if you really think about it, what is IBS?

I'm just a novice at this. Struggling as many of you do, trying my darndest to fit in with folks who seem to be able to eat anything w/o stomach upset and then digest anything without upset, etc.

The bowels are just irritated. It's all connected. Apparently.

Doctors seem to constantly compare us to the percentage of people who can eat anything they want and have no trouble, whatsoever.

Not that I want folks with iron clad stomaches and GI tracts to suffer, but it would be nice if we all could have ONE normal day, strewn amongst the bad days......sigh.

Only way I know how to limit my symptoms is to reduce my solid intake. I've been at this for 9 years now.

Mary

Pamela - oh I've tried everything in 9 years.

1. After my temp colostomy was reversed, I was told I could anything I wanted but in 4 to 6 small meals. Wrong! So here I was eating whole wheat products (bread, cereal, bagels) and fresh summer fruit (all the berries, pineapple, along with tomatoes, etc.). I was a MESS!

2. I then went on a low residue diet. It literally saved me from having to live between my bathroom and my bedroom rocking chair.

3. I still follow the LRD about 75% of the time. It is simply, the way I should eat for the rest of my life.

4. I tried Fiber-con pills for about 2 years. They didn't help much.

5. I tried retraining my bowels for a short period: eating a large bowl of bran cereal for breakfast, drinking a large glass of water mixed with Metamucil, inserting a Pediatric suppository and waiting for bm's to start. They lasted 5 hours! So this retraining idea didn't work either. But I did try it (at my colon surgeon's suggestion).

6. I've tried Caltrate chewables, but they ended up binding up my stool so much I was in discomfort. Not exactly C, but they ended up giving me lots of cramping, etc. However, an occasional Rolaids doesn't bother me like this.

7. I've been taking an evening 50 mg dose of Colace (this is a Pediatric dose I was told). This seems to really help. It doesn't induce D or repeated bm's, but rather it keeps the stool soft and easily passed.

8. I've tried weekly enemas, I did them faithfully for about 2 years but I had a few last much longer than 1 to 2 hours. A few lasted 12 hours and I was extremely dehydrated from the effects. So now I save an enema for when I cannot turn my least favorite stool stage - putty, messy, not formed, but not D either - around. I hate this stage. It goes on and on, and I keep wiping and wiping. It's such a mess. I have to flush the toilet about 5 times. So if I'm at someone's house, it's embarrassing. They hear you flush the first time and naturally think you're done and will be right out. Wrong!

Oh, there's more I'm sure but these are most of the things I've tried.

The one that works the best is to reduce the amount of solids I take in but I keep up my fluid intake. I do this for vacations, traveling, social events such as weddings. I just skip meals 2 to 4 hours before the event. But I make sure I had good meals leading up to this mini-fast.

Mostly, I think we all have to find what works best for each of us. Some find fiber is helpful, some find it makes things much worse (as in my case).

I hope I've answered your questions as simply as I could. I hardly ever experience constipation. Even when the Caltrate pills messed me up, it wasn't exactly C. I really have no idea what C is like anymore. Since I go all the time (15 bm's a day, on average).

Mary/Marsky

jrlm said...
im confused.. i mean all the doctors i go to give me medicine for pain, and i realize that my stomache is very sensitive, but is that what IBS is? i dont understand how everything can be fine, but cause so much. i dont understand what it is that is causing the bad pain, and the gas, and the weird digesting.

i am very detirmined to get better, but if theres nothing wrong, is there nothing to really heal?

i am just very confused and upset about it i guess. if anyone wants to share anything, go ahead

It is confusing!  I agree!  Sometimes it's impossible to comprehend that this "thing" that causes so much distruption could be benign! 

I tend to think that medicine just hasn't isolated the "real" cause behind IBS.  Remember ulcers?  Until the last 10 years, doctors really didn't understand what caused them.  Now they seem to agree that they originate from an infection and apparently a quick course of antibiotics can cure this condition that previously ruined people's lives. 

There are many conditions where the cause is unknown.  Fibromyalgia seems to have the medical community quite stumped, although it looks to me as though they are advancing with the treatments more rapidly than with IBS (last IBS treatment was Zelnorm - and look how that turned out!).  Even chronic headaches are a stumper for most doctors.  I've been complaining for years that IBS research doesn't get enough funding.  If even one tenth of the money that goes into ED research went into IBS, we would probably see some improvements in care.  Hell, even if they gave money for education (especially to educate doctors) about IBS we would all benefit.

My personal theory is that IBS is an adult form of colic, a condition that doctors still don't understand yet mirrors IBS in many ways.  In my "theory", I would venture a guess that if many of us asked our mamas what we were like as babies, we would find that tummy problems started very early on.  I can remember mysterious stomach aches all the way back to Kindergarten - the kind that kept me home from school. 

Hypersensitity, both in the gut and in the heart and head, seem to contribute to IBS symptoms.  We can probably all remember situations where extreme anxiety caused explosive intestinal responses.  I would guess some of us even have "issues" with food as well. 

For me, I think the problem of IBS has been exacerbated tremendously by all the attempts to treat it.  When I think back to my teen years, when my symptoms first started, I wonder what might have happened if I had just left my system alone, to work things out itself.  Rather than introducing laxatives, pain pills, motility pills, fiber supplements, wacky diets, not eating, eating all the time, herbs, enemas, anti-depressants, and on and on.  Who knows what might have happened if I had just left it alone!

