Up sick, and ranting...

I know I've posted a lot lately, and I feel like I'm being annoying....

I feel like some sort of small animal has gotten into my intestines and is crawling around in them. It's my fault, I know ... I had strawberries and a little bit of kiwi and some pineapple, and to top it all off, one of my friends brought ice cream cake to our study session last night. I tried to be good, and just eat bread, but I was hungry, and I figured just a little fruit and just a little ice cream cake wouldn't hurt me. Apparently, I was mistaken. After about the 4th or 5th bite of cake, I was like uggggghhh, bad idea.

And then I got pissed. Because I offered the rest of my ice cream cake to my friend, explaining that I couldn't eat anymore, that it was tearing up my stomach. And she said, in this patronizing voice, "Oh, you poor thing." It's like she didn't even believe me. I was absolutely infuriated ... and then, when I was explaining this to one of the other girls in the study session, she was like "Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe it isn't that she doesn't believe you. I think some people just feel like you should either do something about it or stop complaining."

Well, I AM doing something about it thankyouverymuch. I take my supplements, I haven't eaten red meat in over a month, and this was the first time I've eaten ice cream in even longer than that. (Those are my two main triggers - I just can't eat them at all.) I keep a food diary. I have antispasmodics (that don't really work all that well, by the way.) I'm SORRY if you think me not wanting to waste the yummy cake that I WANT to eat but I CAN'T is complaining, but what else was I supposed to do?? I would've gotten a condescending look anyway if I'd just thrown it away, because I'm being "wasteful." It's like I just can't win. And it's not like I'm sick all the time - I felt great for the last two days, and I think I would've been fine today had it not been for the coffee ice cream. But no, I had to be an idiot and eat it.

I wonder if people realize how difficult it is to just cut something from your diet entirely, knowing that if you break over just a tiny bit, just one time, you'll be up sick for half the night. I swear, I've been craving my mom's spaghetti (with red meat in it) and a hamburger and Hagen-Daaz co**** pineapple ice cream for what seems like eons - and I can't eat them. Obviously, it tears me to pieces. Why is it so hard for people to understand that??? I am so annoyed... I have a friend who has massive GI issues. She's on supplemental TPN, and they're trying their hardest to get her off of it, but she throws up almost every piece of solid food she eats. She can do baby food sometimes, and liquids. Well, people ask her, why don't you just eat baby food all the time, then? And I want to yell at them, and ask them if THEY want to eat baby food forever. It's not so easy. It's easy for everybody else to say - they can eat a hamburger, or drink a milkshake, or eat pizza anytime they want to.

I'm sorry. I'm just annoyed at how unfair it is that some people are dealt unfair hands, and you just have to deal with it, but people make it so much more difficult than it already is. I'm tired, and frustrated. Apologies.

(((sunshine)))... You know what I have learned to tell people when they are wondering what it feels like to be me? I tell them that IBS is like having the stomach flu 24/7. That usually stops people in their tracks because everyone knows what that feels like and thats the best way that I can describe it to people who are not in my shoes. These people sound very insensitive and I know exactly how you feel. I know my family doesn't want to hear me anymore when I talk about what I'm going through with everything I'm going through and its so frustrating. On one hand, I know where they are coming from... they don't want me to bring them down but on the other hand, I need to let it out sometimes and I need someone to try and understand my pain. I have learned the best way is a therapist for me. Heck, they can't complain because they are paid to listen to me talk about it and I can waste the whole hour talking about a stubbed toe if I wanted and I wouldn't have to listen to crap from them LOL. I tell you, I also feel better when I walk out of there. Do you have any counseling available to you?

I apologize, I don't know too much about your background. Are you in college? Some uni's have free counseling for their students, just something you may want to look in to. fyi, If you do end up going to a professional therapist, they actually have ones that do specialize in therapy for chronic illnesses.

Take Care

Well congratulations on your engagement. It sounds like your are almost over this hump of all things going on in your life right now and will be making what seems a nice life for yourself. You will find that stress triggers IBS symptoms to be worse so with your upcoming graduation and wedding I would say no wonder things are a little bad for you right now. I hope that eases a bit for you after everything gets settled. I have been away from the boards for awhile so I just wanted to add my welcome to you here and feel free to use this forum as a sounding board to get things off your chest.

If you have the money, get yourself a wedding coordinator to take the burden of a lot of the planning and organizing off your shoulders. I had a medieval wedding, so I didn't have the option of getting a wedding coordinator (how could they have managed such a non-traditional wedding), but, God, it was like I was herding cats all day. My family and my husband's family hit the ground and just flew off in all different directions. We couldn't get them to bunch up so we could have the fighting tournament for them. My dad was 2 hours late with lunch. I had to arrange the wedding seating and help my husband get dressed before getting myself dressed in a huge rush because we were losing sunlight. Then when we get all lined up to do the wedding, all of the guests were everywhere--walking right past the lined-up wedding party to wander into the hall! The preacher had to herd everyone up. Then, no sooner than the wedding was done and we had processed out, everyone vanished. I mean, I turned around and everyone was GONE except the wedding party (even the chairs and the alter had disappeared! I think I had steam boiling out of my ears at that point as I sent someone running into the hall to get our families back outside to do the pictures (and the alter). Pictures always come after the wedding! What were they thinking?? Then my husband's family started saying, oh, we want you and you and you in a picture. The photographer looked at me, and I pointed to the list his wife had (that I had made up) and said, we do my pictures first. Then, we had supper, but before dessert was served a few long-distance relatives had to leave and everyone took that as a cue to exit. We hadn't even been served the little castle-cakes and ginger balls and chocolate drink yet! If it hadn't been for our medieval re-enacting friends who do this sort of thing all the time and who took it in stride (and helped us clean up), we'd never had made it. I'd taken up a sword and started running family members through indiscriminately. My husband's still mad that his family left us cleaning up the hall and went and overdid the decorations on both his truck and the car so that he had to clean both of them up before we could drive them anywhere. We didn't get done until after 10pm. We were going to leave the truck at my grandmother's house that night and drive partway to our honeymoon destination, but instead we ended up spending our first night as a married couple sleeping in my old bedroom at my Nanny's house--in separate twin beds, LOL.

So, moral of the story is to get a wedding coordinator to keep your suddenly mentally handicapped family members from running wild and driving you bonkers. I was too busy, aggrevated, and besiged by people to enjoy any of the wedding (so don't waste your money on expenseive things--you'll never have time ot notice any of them). The honeymoon is the best part. My husband and I went to Charleston and had a great time looking at all the historical sites and wandering around. We finally had time to just be alone, talk, and enjoy each other's company without any deadlines looming over us. No wonder wealthy Victorians--who were known for their elaborate weddings--took a month or two for a honeymoon. It's recovery time!

I have had bad IBS just recently diagnosed.I take Pamine for it & it's working great for me.I pigged out on a Eye of round..roast & veggies this past weekend & it was absolutly wonderful.No grease.I had no problems.I reintroduce foods at intervals to see how I do.Navy beans was a no no even though I ate very little of them.But that's how we learn,Trial & error.