So, as you’ve probably guessed by my last entry, I’ve had a bit of a setback. I may have contributed to this though – although I haven’t eaten anything much that I shouldn’t have, I have been letting myself indulge in weird sleeping and getting up patterns, just because I felt like it, and that may have caught up with me. My intestines like everything to stay exactly the same all the time, and that includes the time I get up in the morning and the time I go to sleep.
So I’m not panicking yet. However, I have to say that it is quite depressing, and even more depressing because it is such a typical aspect of IBS. You’re fine for a week or a month, and then you’re not. You get hopeful, and then you realize again that the big old IBS beast is not gonna disappear any time soon.
I’ve also been thinking about my “mystery year”. A couple of years ago I had a very strange year when I was almost completely well for the entire time. I had a stressful job and I wasn’t very happy, but my stomach was practically perfect. No pain, no constipation, no diarrhea, just a beautifully-formed BM in the morning and that was it.
I’ve wracked my brains to try to think what could have caused that mysterious year, but I’ve never been able to work it out. It certainly wasn’t because I was relaxed and happy – my job is far less stressful now. God only knows what caused it. But I wish I could get it back.
Alongside that mysteriously perfect year, when I was still miserable (partly because I was scared that the IBS was going to come back at any moment), I think about the bit in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” where she achieves her ideal weight. The entire book she has been recording her weight and all her calories, and she’s been depressed because she can’t reach her target weight. And then, one day, she does.
And nothing happens. Her life doesn’t magically slot into place, she’s not immediately attractive and rich, she’s not miraculously changed. Someone tells her she looks a bit pale, and that’s it.
So I worry about the fact that I might never get those magically working intestines back, and I also worry about the fact that if I do get them back, I’ll be just as miserable still as I was in that mystery year – that my goal of an IBS-free existence wouldn’t really change anything. That by now IBS has infected all corners of my life to such an extent that it’s not the IBS that’s the problem anymore, it’s just me.
Sigh. Anyway, I would like to apologize for the nature of this blog entry, and assure you that the next one will be more a glass half-full kind of deal filled with fluffy little lambs and a dancing aardvark. Promise.
hi sophie so sorry to hear of your set back ive been ok for a few weeks and suddenly its reared it ugly head again i feel so tired and bloated then i see my mates
who are vastly over weight downing pints like theres no tomorrow and eating currys for all they are worth and hey guess what not even a tummy ache makes you sick ahah perhaps we are the chosen few anyway your not alone hope everything gets back to normal soon allan
Hi Sophie,
) – seems a fair exchange so far.
Sorry to hear you’re having a rough time at the moment. I always think to myself when I’m fed up that this just means I’m closer to another good patch. I have had an entertaining time recently. Tried amitryptyline (?) as a friend with IBS had found this very helpful. Thought I would enjoy the process but I just felt so doped even though I halved the dose that I gave it up after a week. Still its another one to cross off my list. This week I’m trying vegetable soup aiming to increase my soluble fibre intake. So far lots of gurgling, indigestion amd mild discomfort but excellent BMs
Hope things improve for you soon.
Thank you for this blog. I’m a first time commenter.
Hang in there.
I find that if I’m not as stressed and not as busy, I have time to sit around and think about my IBS and my other health issues too much. While stress does cause flare-ups, depending on what I’m stressed about, it might actually help me keep my mind off of the IBS. Right now I’m in a fairly low stress part of my life, and my IBS is horrible because I’m thinking about it constantly (or rather, I feel like it’s worse, because that’s all I’m focusing on).
Maybe if you create some stress at work, it’ll get better?
Hi Sophie.
I was sorry to read you’re going through a bad patch after doing so well, especially as you are not entirely sure why. It’s very frustrating. For me, it has now been several weeks with no IBS symptoms whatsoever. However, to acheive this I am following a very plain and sometimes difficult diet. Friends and family keep saying they don’t how I can stand it. My repsonse is it’s better than being in continual pain and discomfort, and I am learning to cook more and more foods – so it is getting less boring.
