How is IBS diagnosed?

How is IBS diagnosed?

Lin Chang (UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases) gives expert video advice on: How is IBS diagnosed?; Can my family doctor diagnose IBS or do I need to see a specialist?; What symptoms lead to a possible diagnosis of IBS? and more...

Because there is no biologic marker or a blood test or an x-ray that we can use to diagnose IBS in all patients with IBS, we use standardized symptom based diagnostic criteria. The patients have to meet these symptom criteria to meet the diagnosis of IBS. The diagnostic criteria that's used right now is called the Rome III criteria for IBS, and Rome is a foundation, a group of experts, that developed these criteria based on evidence, medicine, and expert opinion. To meet the IBS diagnosis, the patient has to have symptoms for at least six months. They have to have had active symptoms for the past three months, and these symptoms are that you have to have at least three days per month of abdominal pain and/or discomfort. The abdominal pain and/or discomfort has to be associated with two out of the three following features: one, it has to be relieved with defecation, or two, the pain or discomfort is associated with a change in stool frequency less than three times a week or more than three times a day, or three, the abdominal pain discomfort is associated with a change in stool form, meaning loose watery stools or hard lumpy stools. If the patients have abdominal pain or discomfort associated with two out of those three criteria, they actually meet the criteria for IBS.