Monthly Archives: January 2005

I’ve been in a couple of situations recently where I haven’t quite made the grade – I went for a job interview and didn’t get it, and I’ve been sorting a few things out in my life and have made some boring paperwork mistakes and things.

When this type of thing happens, it’s not that I mind that much – I would have liked the job, but it’s not the end of the world. It’s just that I want to say to the interviewers “OK, fine, choose someone else – but they do have a slight advantage, you know. Anyone who didn’t spend three hours yesterday in pain is going to be a bit chirpier than me, don’t you think?”

I’d like some of those L plates that they put on learner drivers, except that mine could be IBS plates. Cut this girl some slack, because she’s been living with bizarre and unruly intestines for 15 years.

Won’t happen though. I just get judged against the healthy people.

To me, one of the most convincing and sensible explanations for IBS is a disruption to the ‘friendly’ bacteria in the intestines. It seems like such a good explanation because many IBS sufferers find that their symptoms start after a particularly virulent bout of food poisoning, when evil bacteria are wreaking havoc with the gut.

All it would take is a few million of these evil bacteria remaining lodged in the gut and you would have bowel problems. It just seems a more logical explanation than some of the airy-fairy theories which we’re sometimes asked to swallow, such as “It’s stress, calm down a bit and you’ll be fine”. If a doctor thinks it’s psychological then I suppose that’s his choice, but my IBS started after I spent two whole days vomiting and being incontinent on the bedsheets – do you not think there’s a connection?

Here’s a quote from a national newspaper about those evil little organisms:

“We’re now thinking that under certain circumstances these bacteria increase a million fold, and this may lead to disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome,” says Cambridge gastroenterologist Professor John Hunter.

Well, it makes sense to me. Although probiotics, which would in theory solve the bacteria problem, have not yet been scientifically proven to any great extent, this does give some hope that at least a certain number of IBS sufferers have only to wait a few years before some bright spark invents a bactericide that wipes out the bad boys and leaves in the good.