Rome III Criteria and IBS Symptoms

Every one of us at some point of time has experienced intestinal disorders like diarrhea, abdominal pain, constipation, bloating and gas. But when all these irritations overwhelm a person continuously, it may refer to Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). IBS symptoms should be properly diagnosed to warrant appropriate treatment.

Primarily diagnosed as functional disorder, IBS does not tend to exhibit any kind of noticeable sickness. In order to distinguish that a particular person is suffering of usually passing digestive disorders, from IBS, medical profession have now fallen back on what is known as Rome III criteria. This criterion when adopted for diagnosing a person as indeed having IBS, mandatory associates the following IBS symptoms with the disorder:

a) That the digestive disorders mentioned above must have been present in the patient for a minimum period of six months,

b) That these disorders must have manifested at least on three days during the last three months.

c) The IBS symptoms should include constant recurring pain or discomfort in the abdominal area, associated with the following two or more factors:

• Bowel movement usually relieves pain.


• Pain begins with the change in composition of stool - soft, or harder.


• Pain begins with the change in the regular cycle of bowel movement.

IBS symptoms can be medically diagnosed only on the basis of continuous pain in the abdominal area, combined with a noticeable change in your bowel movement habits. IBS in the context of an individual patient might mean a combination of the symptoms including abdominal pain, which is relieved after a bowel movement; Constipation - strained movement of bowels, with fewer than three bowel movements a day, or hard/dry stools; diarrhea - feeling of urgency for bowel movement, with more than three bowel movement per day, or watery loose stools; feeling of incomplete evacuation, passage of mucus or gas and bloating. IBS symptoms can be broadly classified into three types, one with predominant constipation, second - predominant diarrhea, and third kind with symptoms alternating between diarrhea and constipation.

There are certain IBS symptoms which are usually of serious and upsetting nature, leaving the people wonder whether there has been wrong diagnosis and whether the attending medical people have not been able to consider a more serious disorder in their health. Given below are the symptoms which are not associated with IBS, and therefore which should be investigated further to know the reasons for their manifestation.

a) nausea;

b) fever;

c) significant and unexplained weight loss

d) fatigue

e) presence of blood in the stool due to hemorrhoids, which should be immediately brought to doctor's notice

f) Anemic conditions, bloodlessness in the body;

g) Pain in the abdomen which isn't relieved by bowel movement

h) Pain in the abdomen which disturbs sleeps and awakens the patient.

i) Decrease in food intake/Loss of appetite