First Doctor Consult on IBS

What Does Your Doctor Need to Know about your IBS symptoms?

By beginning the consultation with an open discussion, your doctor should be able to make a firm diagnosis and find the correct treatment for your IBS.

The first pieces of information that you should tell your doctor about are the symptoms that have been occurring.

Explaining your symptoms such as bloating, nausea, cramps, constipation and diarrhea will help the doctor diagnose the cause. If there are other symptoms, you should also let the doctor know about these, as the symptoms may be due to other problems or disorders which appear similar to IBS.  

If you can provide your healthcare giver with a food journal this will help. Also give your physician a list of all supplements and prescriptions you are currently taking.

The second piece of information to provide your doctor with is how long the symptoms have been occurring.

This not only includes the current situation, but also past situations where you have had suffered the same symptoms. This will not only help your physician determine whether it is IBS, it will also let them know how serious the problem is in relation to the time period of when it has occurred.

If you can relate the IBS symptoms to specific happening in your life this will also help. Did your symptoms first start on a vacation? Have you had IBS symptoms on and off since you were a teenager?

Your doctor may perform or refer your for a variety of tests to help determine whether IBS is the underlying problem.

Depending on the result, the doctor will then have the option of diagnosing you with IBS taking into account the information you have provided him with. Procedures such as blood sampling, X-rays and stool sampling may be part of the tests that will be performed.

Your health care provider may also decide to perform a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy in order to define the major problem. If your symptoms can not be clearly defined through what you have informed your doctor, he can use these test as an option to make the correct diagnosis.

It is important to ask your doctor what you can do to help yourself.

Your doctor can provide you with a variety of treatments as well as provide you with ways to monitor the changes being made from IBS. By continuing to consult with your doctor about the progress being made, you can find out whether you have found the right solution for solving the problem.