men conquering diarrhea - page five
The tale of...Jake
After reading some of these stories I realize that I may not have as severe a case of IBS as some people. But I've definitely had my share of racing for the toilet, leaving parties and dinners early, running red lights on the way home, etc. One time I had to go so bad in this awful bar with the worst toilet in all of Chicago. There was no stall and the toilet was disgusting. To top it off, there was no toilet paper so you know what I did? I took off my underwear and got it wet in the sink and used that! I had to throw out my underwear and go commando the rest of the night!
Women - I will dare to say that you do have it a tiny, tiny bit easier because men's rooms rarely have stall doors and guys routinely pee all over the seat. Not fun. Also, women disappear into the bathroom for hours to fix their make-up, have a chat, etc. We men never know what you're doing in there! Whereas if a guy is in there longer than 15 seconds, everybody knows he's taking a crap!
Anyway, on to the self-help advice. The thing that I found has helped me the most recently is that I started to get a bit scientific about paying attention to my body and reaction to foods. This probably sounds gross, but I try to identify the food when it comes back out! Some foods are easy, like corn for example. The thing that this helped me to discover is that not only do foods have various negative and positive effects, but their effects have different timing.
It took me a long while to figure out that spicy food was messing up my system because it doesn't cause problems until about two days later. Whereas eating red meat or drinking coffee will cause an almost instant reaction for me. Eating a green salad, on the other hand, is extremely helpful - but it doesn't start to have an effect for two or three days.
I don't know why this is, but once I started paying more attention it has been a major change for me. I eat a lot of salads and avoid spicy food now and that has had a huge, huge effect. Also, I like knowing that I am taking a healthy approach as opposed to eating a bunch of garbage and then trying to reverse nature with a pill. I know everyone's situation is different and medication is the right choice for some people. But for me if I can remove the cause that is preferable to treating the symptoms.
The other related problem for me is the feeling that I have to go urgently, but then I can't go. That one probably messes me up the most because that's when you have to go to the bathroom over and over and never get any relief. At least with diarrhea you get it over with! The constipation is really torture that keeps on going.
I've noticed that the nerves and feelings in my digestive system are sensitive but not exactly precise. For instance, the spicy food - I'll start to feel like an emergency is coming on within about eight hours of eating. But it's only working its way through my system at this point. I won't be ready to actually crap it out yet (excuse the grossness) but I'll have cramps and feel like I have to go.
My colon seems to just send a generic distress signal to my brain and it's hard to distinguish between that and truly having to go. I might feel this way for a whole 24 hours before the inevitable happens. So, I try now to be very sensitive to my body and sometimes I can feel the difference now. Though I still have uncomfortable cramps it does save me a few fruitless trips to the bathroom.
I've also found that if I'm at home where I can go to the bathroom whenever I want at a moment's notice, I'll try not to go to the bathroom until I absolutely have to. A lot of times the cramps will just pass if you don't try to force it. If I try to go constantly, it's always worse. If I wait as long as possible, that seems to let my system "catch up" or whatever. Of course, it's better to avoid the bad food in the first place, but we can't be good all the time!
I hope that my information is helpful to someone. It's probably just common sense, but nobody ever gave me this advice, I feel like I've had to figure it out for myself.
The tale of...Chris
I had very bad IBS from 1989 to 2004/05, by which I mean I was in constant fear of soiling myself, worried about getting on a bus or visiting someone else's house, and never got a full night's sleep. I did however develop an almost supernatural ability to find suitably concealed places in which to relieve myself.
I had given up on the standard medical response a very long time ago and had decided to live with it, but having read a Danish document (I'm a translator by trade) about the "azole" group of drugs, I decided to try that route. I had already convinced myself that my IBS was due to an imbalance in the gut flora.
The whole thing had started after a course of antibiotics for an earache. It began with vast amounts of wind, then gradually the foul-smelling stools, blood and severe stomach cramps, all of which I interpreted as a change in the gut flora as the bad stuff took a hold and got settled.
It occurred to me that if 50% of the dry weight of excrement consists of dead bacteria, they must play an extremely important part in digestion and the production of gas. The fact that I was producing something that was frankly toxic must therefore be due to an altered internal flora. There was something living in there that shouldn't have been there, and my body wanted rid of it - as quickly as possible. I reasoned that it was this process and the presence of toxins produced by the unwelcome guests that was irritating my gut.
So, back to the treatment: I persuaded my GP to prescribe some itraconazole (trade name Sporanox) and the change was instant. The gas and bloating went and my stools returned to normal. At the time I didn't realise that this needed management, so over time the IBS returned. I tried the itraconazol a few more times, but eventually it became ineffective as the yeast became tolerant.
More recently, with my condition as bad as it had ever been, I decided to try herbal anti-mycotics (substances that kill yeast, in this case the presumed Candida Albicans) and started with a grapefruit seed extract. This restored some normality and at least removed the urgency. Next I tried out pao d'arco (the scrapings of the inner bark of a Brazilian tree). This turned out to be the miracle drug.
Having eliminated the yeast from my gut, I started eating live yoghurt in order to repopulate my gut. Over the following months I managed any deterioration with more pao d'arco and live yoghurt, and now I hardly ever need to take anything. I no longer consider myself to have IBS and I can eat and drink anything - spicy food and neat spirits included. I can now enjoy the sensation of pushing a fart out (I'm sorry about this, but I'm sure you'll understand), I move my bowels once or twice a day and my stools are hard and have a wonderful, healthy farmyard aroma, as they should.
E-mail Chris: chris[at]mrwhiteley.karoo.co.uk
The tale of...Lee
I started suffering from IBS when I was about 18 years old, although I did not know what it was. All I got was a bad pain in my gut. Most times I would wake up at about 2am, sometimes a bit later, and just sit there in deep pain, holding my gut and just praying to God to help.
I used to only get pain in my gut in the morning, but then it got worse - a lot worse. I started being sick and never going to the toilet. My doctor was puzzled by my symptoms and he told me to take painkillers as it was only growing pains. But I knew it was more than that.
So I started researching on different things on the NHS and on the internet. And suddenly I saw a little add in the bottom of my screen explaining symptoms that I had. I had my answer, it was IBS. So fuelled with this information I went back to my doctor and told him about it.
He was very understanding and wanted to start treatment instantly. He give me some tablets called mebeverine hydrochloride. After about three days of taking one tablet with every meal, I felt better, no more pain or being sick. Three years on l still suffer from IBS but I can take my tablet and forget about it.
E-mail Lee: lee_in_uk22[at]yahoo.com