Afternoon everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I’ve held off from posting for so long because I was anxious about people replying for some reason, but finally plucked up the courage since I’ve had a pretty bad health anxiety breakout this month. Let me start my saying I’m a 36 year old gay guy, who doesn’t drink or smoke and tries to stay fit at the gym – a typical millennial gay guy, some would say!

It all started at beginning of October when I began to get discomfort under my ribs on the left hand side. I thought it was just me sleeping awkwardly (I need a new bed, to be honest – I’ve just ordered one of those Otty beds) but I then started to feel bloated and discomfort in my abdomen directly under the ribs too and had a lot of bad wind, then about a week later I started to get loose stools as well.

Now the pain under the stomach wasn’t constant, I’d have the odd day where there was no real pain, but then it would return, but this past week it seems to have been pretty regular along with some frequent trips to the loo!

Plucked up the courage to go the doctors, who gave me a prod and said take hyoscine butylbromide to help with my cramps and drop off a stool sample as well.

It certainly helped with my stomach aching, but I was still passing soft stools.

Now I’ve been trying to think rationally about this as best I can even though I have health anxiety and come to the following conclusions:

Why I shouldn’t think it’s bad
No red flags – There’s no blood in my stools, I’m not vomiting, no massive weight loss (lost between 3-4 lbs in total)

Pain isn’t constant. It varies – that’s a good thing, right?

My age range (35 is still young, I hope?!)

The fact that I suffer with health anxiety which can obviously exasperate symptoms.

Now why I think it’s bad...

Been around for 3 weeks now

Whereas previous health anxiety attacks have caused my stomach issues to move all about the area, these have stayed in the same area for the most part (underneath the left ribs, as well as behind them and up towards the breast)

Read stories where these symptoms (regardless of the lack of red flags) have ended up being something serious

The hyoscine butylbromide has helped with my stomach cramps a little, but hasn’t cured them.

Not sure what I’m hoping from here – but it felt better to write it down since my boyfriend has told me to just ignore it and it’ll go, but that’s easier said then done when you have these physical symptoms. Especially when you think you may have something like bowel, colon, pancreas problems

Thanks all. Have a great weekend