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While I empathize with ibs sufferers, this is nonsense. Nobody with ibs poops large quantities of blood, needs their colon removed in many cases, or surgery because their bladder and bowel are now suddenly connected.

We don’t fully understand most disease processes, even those for which we have some effective treatments.

I don’t think lumping disparates diseases together simply on the axis of “understanding of disease process” is terribly useful.

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I think there are many more similarities between IBS/IBD than the current understanding of disease process. People IBS/IBD (especially mild IBD) have more in common with each other than folks with other chronic illnesses. For instance, your sibling comments story about seeking treatment for IBS is very similar to many IBD stories as well.

IBD is itself a lumping of disparate diseases based on very minimal understanding of disease process, so I'm not sure what your point is.

My point is there is you’re providing very little of substance to show that IBS and IBD are related diseases. Just because we know little about either doesn’t mean much. IBS is unfortunately by its nature typically a diagnosis of exclusion while IBD of all forms is diagnosed strongly by both clinical history and laboratory/histopathological data.

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