What are the symptoms of IBS with mixed pattern?
Symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with mixed pattern means that they have loose watery stools that are characteristic of a diarrhoea pattern, and also hard lumpy stools are a characteristic of a constipation pattern. What you can commonly see in patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with mixed pattern is that they'll even, on the same day, have a change from hard stools to loose stools. So, very characteristically they'll say when they first get up and have a bowel movement, it's hard and may be difficult to pass and when they have a bowel movement later in the day it will become progressively more loose and watery. They don't necessarily have it. Other patients characteristically will have the pattern where they will be constipated for four or five days, or even a week, and then they'll have a lot of pain and dramatic loose stools. Almost like the bowel is trying to empty itself. They're a very difficult group to treat. It's almost like they're on a high wire, a tight wire and they can go either one way or the other. So, it can be so difficult sometimes. If a patient gives me the history that they have a period of time when they're more constipated, and then they develop diarrhoea, I generally try to treat the constipation so that they don't go many days without having a bowel movement. And it seems to decrease their diarrhoea episodes which can be very painful. That's not really proven in a study, although there is a study that has shown that to gas rod, which was used to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with constipation actually helps patients with the alternating or mixed pattern. For the diarrhoea phase in the Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) with mixed pattern, they're typically treated with an anti diarrheal agent. So these patients really have to get treated for constipation and diarrhoea.
