When I was young, I ate somewhat “normal” all week but on the weekends, I would gorge myself on chocolate and by Sunday afternoon I was camped out on the toilet. I had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) but didn’t know until I was officially diagnosed in my early 20s.
Effects of IBS in my life:
- Nervous to leave my home for fear of having an episode in public.
- Horrific pain, the only way to describe it is it felt like a metal ball with spikes, lit on fire, and then slowly gamed into my intestines. No joke.
- A pain so bad at times I almost passed out, literally, everything went black, and I just about fell off the toilet.
- Oh! Do not forget brain fog, I thought at times I was losing my mind.
- While hosting meetings at work, I had a fear of farting and smelling up the room or needing to run to the bathroom during the meeting.
- Fear of going to social events because of an IBS episode.
- I never knew when the little devil was going to strike!
Doctor Experience
The doctor did a few things, a colonoscopy, removed dairy from my diet for a month, and had me tested for a wheat allergy. The colonoscopy proved all was healthy, the wheat allergy came back negative, and dairy fell in the category of sensitivity. Removing dairy from my diet helped a little but my issues persisted.
The doctor gave me the blanket answer of “you have IBS.” I asked, how do I manage it? His response was trial and error with food along with good luck and a pat on the back.
I was not tested for food allergies or sensitivities, asked about my current diet, or changes I could make in my diet to help elevate my pain. No guidance at all.
IBS can be either constipation or diarrhea dominant or alternate between the two. I am IBS-constipation dominant. When I was young, because of the way I ate, I frequently rotated between the two, but I was mostly constipated though.
Research with Trial & Error
When I began researching IBS, I learned things like avoiding acidic foods, caffeine, chocolate, and dairy. I took a deep dive into what kinds of foods cause constipation, I learned both beef and dairy are slow digestive processing foods. I had already removed dairy from my diet with ease, but beef was tough, I am married to a meat cutter who loves meat at every meal and most of our meals included beef.
Where is my IBS now?
Since I had my son, I am now able to eat beef again, and the episodes, pain, and embarrassment have greatly been reduced. I have occasional episodes but in general, I am significantly better.
I do not believe everything changed due to having a baby, I do believe it changed some things. Hormones can change a woman’s body a lot, but I feel changing my diet had more of an impact. I added in more natural probiotics vs the synthetic ones that do not work for me.
My husband spoke with a customer at work who suffered from IBS, she found going gluten-free helped her immensely. I tried gluten-free, I did (my husband and stepdaughter can testify to this one). It was one of the hardest things for me to do.
The non-gluten diet was not for me, the products were honestly nasty tasting, and every time I ate them, I ended up with stomach pain.
I analyzed my lifestyle and discovered times that seemed to trigger an episode, such as:
- Not getting enough sleep or non-consistent sleep
- Eating in the middle of the night (in college, I ate a lot of food in the middle of the night)
- Working out my body too much
- Introducing exercise too quickly into my life (sometimes I wanted change and wanted it now!)
- Being in situations that activated my nerves (i.e., dating, doctors’ offices, trying new things)
Listening
When I stop and listen to my body, it tells me exactly what it needs, for instance, I have days where I can eat everything in sight, and I end up sick. But the kind of sick where my body is removing something bad from my body. It is amazing what your body will tell you when you stop to listen.
Do you have a health problem you aren’t getting answers for?