It affects an estimated 35 million Americans, but at least half do not see a physician for the chronic stomachaches, and diarrhea or constipation. IBS is a chronic, treatable disorder that causes stomach pain, bloating, and abnormal bowel movements. People with IBS have chronic diarrhea, constipation, or both, for example several weeks of constipation followed by a few days of diarrhea. For some people, IBS involves incontinence or a feeling of incomplete evacuation.
Some patients have no abdominal pain in the morning, and get stomachaches in the afternoon.
Others go for two weeks without pain, and then have a day of crippling pain. Each patient has his own pattern, says Marvin Schuster, chief of gastroenterology at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center , and director of the new Marvin M. Schuster Center for Gastrointestinal Motility and Digestive Diseases. Schuster has seen thousands of IBS patients during his 35-year career at Hopkins, and conducted a spate of studies to understand this puzzling illness. For some people, IBS is merely an occasional nuisance. People with severe IBS can spend hours a day in the bathroom, avoid social activities for fear of losing control, and suffer a loss of dignity.