Wind and cramping waking me up at night

Severe IBS-C pain with excruciating trapped wind — does anyone else experience this?

Hello. I’m an older woman in the UK and have had IBS with constipation for many years, but over the last year or two it has become much more difficult to live with.

My biggest problem is the pain. I get very severe cramping which feels like powerful but very slow contractions of the bowel, often with trapped wind. Sometimes the pain is almost unbearable. I can actually open my bowels, sometimes more than once, but still feel as though I haven’t emptied properly and that everything is moving through far too slowly.

I use macrogol (Movicol) to keep my stools soft, so it isn’t simply a matter of having hard stools. I’ve had investigations, including a CT scan and colonoscopy, which were reassuring, and I’ve been diagnosed with IBS-C/visceral hypersensitivity.

The symptoms can be particularly bad during the night and early morning and have a considerable effect on my sleep and quality of life. Stress and anxiety definitely make things worse, although the physical pain is very real.

What I would particularly like to hear is whether anyone else with IBS-C experiences this combination: very painful cramping, slow movement, trapped wind and a feeling of incomplete evacuation even though you are managing to open your bowels.

If you do, I’d be very interested to hear what it feels like for you and how you cope with it — especially from anyone who has lived with IBS for many years.