I have learnt 2 major things in the last few weeks:
1. How much processed food (& all the chemicals that go along with it) I was eating. It’s shocking what we put into our bodies!
2. How much healthier you feel eating ‘proper’ food – non processed. Ditch the packet meals, takeaways, fizzy drinks, crips, biscuits, packet sauces and so on. Make it yourself. It is a hassle and it is time consuming, but it IS worth it.
On a separate note – Sophie, do you just avoid your the foods the clinic told you to or are you cutting out others to? I had a list of around 14 foods given to me, but there are quite a few others I don’t eat because I know they upset my stomach. For example, it was only when I cut out my intolerant foods AND coffee that my symptons went, yet my test came back fine for coffee. Strange? I guess its all about trial and error.
I’m still reserving my judgment, as like Sophie I’m waiting for that dreaded attack. But, I think if I reach a milestone i.e 6 months, I will probably be shouting from the roof tops for all IBS sufferers to follow the food intolerance route. Ellie x
Hi guys – thanks for all your comments. I think Lisa has made an interesting point there. I do tend to think about IBS quite a lot these days, partly because my job is stress-free but mainly because I now run a number of different websites on IBS.
In one way I love running the sites, I get to talk to some lovely people and feel like I am completely normal as far as IBS goes, but on the otherhand sometimes I do wonder whether the sites make me wallow in the IBS a bit too much when I should be trying to take my mind off it. I don’t think that the wallowing affects my actual physical symptoms to any great extent, but it definitely affects my mental state.
To Ellie – like you I do cut out some foods that were not on my list, because when it’s stuff like coffee I think that we don’t even need to be intolerant to it, it is such powerful stuff that it can affect us anyway. So I don’t drink coffee or alcohol and try to avoid artificial sweeteners.
Thank God I found this site, I was beginning to think I was the only one and that IBS was just an urban legend. 6 weeks of feeling ok? What a blessing. The longest I’ve managed to go without “incident” in the past year is 6 days. Trying to lead a normal life is difficult. I drive 70 miles to work and back and I know where every decent restroom is for every single exit along the way. I can no longer have alcohol at all so I always get water with a lime in it so people think I’m having a targaray and tonic and leave me alone about it. I always ask for a to go box when I place my order at a restaurant so I can put most of it away and not be tempted to eat it there because I know I will have to run off to the bathroom and leave all my friends sitting there shaking their heads. Sometimes it just takes about 2 bites of food to trigger an episode. My doctor is no help, she say’s it’s stress and I need to relax. Hard to do that when you’re doubled over on the bathroom floor. Glad to find a place where I fit in…thank you!!!
Hi Sophie I have had IBS about as long as you have. I am also about the same age as you. I have had many of the same symptoms that you have described. I also had a “mystery year” (1997). But from 1998 to 2005 my IBS symptoms were well pronounced. I have found some wonderfull alternative treatments on the market. I started these treatments in January of this year (2006). I have since been 98% free of my IBS symptoms. I did a colon cleanse but, I adjusted the sosage to suit my body ( Personalized dosage). There are also some great products out on the market here in the U.S.. They are Digestrin and Digestrol.
I took the later from March to mid April of this year, and stopped. Why did I stop you ask, because I was completley free of my symptoms within a mere six weeks! I have been taking this treatment once every other week since mid May. I have noticed a major cahange in everything. No burning pains, no constipation, no back pain, no gas. I recommend that you check out some of these products. Sincerely Bill
Hi Bill – welcome to the site! That’s great that you found something that worked for you. My main concern with something like Digestrin is that they tend to give a pretty hard sell – their website says that it has an 89.7% success rate for example, but they don’t seem to provide any details of the trials that came up with that number. I guess the rule is buyer beware as always – check the ingredients, check it can be taken long-term, check the evidence and clinical trials, and remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!
