STOMACH NOISES CAUSING ANXIETY

Hey there, any updates?

omg I am so glad I found this page. I am fine with silence, but if it is a long period of it where there are many people / people I am not so familiar with in the room, I will start to feel anxious that my tummy might make weird sounds. It started when I was 15, when my friend beside me turned to me and apologised for her tummy growling. After that I became more conscious of my stomach sounds; and the more I worried about it, the more noise it would make. My heart would beat faster and my palms will be sweaty and cold.. it really sucks because in exams or class assignments this feeling gets worse. For exams where everyone is reasonably spaced apart I only get it at the first hour or so of the paper. I'd dread exams and lectures so so much also, and skip studying with my friends in the library, and if going to silent places, I will stuff myself with food even if I am not hungry. really glad to know I'm not alone here :')

I'm 21.... Everything started my sophomore year. It was terrible . All I remember was sitting on my chemistry class when all of a sudden this lowed weird fart noise came out of my stomach :( I can still remember all my classmates making fun of me . I struggle through out high school, tried many forms of eating but it would help . On my senior year I finally talk to my teachers and they were ok with me leaving their classrooms to take my test in the schools office in a little room by myself. I felt so stupid having to ask my teacher for my test to leave the classroom everything . Also all I had for breakfast 2 make it through the the day was salty crackers and either a granola bar or chocholate chip cookie during lunch .... Everyday ! If different I would suffer even more through lessons . Now I'm 21 I finished a cosmology course that was still hard to take but at hour and a half a day was easier than 5 hours a day in a regular college. I didn't really want to go to school for that but my parents kept pressuring me to do something with my life . I swear my life is almost perfect my parents spoil me since I was little they own a restaurants . Some people envy me driving a Range Rover , Lexus or my amazing Louis Vuitton purses. The thing they don't know is that I envy them for being normal and having the ability to go to college like any normal person would without having to worry about your stomach noices. I'm currently studying to get my cosmology license even tho I'm not happy with it , I can take it as a last option if I ever wanna open up my salon. But I don't like the career. My parents never understood my condition I remember telling them in high school and all they would tell me was not to worry about what other people said or their laughter

here's my story too. I started to have this symptoms since 18.(interestingly didn't had one before then) hated quite classroom, and school life was awful. it still going on in uni, My class sometimes going on like 8 hours and it's like a hell. VERY VERY quiet. I go sweaty, can't focus on class at all. I've tired, multiple anti acid meds, anxiety pills but none of them seems to work that well. recently i'm taking estrogen pill, and i think it works a little(but not fully.) curious why this is happening to me. i sometimes have to eat like 7times a day to make sure there's no noise.

This has just started happening to me this year. I will be sitting in my 1st block class and my stomach will start making obnoxious noises! To the point of me taking all of my tests and quizzes outside to avoid the embarrassment and anxiety of hearing my stomach make noises. I don't know what to odo about it and am so terrified for exam week.

Finally, someone know exactly how I feel! I wish there was a solution to this. I find that it actually is more mental than physical. When I am too focused on work, the sounds don't come on, but once I start to notice, it begins. I don't remember why or when I started to have this problem, and I don't have Irritable Bowel Syndrome, yet it totally makes me afraid of the classroom getting too quiet. I also shift around a lot to create noises that mask my stomach, drink water, eat right before class, all that stuff, and yet it still doesn't work out. I'm not even hungry when the sounds happen. This is such a mysterious problem.

i go through the same thing. All the things you do i also do. I have been dealing with this since 2008 when it first happened in my public speaking class and its all been downhill from there. Its all a mental thing and its very frustrating that my mind has control over me in this way. I use to love going to classes and never had these problems. I miss the old me

