Heather's Tummy Teas
#216632 - 09/29/05 03:08 PM
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Lynx
Reged: 04/21/05
Posts: 160
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I've been taking the Fennel tea for 4 days now. 3 servings a day and I'm STILL bloated and my cramps are WORSE! How long does it take for this stuff to work? DOES it work? I think that I've wasted my money on this stuff!
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It's not helping me, either. Well, nothing is helping me right now.
Michelle
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IBS-D. Hiatal Hernia, GERD
Unstable
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And try drinking it (and the peppermint for cramps if you can or Chamomile if you can't) almost continuously throughout the day.
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Are you doing anything else for cramps besides the fennel tea? Peppermint (if you don't have reflux problems) is the best tea for releasing cramps. A heating pad on my belly (sometimes with an auxiliary cat  ) and an engaging book is my (nearly!) sure cure for crampiness. In fact, I sleep with a heating pad on my belly every night for a few days right before my period (when my IBS acts up most often) or if I've been having more than occasional crampiness.
Yoga is another thing to do - child pose is so relaxing, and twists can help loosen things up. And wind-relieving post will get me to fart real nice.  Hypnotherapy taught me that tensing up and fighting my guts just made things worse, and that relaxing into it often stopped cramping effects.
IBS is for a lifetime. There is no cure. There is no one thing you can do. However, there are lots of little things that can work together to make it no more annoying than, say, hay fever. You have to change the way you eat and the way you think about IBS (acceptance, not fighting) and maybe the way you deal with stress and life in general. But all the changes will make you healthier and more relaxed.
One small story: my husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes, pretty much right out of the blue. It was a hell of a scary time, particularly as we read how it can cripple and kill you at a fairly young age. Now that he has his blood sugar mostly under control, he's come to terms with it and even thinks that it's made him healthier. He gets more exercise, eats better food, and doesn't treat his body like a rented mule anymore. Yeah, it sucks that he has to test his blood sugar forever. Yeah, it sucks that he can't eat pasta and ice cream without repercussions. Yeah, it sucks that he's on medication forever. But he's alive, he feels pretty good, and the changes that diabetes forced on him may have improved his health overall.
So yeah, IBS sucks. But you have many tools to make it better. You may have to give up some things you really enjoy, but you may also end up in a better place than when you started.
--AC, all philosophical and crap this morning 
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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The last time I tried peppermint tea it made my cramps worsen. My dad doesn't belive in hypno-therapy, so that's out. I haven't tried yoga, though.
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Peppermint tea is worth a second try - it really shouldn't increase your cramps unless there's something else going on (like trying to drink a gallon of it in 15 minutes ).
I'm assuming that you're under 18 which is why your dad can veto hypnotherapy for you? Any sort of relaxation exercise that you can do on your own where you focus on relaxing your muscles can help. I was taught one in my teens where I would focus on feeling the air around my toes, and then move that feeling up my body. No tapes, no CDs - just working on the images on my own. And, as Heather points out in one of her books, reading is a sort of self-hypnosis that can work pretty well for us bookworms.
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Bloating can never be solved over night. In fact doctors have nothing at all to help bloating. The only way to get close to getting rid of it is by making your GI tract as happy as possible by eating well for months. The fennel tea does work well though but as Linz says below it cannot cure bloating and doesn't keep it from coming back. I would give my last $30 on earth for fennel tea and acacia.
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IBS-A for 20 years with terrible bloating and gas. On the diet since April 2004. Remember this from Heather's information pages:
"You absolutely must eat insoluble fiber foods, and as much as safely possible, but within the IBS dietary guidelines. Treat insoluble fiber foods with suitable caution, and you'll be able to enjoy a wide variety of them, in very healthy quantities, without problem." Please eat IF foods!
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