Expert: Dr. Kristina Conner - 4/1/2011

Question
I have had diarrhea for 3 months, loose but not particularly urgent bowel movements with a lot of gas and liquid.  Nothing in my diet has changed.  My mother died about 3 months ago but I have never had a physical response like this to stress so I doubt it has any connection.  My doctor did a diarrhea work-up in the lab with the result of an amoeba.  I took Flagyl for 10 days with no change.  She sent me to the Gastroenterologist who says everyone has this particular amoeba but only 15% of people have symptoms and he doesn’t know what to treat it with so he wants me to go to an Infectious Disease specialist.  I just started taking pepto bismol on his recommendation so now I have loose black bowel movements instead of brown ones.  Gross.

I’m thinking I’ll just wait it out.  Do you have any other recommendations?  I’ve been eating a rather low carbohydrate diet and lately I’ve been adding oatmeal with flaxseed for fiber, with no change in bowel movements.  I tried grapefruit seed extract for a week or so with no change.  The doctor says it’s not life threatening just annoying so will it also be self-limiting?  Thank you for your help.

Answer
Whether or not it is self-limiting depends on what the cause is.  In most cases if a change in stools is due to a mild infectious organism it will pass without much consequence, but if it's something stronger you may continue to have symptoms.  You may wish to consult a practitioner who can run a comprehensive stool analysis to find out more.  Often this may be an alternative practitioner, although any infectious disease MD could run this test many will not use alternative tests.  Until then, any treatment will be an educated guess, it's likely diet changes and supplements like probiotics will be helpful but again may not get at the root of the problem so may be of limited use.  I'd suggest you seek out someone for an individual consult like a ND or holistic MD; they'll look at everything including a possible mind-body connection to your physical symptoms.  In addition, even if he problem is self-limiting you may be left with sub-optimal GI function and a holistic doc can help get that back to optimal.  
In health,
Dr Conner