Would You Choose to Have IBS?

I just heard on another message board that I'm on that they are trying to get some more "diet drugs" passed by the FDA.  One is a weaker version of Xenical, that will be available OTC, which someone described as follows:

"Xenical, as you probably know, works by blocking the absorption of fat in the digestive process.  You can tell it's working because if you eat "too much" fat, you can have oily diarrhea and [smelly] discharge or even basically lose bowel function (albeit, temporarily)."

People who have gastric bypass surgery also wind up having "gastric dumping" which means if they eat too much they either vomit it back up or it goes right through them and they have horrible pain and diarrhea.  I think in both cases "too much" food really equates to a smaller than average meal. 

So given that so many of us suffer from chronic diarrhea or even gastric dumping or vomiting, would any of us willingly endure this, even if ceasing to have IBS meant you would gain 20 or more pounds?  Would you trade thinness for health or health for thinness?  There are some of us here who are already "overweight", despite being sick.  Personally, I lost two dress sizes when I had a bad gall bladder and I wasn't happy with it.  I looked horrible and felt worse.  It was not a good way to lose weight, being sick all the time and unable to eat.  At that point I would have been glad to have been back at a size 14 if it meant not being sick.  Even now I would not give myself diarrhea on purpose for any reason in the world, even if it meant I got bigger.   Or, to broaden it up, what would you be willing to give up if it meant no more IBS forever?

(Now, if they'd just spend all of that money on diet drugs on developing a cure for IBS instead....)

Well, I figure it's a "grass is always greener" sort of a thing. If you are healthy but fat and hate it, you may be willing to be sick sometimes to be less fat. Of course, for most of us, I think, we'd trade anything to be healthy most of the time. I don't think people understand what being sick is until they have to go through it. If I ever had any notions of having a child, they were completely eradicated by 5 years of gall bladder attacks. I don't ever want to hurt that much again. The thought that labor will be be like one gigantic gall bladder attack that goes on for hours on end... no thank you. Been there, done that, paid my dues.

Doctors are so much more sympathetic if they themselves have had a lingering illness. And of course that's why we have to get Sarita into medical school.

Well I have IBS and I am not skinny and still need to lose at least 20 lbs to be on the heakthier side, its the lack of exercise thats preventingme form losing weight , I dont eat that much, but enough, but the right kinds of stuff, so I am working on a better exericixe regimin and hoping for the best...

Very interesting topic,

From my experience i cant believe anyone would want IBS to be thin. My IBS was chronic in Sept and in 2 months i went from 147 pounds to 107 pounds. Im very small build so before i was really quite fat but I would give anything to be my old fat happy self!!!

This put it this way if I was given the choice of being rich or not having IBS i'm pretty sure most of us would not want IBS.

Well, there are some surveys out there where they asked women if they would rather be thin than smart and the majority of them said yes, they'd rather be stupid and skinny. There was also a survey done informally by the author of "The Obesity Myth" and he asked if there was a drug that would make you as thin as you want, but it took years off your life, would you take it? And if so, how many years would you be willing to give up? Not only did almost all the women say they would up a few years of life to be thin, but I think most of them were willing to give up between 5-10 years. I think the high-end answer was something like 15 or 20 years. Man, talk about hating your fat!

Although, I must admit, I might be willing to give up one or two years if it came at the end of my life because the older you get worse the quality of your health. Giving up some sick, maybe even immobile years would be no big deal because I probably wouldn't want to live them anyways. If dying a bit early kept me from having to live my remaining few years in a nursing home, then it would be a blessing, really, in my opinion. But I certainly would not give up good, healthy years of my life. I would not take it if it hurried up the aging process.

Bunny, you mention people "joking" about your losing weight. When I lost two dress sizes with my gall bladder, and I came home from college, I looked like death warmed over, yet everyone told me how great I looked and that I needed to maintain that weight because I looked just right. o.O Umm... hello? Do you not see this grayish-yellow tinge I have to my skin? Do you not see that a lot of my weight came out of my chest so my boobs are smaller (!) and I have those Hollywood-style clavicles that are so prominent and sharp-looking people joke you can cut butter with them? Don't you people see that I look horrible and sickly? Apparently no one did see that I looked horrible, except maybe my mother who knew how bad sick I was and said I didn't really look well (but then she's a nurse, so she has a critical eye that way). And I think some family were disappointed when I ended up gaining my weight back over the next couple of years.

