Can you describe how anxiety has affected your bowels?

[Anonybrit]

I have had 10 days of gassiness and soft stools that has given me very bad health anxiety and I am very confused what might be causing it.

One possibility is stress, so I was just wondering if people could tell me how their bowels have been affected by periods of stress in this past?

Specifically:

1) What symptoms
2) How long it lasted
3) If anything helped

I am just worried that I haven't seen much/any progress in 10 days now.

[Anonybrit]

Anyone? :(

[Mrschurchill]

In September I blood in my stool - a lot! And from that moment my body has went haywire. I had a sigmoidoscopy which confirm piles but my bowels have never been right since. I've had constipation, dhiarrea, a LOT of gas, back pain, abdo pain, frequent urination, you name it!! I've honestly not settled since that day and it was because I was SOOO stressed out seeing the blood. (I nearly vomited with fear!) Xx

[Light_Bringer777]

At one point I was sure I had celiac disease because of CRAZY bloating, belching and nausea. Turns out I can't digest any grain of any kind, but not because of any allergy or anything, it's just that pretty much everything starchy doesn't agree with me.

Took me over a year to find out, and I even did a "complete" elimination diet for 2-3 weeks where I ate only applesauce, boiled chicken and.... rice. I ended up trying many diets and doing a 30-days paleo diet completely got rid of it for me.

Still get some bowel issues for stress and other factors, for me it generally manifests as soft or watery stools, sometimes in odd shapes or colors and often with undigested stuff because it passes through so fast. Other times stress will mess up my schedule or eating habits, and I somehow skip a day and it's constipation time...

---------- Post added at 19:44 ---------- Previous post was at 19:42 ----------

But yeah for gas and soft stools, I'd say first don't worry about it, second look at diet changes or if there are better/worse moments depending on your meals, or just give it a little more time in case it's a bug or something.

Had over a year of crappy digestion and it never worried any doctor or nurse I met. Sucked living through this, but it was no cause for worry.

[Anonybrit]

Thanks guys, I just find it incredibly odd, every morning I'm inflated like a balloon and you can hear and feel all the gurgling.

It's so strange it just started all of a sudden 2 weeks ago..