Hi, this is a problem I have suffered with since the age of around 24 (including panic attacks). Luckily having got through school and uni with no problems (although, if I had an exam, i used to go to the loo 10 times before Ieft home). The first instance was in a high level meeting. In the following years it became a phobia (scared of quiet places) and I made numerous excuses to avoid anywhere quiet including cinemas, meetings, courses and so on. It took over my whole life. Doctors thought it was ulcers, IBS and so on. I found anxiety is the biggest problem. For example, going out to a restaurant. Noisy atmosphere hence, I did not give it a second thought and no stomach problems, The more you think about it the more it affects you. I eventually ran my own company - reason being is that I like to be in control ie. if my stomach is making noises I can end the meeting. I did not like not being in control and this governed my entire life and eventually led to me not working in my professional field. I have lived with this for most of my life, although I have had years where I felt confident and in control and then I would not worry and guess what, the condition goes away. I have found the cause is IBS. In my late 50's I developed another condition LPR (silent reflux - very hard to diagnose). Most people with LPR have IBS. Anyway, having done masses of research I found that diet (in particular the SCD diet) helps greatly. The cause of IBS - I believe is SIBO (bacteria in the small intestines that process undigested food and cause gas - that can make noise). In LPR this gas can push acid into the oesophagus. The diet is great for the stomach noise - but be warned, it is a very difficult diet and I lost almost 30Kg in the first three months. I just wish I knew about this years ago.

Continuing from my post above. I noticed a few people use anti-acid meds. I used pepto-bismol to settle my stomach. On my second hospital admission (in five years) with kidney stones (calcium build up from meds) I discovered the reason and stopped taking them. I stated the reason for the stomach noises as IBS (my doctor would also agree). The action of food moving through the intestines is called peristalsis and is controlled subconsciously through the brain. When anxiety kicks in, the systems speeds up and more undigested food enters the intestines. For people with IBS they have an unhealthy gut bacteria (with bacteria in the small intestines being the culprit SIBO) and the food feeds this bacteria which i turn produce internal gas and hence noise. This bacteria is now thought to be responsible for diverticulitis (pouches in the intestines caused by gas pressure), Crones and other digestive disorders. There are even reports of intestinal explosions in patients undergoing surgery. it does not take much food to produce a lot of gas! When i started the SCD diet, initially through bacteria die-off you feel unwell (headache, tired ect) as toxins are absorbed into the blood stream. This goes away after about a week and then you start improving. Within four weeks if you do not improve - stop the diet. There is another diet called the fast tract diet which came out years after the SCD but is based on the SCD. Essentially, it uses a formula to calculate an FP value (fermentation potential ie gas). The formula uses GI (glycemic index - a measure of how quickly carbs are absorbed into the bloodstream - higher the better - less to feed bacteria) and how many carbs are contained in the food. The lower the FP the less likely your bacteria will produce gas. I stay mainly on the SCD diet but avoid foods not recommended on the fast tract diet. It is a slow process as you need to restore your gut flora with good bacteria (including taking probiotics). and you do get ups and downs because of bacterial blooms.It also takes a great deal of effort (mainly on my wife's side as she does the cooking). All the above is of course my own deductions with years of experimenting and research in trying to beat this disorder and absolutely no help from doctors - who just say it is IBS with no-one knowing what IBS is. My warning about the diet is because it does not allow grains (no wheat, bread, pasta, milk and especially no sugar in any form). This makes it very difficult to keep on the diet and it takes time to improve. Maybe in years to come they will be able to identify certain bacteria - but until then you are on your own. Good luck but remember that you can beat it. If anyone needs more info, please reply and I will check the forum every now and again.

Hey everyone. I've been suffering from the same stomach growling issue as you all have mentioned since middle school. I easily get nervous, especially in public speaking, exams, and quiet space. I remember taking my final exam in chemistry, and I suffered from the beginning to the end of the exam due to anxiety and stomach growling. I didnt have enough sleep, plus I had drank coffee before going to my exam(which was the worst idea). My stomach growled really loud from time to time, and this student was looking around finding who it was coming from haha. Ever since that day, I started taking deep breaths before going to any exams, and trust me, it helped a lot. My body manages to stay calm faster. Also, avoid drinking caffeine or anything that triggers anxiety. Try to get at least 8 hours of sleep. Then always do the inhale and exhale breathing! Also, do your best not to focus on the growling when you have a big day. That also alleviates the nervousness. And lastly, if you need to fart, PLEASE dont hold it in. :) good luck!

