bpchick said...
Yes, I came up negative for Celiac.
I just heard from Hamilton. All of my pathologies are perfectly normal. My appt is Sept 17th unless the doctor feels it is more urgent, which will probably not be the case. I am on the cancellation list but must be available immediately otherwise they will call the next person on the list... and I am 45 minutes to an hour away....
It must be all in my head........ Maybe I really am a nutjob...
You are NOT a nutjob and it is NOT all in your head. Like most of the good folks on this message board, I've been poked, prodded, scoped, doped, scanned, x-rayed, irrigated, therapized, and more. STILL, there has never been any success with medical or naturopathic doctors. Like Keriamon said, they simply DON'T KNOW. The people who suffer with this miserable "syndrome" know more than the professionals because we live with it every day and use ourselves as guinea pigs. In the desperate search for relief, most of us have tried everything to make our daily lives more manageable.
I read your other post about your GP's apathetic response to your condition. We've all been there. I was dx way back in the late 70's, before the condition was called IBS. I was told I had "lazy bowels" (is that in a medical dictionary?), colitis, spastic colon and finally, in the 90's, they decided it was going to be called IBS. No matter what name they used, not one doctor ever had a solution or the TIME and COMPASSION to really DEAL with me. I was given drugs (some of them worked for a brief time), recommendations (fiber, fiber, fiber - it's the only word they know), and referrals ("have you tried psychotherapy?"). Naturopathic docs wanted me to poop in jars, keep food diaries, eliminate whole food groups, eat very weird things and drink disgusting elixirs. I did it all. Some things help for a time, other things not at all. Even naturopaths, who have an almost religious reverence for the bowel, don't know how to "cure" IBS.
The crazy thing about this disorder is that it really FORCES you to think about your life in a positive way. It makes you examine how you eat, how you interact in the world, how you allow stress to effect you. I've had to make all kinds of changes in my lifestyle - some of them good, some unpleasant. But it's also opened doors for me. It's made me more compassionate with others who suffer. It's made me look closely at my diet (which is always a good thing), my management of stress, and my relationships. It forces you to be intimate in ways most people would never dare. In my circle of friends, poop and pooping is a constant topic of conversation. And once people open up about their bathroom habits, they'll talk about almost anything!
Try not to get too discouraged. But even when you do, it can't last long. The constant quest for answers never leaves and propels us forward even when we feel like we can't go on. And you always have us!