Hi Sand!
The results of my sitz marker test were (to me at least) inconclusive. I was really constipated when I started the test and at some point during it the aloe vera I was taking kicked in and I got diarrhea. So the markers were gone by the time I went back five days later.
Anyhow, even if the markers were still present, what would the test have told me? That I'm constipated! You don't say! Yes, I understand that it can tell me the difference between slow transit constipation and some kind of obstruction. But I'm mostly interested in results. Even my primary care doc said a lot of allopathic (Western) diagnostic tests are "mental masturbation" (his words, not mine!) because it's just a bunch of high-tech neato gadgetry that doesn't produce information that can lead to a successful treatment.
In other words, the doctors mostly still don't have a clue about IBS. But then we knew that already.
I'm reading a book (and following the program) called "Restoring Your Digestive Health" by Dr. Joseph Brasco and Jordan Rubin. It's a completely different approach than what is followed here. I've been seeing some positive results for the first time in a long, long while. Anyhow, Dr. Brasco says in his chapter on IBS that it is "very likely a group of many disorders that have been clumped under one name because we don't understand the individual disorders enough". I know Heather has said something similar, and that to me explains why people respond so wildly differently to a given approach (like the IBS diet, for example).
In the case of what you mentioned, I suspect that constipation can be caused by both an overly relaxed and overly stimulated colon. And unfortunately (for me, and other IBS-C folks) it can be both. I know that when I have a lot of cramps and spasms, I won't be having a BM the next day. Likewise, there is a familiar "nothing happening" or "dead" sensation when it seems like everything is just completely stopped that also tells me I'm going to be backed up. What's bizarre is that for some people, the exact opposite is true: spasms mean an immediate trip to the bathroom.
It's a mystery. Just stinks that we're the subjects of it.
Chris
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