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Irritable Bowel Syndrome
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Posted 8/12/2006 2:11 AM (GMT 0)
I don't know if anyone would be willing to do this, but for those of us that are new to this whole IBS thing, I was thinking maybe if one of the veterans who has had this darn disease for a while could walk us through their day.

I was just reading something that made me think. It was on a website about IBS and UC and Crohn's and the woman said it's difficult to judge things like pain tolerance and what have you because you only know how it feels to you. Her example was, if you are in a room with 9 other people and you all have your leg cut off and you are all laying there screaming in pain, you can assume it hurts everybody. But what happens if everyone has their leg cut off and you are the only one laying there screaming, while the others are reading a magazine or sewing or what have you.

I was thinking this group is kind of like that. I can sit here and say my stomach is killing me and it might be, but to someone else it might not be that bad. I just thought it might be a good way to put things in perspective. I know when I was first diagnosed with UC and started having really bad symptoms I thought I was dying. I wish I had known about this group then.

Having your body going haywire is a scary thing, and since I assume most of us are worriers it only makes it that much worse. For people that just have this start happening to them could be scary for them and I thought this might be a good way to give them some perspective.

I understand this is an incredibly personal thing to ask and go through, I just thought it might help. Maybe, I'm way off base and please don't anyone take this the worng way. I was thinking symptoms throughout the day, frequency of BMs, meds you take if any, that kind of thing. I'd do it myself, but without being absolutely sure this is IBS I don't want to put any false information out there...

Any takers?

Posted 8/13/2006 11:59 PM (GMT 0)
I've had IBS for a couple years now, and I've done a lot of research to find what works for me. Here is an idea of my typical day.

Breakfast: protein shake powder with water, blueberries and cod liver oil
Take vitamins: for stress, digestive enzymes and anti-inflamitory
Drink lots of water
Vocal excercises: singing really helps my stomach

Lunch: 1 or 2 hard boiled eggs (just the white), 1 cup raw vegetables, 1 cup fruit salad
Take digestive enzymes and anti-inflamitory
Try to keep walking and moving around

Snack: Rice crackers or rice bread
Drink lots of water

Dinner: Chicken, salad, potatoes, fruit, peppermint tea
Take digestive enzymes and anti-inflamatory
Lie down with the Magic Bag on my belly, or go for a walk or do situps...to help things settle down

I have found that I have to be very careful with what I eat, and this helps me to stay regular. I recently finished the Isagenix cleanse, which was 9 days of eating very little, but feeling great. I also have had some success with Dr. Penny Kendall-Reed, who specialises in IBS treatment and stress relief. She helped to bring down my very high blood pressure levels with natural supplements.

Along the way I have learned a few tricks. For a perfect bowel movement every morning that you could set your watch to, have cornflakes with rice milk and a tablespoon of wheat germ everyday for breakfast. If you don't like the taste, you can add raisins.

The Magic Bag, that you heat up in the microwave, does a great job of calming down a tight, anxious stomach.

Peppermint tea is good to calm you down, and pineapple is a natural anti-inflammatory.

If you want to really feel good, restricting your diet is the best way to do it. There are lists of things to avoid, but I'll give you a list of things to eat:

Blueberries, grapes, pineapple, melon, carrots, lettuce, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, zuccini, yams, potatoes, rice, eggs, chicken, fish...then of course there are specialty flours, milks, cheeses and things to substitute milk and wheat products. Baked Lays chips are a good snack. Really try to stay away from anything processed, fried, or sweet.

That's the best I can give you. Keep reading and trying to understand your body. The more you know, the better. Hope you feel better, and don't forget...don't worry about it.
Posted 8/14/2006 12:12 AM (GMT 0)

That's great! Thank you.

Although I don't know if I'd be able to eat some of the stuff on your list. I have to avoid all raw veggies, at least right now. I'm pretty sure that's what got me to my present situation.

I'll definitely be trying the corn flakes and wheat germ though. I could choke down a roof shingle if it meant a fulfilling BM.

Thanks again,

Posted 8/14/2006 2:40 AM (GMT 0)
Hi Cash- I hesitated to respond to this as a day in my life isn't all that exciting!  It really depends.  My symtoms are occasional bouts of diarrhea (that come on with absolutely no notice, sometimes incontinence), more often lately, constipation.  My main symptom however is nausea.  It ranges from mild to severe depending on the day.  I myself follow the 'Soluble Fiber First' diet.  I never start an empty stomach on anything but soluble fiber (oatmeal, rice, pasta, potatoes) and then carefully follow it w/other foods.  I also take a fiber shake daily.  I've been on Compazine, Zofran, Reglan, Ativan and on and on. . .  Currently, I carry Zofran and Compazine with me at all times.  (Compazine works nicely but also nicely puts me to sleep!  So, I've been taking a lower dose in hopes of building up a tolerance to it, so I can take a dose that works if that makes any sense) Unfortunately, I tend to run on the anxious side so depending on the day, I'm thinking occasionally to very frequently about the nausea (ie.- 'I wonder if I'll be nauseous today', 'Oh God- I'm nauseous again', 'How bad is this going to get', 'how long will this last?'- it goes anywhere from one day to several weeks at a time. Very weird!!)  That's more the part that i"m trying harder to control as it can be in the way.  So other than that, I also listen to the 'IBS Audio 100 Program- a 100 night hypotherapy program that allegedly has a high success rate with improving people's symptoms.  So far, it is quite relaxing, I must say.  I'm only 1/4 of the way through it, so it's hard to tell if there's been much improvement physically. But I'm hoping real hard.  I'm so sorry you are going through this. I understand your comment in that other post, "It's getting harder to laugh".  I sometimes think our spirits suffer more than anything else when dealing with issues such as these.  Keep your head up!!  Have a good night.

