Stomach Growling LOUD and OFTEN

Dear Brenda,  my replies to your questions are in brackets below.  Thank You.

Reading your post, I had a number of questions for you:

- When you speak of stomach growling, does the sound actually seem to
come from your stomach, or lower down toward your intestine?

<Its really hard to tell it seems to come from both areas at different times, stomach as well as intestines>

- Do you have other symptoms of digestive disturbance like bloating, belching, constipation, diarrhea?

<no other disturbances, rarely if ever belch>

- How often do you move your bowels?

<normal 1-3 times per day>

- Do you chew a lot of gum? <never>

- Do you drink carbonated sodas?  <less than most, maybe two cokes per week at most>

- You mention OTC drugs to reduce gas. Have you tried digestive enzymes to more completely breakdown your food?  <I'm not sure what this is, I would have to know a brand name like pepcid or ??? – if "digestive enzymes" are not typical OTC products I have probably not used>

- Are the symptoms different at different times of the day or with different foods? Have you kept a diet diary of this? < goes on almost all day long morning, noon, night.  Seems to stop for a while for about an hour after eating or on a full stomach.  No diary necessary because it happens so often>

Theres got to be  a reason for this but so far no one has been able to figure it out.  Gastroenterolgists just feel my stomach say everything looks ok took some xrays no problems…..     In church tomorrow I will make sure I have a heavy coat because I put it over my stomach to try and cover the noise…..stupid I know !   

Thanks for reading.   I will definitely order some of your PB even if it doesn't solve this problem.   I did use a lot of antibiotics as a child as i had strep throat 1-2x per year.  I have never used probiotics.  

sincerely,

Tim 

When I was 15 years old… one day in Jr. High School while taking a test and the room was quiet, all the sudden my stomach growled really loud.  .  Then it did it again several minutes later.  A couple kids looked at me.  Not one to like having attention on myself I internally panicked.   It seemed to happen daily after that and I became extremely self conscious and obsessive about it.   I wanted to quit school.   My parents did not understand.  I faked that I had extreme pain so my parents would take me to a doctor and he could solve it.  No help.  I thought about suicide.  I asked my parents if I could home school….Nope.  I ended up dropping out of school – like many anxieties / phobias you tend to avoid.   I am now 55 years old and still to this day I try and avoid situations where my stomach growling might be heard like meetings, classes, etc.   One time two years ago at a work meeting with 20 people it was so loud that several people turned and looked at me and laughed and then shook their head as it continued every few minutes.  It was loud !  I have been to several Gastro docs and they just say take pepto etc.  They have no explanation.  I've tried every OTC drugs to reduce gas, etc.  No help.  Several weeks ago I saw Brenda Watson on PBS and I wonder if maybe probiotics will make a difference???   I wish I had an answer for this.  In some ways it has ruined my life.