I've been having this since 5 th grade and when I try to remember what triggered it I get mad at myself because it's so stupid as to why it started. In that grade I had a huge crush on a guy and we sat next to eachother, one day I guess he made me so nervous to be around him that all of a sudden I felt bubbles in my stomach and those bubbles felt like they burst inside my stomach and made it sound like fart noises. I think he started noticing I looked like I was panicking so that made my anxiety much worse. It's so stupid what caused it but that's the truth. Ever since then I hate quiet classrooms and exams. It really effected my school experience overall. I didn't join many events I didn't dare to take AP or honors classes. I didn't reach for more cause it made me have anxiety. Now I'm in college and it's been very hard. I had to drop a class cause it was too quiet and as of right now I think I have to drop another one because I embarrassed myself in front of a couple of students in class. My bubbles bursted inside and made it sound like I was farting. They were really loud to the point I walked out of class and as I kept walking the noises were in my stomach so I think everyone I passed by heard it. I cried in the restroom cause this really hit my rock bottom. I didn't go back to class my bf had to grab my backpack. He knows I have anxiety but he didn't know how bad it really is. I've took gas x and anxiety pills right off the counter but they did no use. I don't have health insurance so I can't afford going to the doctor. I got accepted to a university and I don't want to drop this class cause I'm afraid it'll affect me from finally going into this university. I feel helpless

For the last 4 or so years I've had these problems, as with everyone else it made going into quiet rooms with others horrible. I would find any excuse to miss lessons or leave the room, my palms would sweat, my heart would pound, I'd feel faint, it was all around a terrible feeling. I had tried everything, from buscopan to olive oil, nothing worked.

Then in March of last year things started looking up, I started using charcoal tablets and had a low fodmap bar in the mornings. But most significantly of all I started undergoing my own little exposure therapy, because although it's not as obvious as a fear of spiders or a fear of tight spaces, what myself and a lot of people describe on here is basically a phobia - an irrational fear of quiet rooms. At its worst I couldn't last 10 minutes in a large lecture theatre even if no one was around me, so I started with things that I could manage, obsessively noting down how long I was in there for. I sat in the library first, seeing as I could leave whenever I wanted, then I gradually increased how long I was in there for. Then I eventually started going to lectures and sitting at the back where people wouldn't notice me. Afterwards I started attending shorter small group teaching sessions, then longer ones. Eventually I managed to attend an entire 6 hour long day of back to back teaching sessions with some breaks in between. By the beginning of January I thought I was completely rid of this problem, I could attend any event in a quiet room I wanted to, even if I had to do my own little ritual beforehand with the charcoal tablets and fodmap bars. I had stopped writing down in my little diary after hitting 122 hours.

But then I became a bit too complacent, my stomach kept growling during one lecture and I had to leave in front of everyone. Although I'm not back to square one I have taken quite a hit since then. But I think it's times like these when you need to accept what these problems are (for most of us anyway), they are psychological. The fear of your stomach growling perpetuates the sounds themselves. You become much more sensitive to it, any sound which you would have ignored before becomes very noticeable to you now, you start worrying about it, become panicked, this makes the sounds worse, which just continues this cycle. Even when you're relaxing at home it is still there at the back of your mind. It's funny but between March of last year and this January, I was actually noticing other people's stomach sounds far more than my own. I know now that the more I run away from the situations I am not comfortable with, the less control I will have over this problem, so hopefully the journey back to where I was a month ago won't be quite as difficult.

It is not psychological. The noises are REAL but the embarrassment factor produces psychological issues and a phobia of quiet places. It has taken me years to get this thing under control.

Yes yes yes yes i have the same problem, but im only 15, and im so sick of it. For like 3 months i stayed in a group room at school alone, because of this. Now I'm in groups with around 8 ppl, but I still get anxious. Help me, I'm almost giving up, I can't stand more school and constantly worrying about this, please help me

I have this same problem it's mainly psychological but affecting me so baldly