Yes, and I can remember the very FIRST time I experienced severe constipation and was old enough to verbalize it (as a little kid, I remember enemas too!).  I was about 15 years old and I told my mama that I was in pain and "couldn't go".  Her solution (and this should have been a BIG HINT) was to have me use a suppository, which we curiously had a huge supply of in the medicine cabinet.  Even at that age I remember thinking that I could always use the suppository if I ever had a problem.  It was firmly implanted in my psyche at that age that there would always be a medical solution to the problem of pain and C. 

gutastrophe said...

jrlm said...
im confused.. i mean all the doctors i go to give me medicine for pain, and i realize that my stomache is very sensitive, but is that what IBS is? i dont understand how everything can be fine, but cause so much. i dont understand what it is that is causing the bad pain, and the gas, and the weird digesting.

i am very detirmined to get better, but if theres nothing wrong, is there nothing to really heal?

i am just very confused and upset about it i guess. if anyone wants to share anything, go ahead

It is confusing!  I agree!  Sometimes it's impossible to comprehend that this "thing" that causes so much distruption could be benign! 

I tend to think that medicine just hasn't isolated the "real" cause behind IBS.  Remember ulcers?  Until the last 10 years, doctors really didn't understand what caused them.  Now they seem to agree that they originate from an infection and apparently a quick course of antibiotics can cure this condition that previously ruined people's lives. 

There are many conditions where the cause is unknown.  Fibromyalgia seems to have the medical community quite stumped, although it looks to me as though they are advancing with the treatments more rapidly than with IBS (last IBS treatment was Zelnorm - and look how that turned out!).  Even chronic headaches are a stumper for most doctors.  I've been complaining for years that IBS research doesn't get enough funding.  If even one tenth of the money that goes into ED research went into IBS, we would probably see some improvements in care.  Hell, even if they gave money for education (especially to educate doctors) about IBS we would all benefit.

My personal theory is that IBS is an adult form of colic, a condition that doctors still don't understand yet mirrors IBS in many ways.  In my "theory", I would venture a guess that if many of us asked our mamas what we were like as babies, we would find that tummy problems started very early on.  I can remember mysterious stomach aches all the way back to Kindergarten - the kind that kept me home from school. 

Hypersensitity, both in the gut and in the heart and head, seem to contribute to IBS symptoms.  We can probably all remember situations where extreme anxiety caused explosive intestinal responses.  I would guess some of us even have "issues" with food as well. 

For me, I think the problem of IBS has been exacerbated tremendously by all the attempts to treat it.  When I think back to my teen years, when my symptomos first started, I wonder what might have happened if I had just left my system alone, to work things out itself.  Rather than introducing laxatives, pain pills, motility pills, fiber supplements, wacky diets, not eating, eating all the time, herbs, enemas, anti-depressants, and on and on.  Who knows what might have happened if I had just left it alone!

i really like your point of view. I recently visited a naturopath, and most of her questions were about my early childhood and such, becuase IBS cant just start on its own, (i dont think), and i remember getting mysterious stomache aches too. it first started in grade 4, and i guess i had a bit of stress in my childhood but nohting too dramatic. I had a view anxiety problems, and i worried a lot.  It's so strange, and i have asked myself the same question about all the medicaxtion i have been on, and that im currently on. Maybe it just has made things worse and worse. I always say i will go off of it, but i am afraid to becuase its pain medication, and i certainly dont want my pain to be any worse, but going off may help in the long run.

IBS is getting more and more common, and you would think that would bring a lot more attention to it, besides the same old thing, your stomche is sensitive and whatnot.

Anyway, i liked your opinion gutostrophe. thanks for the input:)

You all one to know what one of my main problems is? Consistency. If one approach would work 24/7, then I'd have all of this figured out. But I've tried so many approaches (medications, fasting, etc.) over the years. For me personally, one thing is related to another and I feel like a walking jigsaw puzzle. If all the pieces are there, I do okay. But let our social calendar become overbooked or the holidays looming ahead and everything seems to get out of whack for me. One of my daughters said the other day I need to get out more. As in, be as busy as she is (she's 21, need I say more?). Like a few of my relatives who think they can counsel me on how to live my life, I just smiled and said okay then......I've asked hubby if he wants a very busy social calendar but he's content to just go out occasionally too. So there you have it. I guess I'm an old fuddy dud at age 53. With IBS! LOL But anywho, if I knew what one thing helps me the most and I could do it day in, day out, I'd be in good shape. Trouble is when something seems to really work for me, it doesn't after a while. I hate that! And the social part of this disease is almost anything you're invited to involves a meal. Sigh.........I just no longer try to explain this to anyone, other than my immediate family and even they (ie the 21 year old daughter who thinks I stay home too much) don't always understand. People think my stomach is upset usually and you know what - I let them think it's simple nausea. It's so much easier to explain with oh yeah, I'm feeling nauseous today....

If only it was THAT!

I'm rambling on a Sunday morning.......I somehow got out of an early boating trip with 2 of my family members. I am meeting them for lunch later though. I know they're disappointed I'm not on it but I would have had to skip breakfast. When they gave me the option to meet them later, I took it!

Mary/Marsky