IBS is a mix of belly discomfort or pain and trouble with bowel habits: either going more or less often than normal (diarrhea or constipation) or having a different kind of stool (thin, hard, or soft and liquid).

Find out what could be to blame for your belly pain, sudden urges, gas, and diarrhea.

Doctors don’t know for sure what causes irritable bowel syndrome, but some things seem to make people more likely to have it than others.

Women are about twice as likely to have IBS as men. A growing body of research shows that sex hormones, like estrogen and progesterone, may be the reason.

It’s easy to mix up these conditions, because their names sound a lot alike. But inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) aren’t the same.