-guts-Montezuma's-War and all I did was change the meat on the sandwich. Sticking to the schedule seems to work exactly half the time, but said schedule is half a day of fasting.

The three types of IBS are actually IBS-C, IBS-D, and IBS-M (but yeah I don't know why they used M instead of A for alternating)

I'm just pretty much always diapered unless I'm at home and know that my stomach's been doing good, but even then I've had surprises, so I usually only do that like right after getting out of the shower or something.

ClickyKeys said:

The three types of IBS are actually IBS-C, IBS-D, and IBS-M (but yeah I don't know why they used M instead of A for alternating)

I'm just pretty much always diapered unless I'm at home and know that my stomach's been doing good, but even then I've had surprises, so I usually only do that like right after getting out of the shower or something.

Click to expand...

According to my gastroenterologist it's M for Mixed… and you ain't seen nothing until you've managed to see BOTH in the same sit down mixed, equal parts "can't poop" and "can't stop pooping" in an unholy dance. (I still don't know how that happened.) That day I canceled my plans and prayed for the return of constipation.

OmiOMy said:

According to my gastroenterologist it's M for Mixed… and you ain't seen nothing until you've managed to see BOTH in the same sit down mixed, equal parts "can't poop" and "can't stop pooping" in an unholy dance. (I still don't know how that happened.) That day I canceled my plans and prayed for the return of constipation.

Click to expand...

Ah I guess mixed makes sense then.

Interesting. I've heard it referred to as mixed and alternating indiscriminately. My bowels are extremely unpredictable, I don't think they've ever been on a schedule in my entirel life, so timing things would be very tricky for me.

My IBS is mainly D, but occasionally goes to A - and it's a nightmare when it does. I don't usually wear all the time, but there are sensations in my gut and patterns that I use to identify when it's sensible to wear a nappy. I do also often use Renew Medical Inserts, which do help a little - they give me a little more time to get to the loo if I've got a sudden urge. I find it difficult to predict completely accurately, and do tend to wear nappies if there's even a fairly small possibility of an accident as I've just found it easy to clean up, less stress, and I've just got used to them.

I was diagnosed with IBS-D years ago but im pretty sure I have IBS-A(M?). Last November I was running like a faucet without an off switch. Diapers was absolutely necessary 24/7. Now I’m more regular going every few days however I get a lot of gas which is uncontrollable. And I keep “sharting” so diapers are still necessary. Fun fact I almost cried last week as I was incredibly sleepy taking a shower at 4 am getting ready for my early shift at work. I thought I had to fart so I let it go and I look down to my horror and I’m standing in poo water. I didn’t feel a thing

Interesting as i do have both diarrhea as well as constipation i guess i have both IBS -D & M for mix then

the having both constipation and then behind that loose in the same B i had since MANY years so that's not that uncommon as i have understood this as the constipation blocks al the the loose stool that cant come out and if you dont get the blockage out the loose will then also ad to the constipation making the blockage even greater (hence its VITAL to get the blockage out so that everything can freely get out )

Heavy diapered 24/7 364 days a year i my faith from now on until my departure

Another IBS sufferer here. I was diagnosed back in the early 90's so it was just called IBS. These days I consider myself to have IBS-D, even though it occasionally swings in the constipation direction. After about a solid decade of the IBS getting slowly worse, it slowly started to improve, partly through diet and caution, and possibly partly due to just getting older.

It's been about 3 years now since the last time I had an accident undiapered and even that, I would have considered to be a rare occurrence. Diapered accidents in the last two years would be about a half dozen. Without going into a detailed history this is a big improvement over where I was 10 years ago, so my ability to predict when things are going to go wrong has definitely improved a lot. The downside of this though is that my digestive tract is always on my mind as a background task as it were. Any time I have a suspicious gut pain I immediately start thinking about my last couple of meals to try to remember if I ate something that might set me off.

My new worry is about the toll all this is having on my bladder. If I have a lot of gas at night this can put a lot of pressure on my bladder causing me to have to get up to pee in the middle of the night. This doesn't happen often, but it is about twice a week these days so that's not great, as I'm sure it must be having some kind of toll on the waterworks! I really don't mind wearing diapers at all these days, but I wouldn't like to forced to go 24/7, I'll have to look into it some more.