What to Tell Your Doctor About IBS

IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) is a functional gut disorder affecting around 1 in 7 people, characterised by recurring abdominal pain, bloating, and altered bowel habits with no structural cause. Because it is a diagnosis of exclusion, your gastroenterology appointment involves substantial symptom mapping — your doctor needs to rule out inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), coeliac disease, and other causes before arriving at an IBS diagnosis. The precision of your symptom description directly determines how efficiently this process goes. "My stomach hurts sometimes" is very different from "I have cramping pain in my lower left abdomen that relieves after a bowel movement, alternating constipation and diarrhoea, consistently worse after eating wheat and dairy." The common trap is underreporting because symptoms seem embarrassing or trivial — but every detail matters here. This prep sheet helps you build a symptom picture specific enough to move your diagnosis forward efficiently.