In this article, we’re talking about your upcoming exam for irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS.
IBS is one of the most common service-connected bowel conditions, and unlike many other conditions, it’s largely rated based on how well you describe your symptoms.
Your rating will depend on your ability to communicate those symptoms to your examiners, and the IBS rating criteria has a few hurdles.
So, let’s get into the details.
The first thing to know for a compensable rating for IBS is you must have abdominal pain related to defecation.
Put another way, your belly hurts when you take a dump, or it hurts less after you take a dump.
And that’s the first hurdle we must clear to get a compensable rating.
The examiner will also want to know how often you experience that pain: once in the past three months, three times a month over the past three months, or weekly during the past three months.
As you can see, we need to establish if this is a chronic issue, not just an uncomfortable toilet experience after eating burgers at the dive bar down the street that failed a recent health inspection.
So, to ensure accuracy, we recommend tracking your symptoms with a defecation log. This helps provide a clear picture for your examiner of how frequently and severely you experience pain.
To be clear, we don’t mean actually taking pictures. There’s no need to take pictures of what happens in the bathroom
We need to show at least two additional symptoms to continue on that compensable rating path.
One symptom is a change in stool frequency. Are you going to the bathroom more or less often than normal?
This isn’t necessarily just diarrhea or constipation but rather the frequency at which you make deposits to the city sewage system.
The second symptom we have is changes in stool form.
Does your stool look different than it used to?
According to a GI doctor, your stool should generally look like a smooth and soft sausage or snake.
We recommend looking at the Bristol Stool Form scale, which we’ve linked in the comments below, which will help you identify changes in your stool consistency.
The third symptom they look for is altered stool passage.
Do you feel the urgent need to go to the bathroom or you’re going to have an accident?
Or when you do go, are you straining or pushing to make a deposit?
The fourth symptom we have is something called muccorhea.
This is a fancy medical term for mucus in the stool.
It’s normal for mucus to be in stools. Our intestines need a little bit of lubrication to keep things moving,
But excessive mucus will make you look in the bowl and think, “What the heck is that?” Or if you go to wipe and you’re getting mucus on the toilet paper, that’s a problem.
You need to advise the examiner of that.
The fifth symptom is abdominal bloating, which can feel like a feeling of fullness or gas in the stomach. Sometimes, clients describe it like if they poked a needle into their belly, it would deflate.
To be clear, that is not true. Please don’t stick needles into yourself without a doctor’s express permission.
But again, this is another subjective symptom, and you need to be able to explain the abdominal distension and discomfort that you’re feeling.
The last symptom is subjective distension, which is defined as a measurable increase in abdominal girth.
While bloating feels like your belly is getting bigger and fuller, distension means that it actually does look bigger and fuller.
So, as you can see, getting a proper rating for IBS means getting a VA examiner who cares enough to listen to your symptoms.
It also means you need to know enough about your body and your symptoms to be able to verbalize them to your examiner.
We recommend starting a symptom log in your phone or a defecation log where you note things such as the date, time, pain levels, and symptoms you’re experiencing.
This can help ensure that your exam is as accurate as possible.
As always, if you have any questions about preparing for your upcoming exam after this video, do not hesitate to reach out to our team at (480) 498-8998.
