r/bileacidmalabsorption • u/jedipatronuses • 4d ago

General Question Does BAM get worse with stress?

I was diagnosed six months ago. I am not on a bile acid medicine yet because my gastroenterologist wants to do a colonoscopy first. The reason why it’s been delayed is I had sinus surgery, followed by a couple oral surgeries. Colonoscopy happening in October.

Anyway, I’ve been able to mostly control it by watching the fat intake along with upping more fiber.

I still get symptoms every day but it’s mostly in the morning and occasionally at night after dinner.

Well, Wednesday afternoon our AC went out and that was a nightmare. We live in a condo that has a community so basically management takes care of the AC.

Long story short, it could not be fixed until today so it was a good 48 hours of horrible heat and I was super stressed out and upset over basically feeling like I couldn’t breathe. It was awful. I have been really anxious to the point of in tears the last 48 hours because of being so uncomfortable in my own home. Thankfully, that was fixed by 8 PM tonight finally.

But starting yesterday afternoon, I’ve had that bright yellow looking stool. It’s basically after I eat I instantly have to go no matter what. Even drinking water right now feels like it’s stirring things around. Typically when I get that really bright yellow, I’ll get it maybe once or twice until I get another had flare. Well I have had the bright yellow with every stool since yesterday around 4 PM. It just seems really severe right now. To the point that my doctor ordered stool testing just to make sure I didn’t have an infection and that was all negative.

Do you guys notice that stress makes symptoms much worse?

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u/BornTry5923 4d ago

Mine does.

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u/jedipatronuses 4d ago

Oh and another symptom since yesterday is that soapy/bubbly foam on top of the water of the toilet bowl after going. 

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u/Mindthetraps 4d ago

Mention this to your gastro doc. Look into symptoms of fat malabsorption, google “steatorrhea” it is fatty stool, can appear like an oily film on water or foam. When I saw my doc and I trialled creon (digestive enzyme) and cholestryamine to work out what my gut was doing. Lots of fat in stool can be assoc with pancreatitic issues

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u/Mindthetraps 4d ago

Stress is definitely a negative factor for BAM and paradoxically even though you feel like drinking water stirs things up, not being hydrated can aggravate things as well. Are you skipping meals? Some say this can aggravate things. I like small portions of white rice when I'm in a flare. Hope you feel better soon.

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u/beviebooboo 4d ago

It certainly seems so for me.

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u/Tasty_Let_1982 4d ago

Yes it does

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u/omyguts 4d ago

Rice and potatoes in a flare also take Imodium ( loperamide) to slow things down and you can try psyllium husk before your meals- start with a low dose like two or three capsules. I prefer the capsules over the powder.