(first about me : 32 white male 5 foot 5 225lbs)
oct 8th was given fluconazole for something on my genitals that the doctor said was balantitis.
fast forward 10 days, treatment is complete and began experiencing the following symptoms that continue to today:
fluctuations in bowel movement frequency, consistency, and color(orange, light brown, normal color. never any sign of blood). including soft bowel movements, lots of pieces jagged edges, diarrhea, and thinner(not pencil thin at all. more like a range from dry erase marker size and just a bit thinner than normal. some appearance of mucus in stool as well as undigested food (red vegetable skins, lettuce, nuts)
abdominal pain and cramping that is intermittent and never severe. excessive gas also hemorrhoids twice since oct 8th (this today has resulted in a narrow dry erase marker size stool presented with the usual lots of pieces jagged edges and undigested lettuce, nuts, red vegetables )
i began taking a probiotic and something for a reoccurring acid reflux problem on dec 22. this has helped with normalizing frequency of bowel movements to once a day either morning or evening, as well as adding more fiber (oatmeal) to my diet
none of this appears to be a serious issue as it does not inhibit day to day life in any way nor is anything so severe i've considered going to the er or anything nor has significant weight loss occurred
could this be ibs/ibd/chrons?
Your symptoms may be result of the medication you were taking or the infection itself. It could be IBS. It doesn’t sound like IBD because if you had that you would have bleeding and weight loss.
Since probiotics helped, it may be your gut flora has been disturbed. Some people with IBS find probiotics beneficial. I would see your doctor again to get a diagnosis.
thats what im thinking. I also think that if it was actually colon cancer id have worse pain/bleeding/weight loss
I wouldn't worry about colon cancer at your age; you are very young. You don’t have red flags like weight loss or bleeding.
Could be the medication has upset your gut, which can be quite common and called Gut Dysbiosis. It’s a balance of yeast and bacteria in gut so some medication can wipe out the good stuff and then the bad yeast/ bacteria take over. Might take some time to sort itself out but worth seeing a dr again if nothing changes.
This was my initial thought as well. though it didnt occur to me until over a month after taking the fluconazole. I began taking an extra strength probiotic about a week and a half ago so that has helped in terms of consistency, and adding fiber has helped firm things up a bit.
Though last night my bowel movement had some undigested food (lettuce and nuts, red vegetable skins) this does lead me to diverticulitis as well but we will see how things progress.
Some people with IBS have undigested food in their stools. I would avoid the foods that are not being digested properly.
Thank you for the suggestion. do you have a suggestion for fiber since it appears that lettuce isnt digesting?
You could try fruit but remove the skins first since you are having trouble digesting skins. I find oranges very good for fibre but make sure you remove the pith. Prune juice is also great.
Undigested food occurs in most people and you don’t need to have ibs for this to occur. Skins are quite tough to digest so sweet corn, lettuce and tomatoes etc are often seen in stool. Have you looked at your diet? Try the fodmap diet to see if this helps with your issue as this is the only thing that helped me after I picked up some viral stomach bug. I have post infectious ibs now and most foods are ok but I struggle with broccoli and tomatoes which seem to give me really bad cramps for some reason.