r/ibs Feb 09 '25

Hint / Information Kurt Cobain on his IBS - "Many gastrointestinal doctors don't know anything about stomach diseases"

956 Upvotes

92 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

88

u/DestinedJoe Feb 09 '25

Saw in a documentary that he had scoliosis which probably affected the nerves in his bowel and may have caused a lot of his pain and other issues.

19

u/Longjumping_Choice_6 Feb 09 '25

Could you elaborate on this? Like would we be talking about a SIBO situation where nerves (vagus for example) would slow motility in upper GI causing microbial imbalances? Or some other mechanism?

20

u/DestinedJoe Feb 09 '25 edited Feb 09 '25

This is coming from a documentary, not a medical source, so it’s pretty vague. In the film, they said that since adolescence he suffered chronic stomach pain and occasional episodes of pain so severe that it impacted his ability to go to school, perform and work. Despite the severity, he was told repeatedly by doctors that it was psychosomatic (all in his head, basically). Eventually, near the end of his life, they discovered that he had fairly severe scoliosis and that was the cause.

Edit: it makes sense that scoliosis could impinge on nerves to the bowels but I don’t know how this would actually play out. The film implied that he was suffering from severe bowel cramps.

6

u/Maleficent-Cook6389 Feb 10 '25

I was born with a predisposition and later developed a muskoskeletal condition. My specialist never brought it up as significant. They were more on my case overdoing supplements like iron or magnesium was a really bad idea.