Just goes to show you we're so preoccupied with being thin that we can't even recognize that it's not always healthy to be thin and that thinness can actually be a sign of serious illness.

http://movies.msn.com/celebs/gallery.aspx?photo=329562&gallery=5228#photos Yikes!
http://movies.msn.com/celebs/gallery.aspx?photo=329556&gallery=5228#photos And ewwwwww.

Lovely role models, hmm? And to think they go hungry on purpose. Man, wouldn't I love to be able to drink cokes and apple juice with abandon again. To not worry if pizza or spicy food might bother me tomorrow.

Here's wishing all of you some easily-digested, non-sickening, highly fattening, utterly tasty Nutella spread between two big Mrs. Field's M&M and chocolate chip cookies. Of course those cookies with cream are also very lovely.

Hi Peppertree,
You may be correct about doctors not wanting a cure but if there was ever one to be developed, the insurance companies would expose it!!! According to recent articles, IBS is one of the leading costs to insurance companies which only make profits if we don't need medical attention. IBS is one of the leading reasons for doctor visits which means more pay out by the insurance companies. Believe me, they wouldn't let a cure get pushed under the carpet.

bluemeanies,

Believe me no one wants this disorder!!! Regardless of weight. Ive always been a petite person, never weighed over 110 in my whole life. But, since this has happened, ive gotten down 99pds, not fun, not attractive, not a good thing for me. I like myself just fine, its the contant trips to the bathroom over and over everyday, the accidents , which can happen anywhere, thinking you have gas, and uh oh, it was more than gas. Beleive me this disorder plays no favorites to anyone anywhere, anytime.  I just think its time that reasearch was focused on this and not downplayed and Billons of dollars spent on testings, doctors, meds that work, and your still where you started!!!

Peppertree

Why rant on to me? The question asked is "would you give yourself IBS to be thin". I did not ask it and my reply says how I feel about it. I have crohn's disease and IBS so I fully understand what it does to you. I didn't say a thing about research dollars either, where did that come from.

I didn't mean this question to be a judgemental thing or even to imply that people should do it. I was just curious, in this, the season of weight loss, whether people felt that being sick was worse than being fat? For the people that take these drugs and, God help them, get gastric bypass surgery, they feel that being fat IS worse than being sick--or else they can't comprehend what it's like to be sick all the time like us until it's too late.

And for some people, this isn't a matter of asthetics, it's a matter of health. Doctors tell them that they will die if they don't lose weight--some doctors even stoop so low to deny medical treatment to some overweight/obese people if they don't lose some amount of weight first--even if their condition is unrelated to their weight. So I guess for some people, it's a trade off: have IBS but not have other health problems and get medical attention or not have IBS, but have other health problems and have difficulty getting medical attention. There is no clear answer in those cases.

But, sadly, it's true that for a lot of people losing weight is aesthetic, which means that they are ruining their health just because they are not happy with themselves. In this day and age, and especially for women, it can be so hard to like your body. In fact, I think it's downright fashionable to dislike at least some part of yourself, if not even most of yourself. And I think for people with IBS it can be hard to like your body, not because of the way it looks, but because it won't function properly. I don't know what the message to take away from here is, because I didn't really mean for there to be a message, just a question out of curiosity, but if nothing else, if we have family or friends who we see heading for these radical and unhealthy choices we can at least say, "Hey, whoa, you don't want to go there; you do NOT want to be sick all the time like me. I like you plump and healthy just as you are now."

I'll now return everyone to their regular IBS conversations. Beeeeeeeeeep!

I have been almost half seriously asking why I can't have a complete body transplant. I would take the most overweight, out of shape body there is just to have the opportunity to be healthy. I could diet and exercise if I had a body that wasn't loaded down with auto-immune diseases, but in this body, I can't. It's a loosing battle when you can't absorb the nutrients you need and your joints just don't work. Yes, I know that being overweight would take a lot more work, but I can do the work, if I had a somewhat healthy body to work with.