Worried about bowel problems?

Having an illness or condition that affects your bowels or lower digestive tract can result in a number of symptoms, such as:

• Having trouble going to the toilet
• Having diarrhoea
• Feeling constipated
• Experiencing stomach pain
• Finding blood in the stools

These symptoms can be embarrassing. You may feel worried about what is wrong with you.

Remember there are many causes of bowel-related symptoms – these include food poisoning, irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). So while you may be worried about the worst, in the majority of patients, finding out what is wrong with them is often less serious than they imagined!

Remember – seeking medical help is the best way to find out what is wrong and how best to manage it.

In the meanwhile – try our easy-to-use Symptom Checker tool to find out if your (or your partner/friend/relative’s) bowel symptoms are similar to those of IBD and receive a PDF page of results to present to your doctor.