ok, here goes my looooong story, i hope u aren't sleeping at the end of this.
Gosh, since i'm young, i have digestion problems, i'm always bloated be it with/without eating. Some foods like milk and fruits after meals do trigger my bloatedness more often. So i guess i do have lactose and fructose intolerance. I do have gastric problems if i'm too hungry as well, and if i eat when i'm too hungry, i'll definitely be bloated after eating as well...
However, i do not have constipation problems, in contrary, i'm actually a regular in this dept.
Fast forward, somethings have changed in me, i got a fissure and internal piles, i changed to high-fiber diets and i start to have more gas which is usual and settled down after 2 weeks. After which, it's rarely that i have bloatedness. I take it that my digestion has got to be better cos i totally cut out on spicy, fatty, oily, fried stuffs or lessen my rice, flour intake (i've lost 7kg in 5 months!). i continued to take prune juice, vit c and magnesium supplements.
A week ago, i have 2 days of loose stools and i thot it's probably due to the uptake of vit c. After which, i started to have bloatedness for days now which is sooo uncomfortable and sometimes painful. I even started to have semi-hard stools MORE OFTEN. All these while, i haven't been really eating anything different, except some choc ice cream every night and some salty corn snacks... SOoo... i really do not know what's wrong with me. Despite me taking out these treats, i'm still bloated. And i think this is indigestion, and it's causing me hard stools!!!
Anyone who has such symptoms are diagnosed as IBS? or any IBS sufferers here?

sigh... my CRS just replied my email:
"Certainly any change of bowel habits would require further evalaution of the colon. You are right that your symptoms could be from IBS . IBS is a disorder of the large intestines and produce symptoms of abdominal pain, bloatinng, discomfort , diarrhea or contipation or a mixture. However, IBS is a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning we need to exclude other more serious things, and this is done with history taking, physical examination, sometimes bld test and xrays, and most importantly, examination of the colon ( for examiple with colonoscopy)."
i have been putting off colonoscopy as i am damn scared about it....being painful or worse still, hurts my almost healed fissure!
anyone has any advice?

dwarfs i just went thru a colonscopy and endoscope and the procedure wasnt to bad even with a fissure. they were thinking celiac or something else. i am waiting on biopsy results. i might have ibs also cause i have alternating periods of contispation and then diarrhea. i never know what pattern i am going to have.

Dwarfs8, I was diagnosed with IBS just over a year ago. In my experience, I have had mostly diarrhoea but do get bloated and gassy at times. I take mebeverine and this alongside a better diet has helped. I had blood tests done to check for chrones disease etc, but think they are looking when I have my examination under anaesthetic. I think its most common to have blood tests and normally doctors can tell from the symptoms you have. I thought a colonoscopy was done after blood tests etc :D