Hi guys. It’s good to read (but sad as well) that there are so many of us out there suffering. I spent £100 yesterday seeing a top consultant privately, only for him to confirm that I have IBS! Not exactly earth shattering news given that I KNEW that already! Anyway, my IBS has changed recently and I have constipation-based ibs, with terrible bloating and,excuse me, but terrible wind! I have looked at some of the stuff you guys can get but I can’tget it here in the UK – anyone got anything they can recommend and how can I get it here? Thanks for any replies. Julie
Hey everyone I’m a first time commenter too, I’ve also been quite recently diagnosed and am praying that they’ve made a mistake and that maybe it is normal for a stomach bug to last more than a month! I’ve checked out the Digestrol and Digestrin sites and right now I’m desperate to try anything – its gotten to the point where I feel guilty about going to the doctors, and since they just switch me from one set of meds to the next I think my bowels are suffering even more so anyway!
I’m in uni at the moment and I don’t know how I’m going to cope sitting through lectures without having to get up and go every half hour – how do you guys do it?? I can barely walk to the corner shop!! Christy
which ever site i go i find that they are going to try digestrol but has any one tried it ??? can some one pls answer this question ..
Hi GP – I would rate Digestrol about the same as I would rate Digestrin, ie: not very highly I’m afraid. It’s another product which seems to promise the world, and their marketing seems to say that while doctors know nothing about IBS, their company has miraculously found the solution anyway! I don’t think that’s quite true…They also say this on their website:
“8 out of 10 of the patients who have IBS report it as a progressive condition that can disable them within only a few increasingly painful years from the point of experiencing the first symptom.”
This isn’t true at all – IBS is NOT a progressive condition, and while some people do get worse, lots of people get better as well, while lots of other people have some good years and some bad ones. I certainly don’t believe for a second that 80% of sufferers become ‘disabled’ by IBS within two years – lots of people just suffer from mild to moderate IBS. Sounds like scare tactics to me.
I have to agree it is the pain that does it for me. There has been so many times at work when i’ve disappeared to the toilet again so i can sit in and cry about the stomach pain in private, i’ve got to the point now whereby I feel guilty when people ask how I am, as I never get better. The only trouble I have is people are constantly moaning about how long i spend in the toilets at work, as if I haven’t got enough problems. Some one mention how they have 2 bites of food and feel it, i’m the same. But I generally find myself being sick everytime I eat at the moment so have got to the point where I can’t eat as everything I look at turns my stomach. My Doctor gave me some anti sickness tablets, but then started up about asking how things were at home, i’m so fed up of that one.
hi this site is really helpful to me i thought i was a freak! been to doc many times and its the same thing every single time change medication, do blood test. dont think unless you suffer with ibs people realise how much it takes over your life! ordered some digesrol last week should be here soon , hoping its a miracle cure and i can have my life back.ive been living on diarreah tables for nearly two years! im also obsessed with thinking i need the toilet and trying to forse myself to go before i dare go anywhere. ill keep you posted as to how my miracle cure goes. tammy x
The thing that has really helped me with my IBS (suffering for 8 years) is that I do take Digestrin, but I came across something that really helped by accident.
Believe it or not I had a doctor prescribe amythripiline at 10 mg. NOW THIS IS USED AS a comomon ANTIDEPRESSANT at 100mg. But they found that at 10mg it is incredible as an antispasmodic for the colon. It has made a huge difference and it doesnt have any side effects for the mind as it is a really low dose.
The other thing that really works for me is Colonix by Dr. Natura. I use the fiber daily and it makes a huge difference. It stops the diarreha, the gas and bloating as well. It finally gave me normal stool and plenty of it…(sorry)
I dont take any RX chemical medicines except for the low dose of the amytripoline. I used to be on 3 IBS MEDICINES THAT THE GASTRO DOCTOR PRESCRIBED… I found this stuff and stopped taking all the RX which didnt help anyway!
I hope this helps someone! It really helped me!
Where can I buy this Colonix Dr.Natura set?
I`m living in Swindon.
Thank you very much, for your help!!
Monika
Hi Monika – I’d do a Google on it, pretty sure he has his own site. I’d be wary through and check the ingredients thoroughly of any product before you buy.