IBS: Key Signs and Symptoms Doctors Look For

Excerpt from FC&A's The Complete Guide to Digestive Health.

If distressing symptoms are especially prevalent an hour or so after eating a meal, this may be suggestive of IBS. Or you have abdominal pain or discomfort for 12 out of the last 52 weeks, and the pain has one of these features.

Going to the bathroom makes it go away.

You have significantly more bowel movements after the pain starts, or far fewer than before.

After the pain starts, your stools become noticeably harder or softer.

It’s even more likely to be IBS if you also have one or more of these signs.

You have more than three bowel movements a day or less than three a week.

Your stools are either too loose or too hard in at least a quarter of your bowel movements.

You need to strain when you go or you feel like you haven’t finished after leaving the bathroom.

When the urge to go to the bathroom hits, you need to go right away.

You occasionally or frequently have abdominal bloating or swelling. Some people also have gas.

You see mucus in your stool more than 25 percent of the time.