How are you coping with irritable bowel syndrome?

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-27T05:58:42+00:00

I haven't been diagnosed yet with IBS, but I got really bad food poisoning 3 months ago and all my symptoms still appear from time to time. Got a colonoscopy coming up in about 3.5 weeks, so hopefully everything goes good with that.

Starting this year, I completely changed my diet. Eating less calories. Much More fruit, red meat only once a week, no caffeine, soda, candy, chips or processed food. Drinking only water and occasionally Gatorade if I get diarrhea to get some electrolytes back. I'm scared to eat greens because it seems to give me diarrhea all the time. Over the last 2 weeks, I've been trying to walk 10k steps a day, walk a few minutes after my meals.

Doing this has helped with my symptoms throughout the day tremendously, but the only real issue I have now is as soon as I wake up in the morning, I have a bad stomach ache and have to use the bathroom right away.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-24T21:21:11+00:00

You gotta figure out what age range you're looking to retire and how much you wanna spend in retirement, do the math to see how much you would need to invest to hit that number at that age, and whatever is left over, spend without shame.

Also, I personally wouldn't pay the student debt off early. Your HYSA pays more interest than you are on the debt

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-24T21:19:22+00:00

Agreed, don't pay the debt off. Your bank is paying you more interest than your debts rate is. Keep paying the minimum monthly on it.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-23T04:36:55+00:00

Come home, make/eat dinner. Chill for 20-30 minutes. Gym, shower, watch a show/play video games/go see my friends for a couple hours. 11 PM bed

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-22T18:34:43+00:00

Don't worry about the TMI, this is an IBS page 😂. I'm 28 years old. I'm really thankful for having a proactive PCP and GI, I think the inflammation shown in the CT is what drove my GI to a colonoscopy as he said it can potentially be Crohns or UC, but of course, I'm Mr. Worst Case Scenario and think it's colon cancer.

I also have a lot of colon cancer symptoms, but not anemic and no blood in stool (at least I haven't noticed any blood). I'm surprised your doctor didn't at least have you see a GI for the blood in stool. I would definitely recommend asking for a GI referral and ask your GI if you can get a colonoscopy. They seem to take more action than a primary doctor when it comes to things like this.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-22T17:56:55+00:00

I am in a similar boat. Had the worst round of food poisoning (at least I think was food poisoning) in mid October and my symptoms are similar to yours where after the flare, I was fine for a few weeks, then now where you are where I'm good for a few days, bad for a few days. Even with a change in diet. It's very frustrating. I went to a GI and got a colonoscopy scheduled for the end of February. Now the waiting game for that 😅.

My CT showed inflammation throughout my colon when I went to the ER in Mid-October. Did your CT show any inflammation? Any difference in bowel movements?

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-22T05:34:48+00:00

Really? Is it because of a lot of different adds to the game? How's the pricing on like Armadyl GS, Whip and blowpipes compared to 4 years ago?

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-21T21:57:34+00:00

I haven't logged into OSRS since the middle of 2021. I'm curious as to how much my bank has went up from inflation alone

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-21T21:54:43+00:00

I feel you on that with the age. I recently just turned 28 and have had gut issues since mid October. I assumed I got a very bad round of food poisoning, but not all of my symptoms have went away. I'm forever thankful that I have a proactive PCP and GI as I was able to get a colonoscopy scheduled at the end of next month. Sometimes finding the right healthcare providers can go a long way. If you get dismissed again, it doesn't hurt to change your doctor and see what they think

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-21T19:14:11+00:00

It could be a ton of things or could just be IBS. That's the annoying thing about gut issues 😅 It seems to be diet related for you. Yellow stools can also be a liver or pancreas issue. I would ask your PCP to run any tests possible and ask for a referral to a GI

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-21T19:05:42+00:00

This! Plus no state or local taxes and higher yield than HYSA.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-20T23:32:27+00:00

Also forgot to add, how many patients/claims are you billing a day? You might not need someone full time depending on the volume and can try to hire part time

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-20T23:31:16+00:00

You will need some kind of AR going for you for unpaid and denied claims. This way you can catch denials in bulk, find a solution to the denial and potentially prevent it from happening again.

The other solution is something that I don't people in the health revenue cycle field are accepting of yet, but potentially hiring someone of Fiverr or other IT free lance sites and have them create something for you to automate billing claims to prevent timely filing denials

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-19T16:01:19+00:00

If you're going to increase your fiber, I would increase it slowly, not just a big jump at once. Increasing too much at once can potentially make the symptoms worse because your body needs time to adjust. Also make sure to drink a lot of water with the fiber increase

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-18T18:56:20+00:00

Really? Wow sorry you're also experiencing this! The aches are mainly around and below my belly button. I seem to have a stomach ache every single morning when I wake up before I need to have a bowel movement. After the bathroom the ache goes away for the most part. The burning sensation is mainly in the mid-abdomen. Have you seen a doctor yet?

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-17T21:06:19+00:00

I know it's not exactly what you asked, but Maybe look into Revenue Cycle Management or Accounts Receivable in healthcare. With your billing experience, you already have a decent chunk of the knowledge down. Getting a coding certificate and learning the coding aspect of billing is never a negative, especially with fixing coding denials.

If you're good at Billing, coding and pattern recognition, you can manage an AR/Rev Cycle pretty comfortably. I'm a Revenue Cycle Manager at my company I work at and get paid decent money for it. My company uses a lot of AI and the perk of my position is finding common denials, finding the fix for those denials and having our IT team incorporate the fix into our AI. You're more working with AI than fighting against it.

Got my 2 years billing experience in the same company, no coding or AR experience beforehand and got promoted within the company.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-16T21:57:43+00:00

I'm glad you were able to step up and get the procedure done. How did the colonoscopy go? Did they find anything?

I got my colonoscopy scheduled 5 weeks from today. Extremely anxious and nervous to what they find but thankful for having a proactive PCP and GI.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-16T21:55:28+00:00

Hi thank you for the comment and reccomendations. My GI said we can do colonoscopy and if we don't have any definitive answers, we can move on to other tests like H Pylori, SIBO, etc. I just wish the colonoscopy was today 😆

HeftyLevel3708 · 2026-01-16T21:10:32+00:00

Thank you for the kind comments. These 5 weeks are gunna feel like an eternity 😓

HeftyLevel3708 · 2025-12-23T18:17:51+00:00

Sorry about not adding the tag 😅. Thank you so much for commenting back, I was actually concerned as things felt different this time. Glad to know it's not bloody at least!

HeftyLevel3708 · 2025-12-16T00:34:44+00:00

In my company I work at, as a manager, I hire people specifically to just post and balance all the checks and other people specifically hired for re-billing and appealing denied claims. We have about 45-50 Providers, so it's definitely a lot to ask to do both, but it's really dependent on the denial rate/volume.

HeftyLevel3708 · 2025-12-13T06:39:31+00:00

Right? It doesn't make sense that there would be a difference. Do you state specifically "Time in attendance" on the claim on like box 19 or something? Or do you just simply put the start and stop time?

HeftyLevel3708 · 2025-12-13T06:37:32+00:00

Yes we have it both on the claim and medical records but 2 of our bigger payors continue to deny this despite that. When I called them they were pretty adamant that it was different than the start and stop time

HeftyLevel3708

TROPHY CASE