Severe gas and bloating: causes and what to do

Bloating is a feeling of fullness or visible abdominal swelling. Gas can increase after eating quickly, fizzy drinks, constipation or a change in gut bacteria. Food Intolerance or Lactose Intolerance may cause symptoms after particular foods. Coeliac Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Giardiasis and Helicobacter Pylori Infection can also produce digestive symptoms, but bloating alone cannot establish any of these causes. The pattern, stool changes, weight change and pain are useful clues.

Keep a short diary of meals, timing, bowel movements, pain and swelling. Eat slowly, chew well, limit fizzy drinks, and take gentle movement if comfortable. Treat constipation only with advice suited to you, and avoid removing many foods without guidance because this can reduce nutrition. Nutrition Counselling can help identify a balanced way to test suspected triggers. Arrange an assessment when symptoms are persistent, severe, recurrent or changing.

Seek urgent help for severe or sudden abdominal pain, a hard or increasingly swollen abdomen, repeated vomiting, inability to pass stool or gas, blood in stool, fainting, fever with marked illness, or breathing difficulty. Prompt review is also needed for unexplained weight loss, persistent diarrhoea or symptoms that wake you repeatedly.

Could constipation, an intolerance, infection or another digestive problem explain this pattern? Should I have testing? How can I change foods without losing important nutrients? Which symptoms require urgent review?