Posted 1/24/2012 6:38 PM (GMT 0)
I know this is an old thread, but it might be good to start it back again. Espically for those of us that are new to IBS like me.

I think I have always had IBS but really didn't know it until just recently started getting seen about the whole colonoscopy thing. Anyway, It used to be D&C for me then probably in the last year or so I've had a whole lot more of D rather than C. I've always had gas issues, bloating, and occassional indigestion problems. When I started going like 9 times a day that's when I was like this really seriously can't be normal. The doctor suspects IBS after no findings of Chrons or Colitis(Sp??).

Up to date as of now,

I tend to wake up about 6:15 every morning. I sit down with my cup of coffee I know I know coffee is bad, but i'm just now trying to figure out what I can and can't have. I'm not ready to give up my coffee just yet. Within 20 minutes of being up I'm heading to the bathroom and this continues for a couple of hours in the morning. Sometimes its not terrible but there are some mornings I just want to crawl back into bed because I feel so iky. I have missed work because of tummy issues and always thought it was a stomach bug problem. My breakfast is pretty simple either cereal, oat meal, scrammbled eggs, or muffins with juice. I go about my day and for lunch it's usually turkey sandwiches and chips. I used to be a big soda pop drinker but I have cut that down to one a day and here lately I've cut it out pretty much all together. It just leaves me feeling to iky any more with the belching and bloating that comes after having had a soda pop. By mid day the burping and other bodily noises start kicking in. Sometimes I'll have issues in the evening with D, but not always. Usually by dinner time i'm bloated and gassy that's what I tend to end my day with. Dinner can be anything from chicken, to taco's, to pasta dishes sometimes soup. Then it starts all over the next morning. I take either Maalox or gasx for my gas which helps ok.

The only thing I've been adviced to take right now is imodium for the D if its that bad. Other than that I take my Levothyroxine for my thyroid issues and a B-12 supplement that I've just started taking. I'm supposed to be taking a lot of calium cause I have a low count in calcium, but my stomach just can't handle it. I've just started keeping a food journal so we'll see how that goes. I see my doctor in about 6 weeks for a follow up. IBS is a lot to take in cause you don't know what foods trigger your symptoms, you don't know what supplements to take without trial and error which can get expensive. All we want is a settled gut and normal BM's. I used to be one of those that never and I mean never did "That" at work no way I'd hold if I had to. Then one day I just couldn't hold it. I was at work and fortunately I found a quiet bathroom, since then I'm not shy about it. If you have to go you have to go. Sometimes their's just no waiting until you get home. It sucks it does but hopefully some day some time they'll have all the answers we need. Oh we can guess and we can try eliminating things from our diet but I think it's more complex than that. When they get it all figured out we're going to be "see you should've listened to us..."

Even as I sit and type my tummy is cramping mildly and I'm already burping.
Posted 1/25/2012 3:47 AM (GMT 0)
Well I landed in this IBS situation by having 90% of my sigmoid removed and then a good chunk of my colon removed above that spot, due to rectal cancer. Had a temp ostomy but it was reversed 8 weeks after my resection, April 1999. I have never returned to anything resembling a normal gut. I have always had multiple bm's but my stool has stages - formed, semi formed, all out D, something in between like putty, I hate that stage. My bathroom needs seem to go in cycles. I may have a good spell with formed stool and feel fairly good but go a lot, that's a given, I have nowhere internally for the stool to collect, it has to come out. Then I can get into a bad stage that goes on for days, when that happens I do an enema, most of the time that does help, it gets what I call the gunk out and gives me a few good days.

But gone are the days where I can eat whatever I want and then go once in a 24 hour time period.

I no longer explain my health situation to people, I gave up trying to explain it all. If I did, they usually said things like - isn't there a pill for that? That one word - that - certainly paints a picture, sometimes they'd say it with a grimace. These people have no GI woes. And so I just gave up trying to explain any of this to non GI tract woe people, but I don't get too upset with them. Because maybe I was one of them 13 years but God I hope not! I hope I wasn't too insensitive to people struggling with chronic health conditions, I pray I didn't offend anyone in my ignorance.

Finally, if I am pressed for an explanation I say I had part of my colon removed and now need to use a bathroom. A lot. I leave it at that. Many times they say - oh tummy trouble huh? I just say sure, yeah it's my stomach - but it's never my stomach. Again, they want to diagnose me themselves and put me into some category they've invented. I just let think what they want to think and live my life the way it is now.

But it does wear on me and I wish I were normal but I'm far from it.
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