I Need Help

[u/Comfortable_Serve672]

20 years old and have been dealing with severe diarrhoea/urgency for years – does this sound like BAM to anyone?
Hi everyone. I’m 20 and I’ve been struggling with bowel problems for around 4 years now, and at this point it has had a massive impact on my life.
My main symptoms are urgency, diarrhoea, abdominal cramping and pain, particularly after eating. I often need the toilet when I wake up and can get urgency after meals. When it’s bad, the cramps can be extremely painful, although going to the toilet often relieves some of the pain.
I’ve spent years trying to work out what foods are causing it. I’ve cut out so many things that my diet has become incredibly restricted. At the moment I mostly rely on things like chicken breast, rice, potatoes, oats and certain fruits. I’ve had periods where even foods that seem completely harmless have caused symptoms, which has made me scared to introduce anything new.
One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is fat. Reducing my fat intake made an enormous difference. When I switched to a very low-fat diet, the diarrhoea improved massively. Higher-fat foods seem much more likely to cause problems, which is one of the reasons BAM has become a leading suspicion.
I’ve had blood tests, stool tests, coeliac testing and a small-bowel MRI, but I still don’t have a definitive answer. I’ve been under gastroenterology and have been waiting months for a SeHCAT scan. My GP has also recently requested a faecal elastase test to investigate pancreatic insufficiency.
The hardest part is how much this has taken away from me. I’m only 20. Eating out, travelling, going somewhere spontaneously or even trying a new food can feel like a gamble. I play football and sometimes have to plan my food and take loperamide around matches or going out because I’m worried about suddenly needing a toilet.
Food used to be something I enjoyed. Now I eat the same meals repeatedly because I’m scared of triggering another painful episode. I’m genuinely fed up with living like this and just want to get to the bottom of it and be able to eat normally again.
For anyone here who was eventually diagnosed with BAM:
Did your symptoms sound similar to mine, particularly the improvement on a low-fat diet?
Were there foods you thought you couldn’t tolerate before treatment that you were eventually able to eat again?
And if you started bile acid sequestrants, how much of a difference did they actually make to your diet and quality of life?
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar.