Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | still working on helping my suffering college girl

Thanks, Heather, for your comment. We looked into celiac disease somewhat a few months ago, when it seemed like most of her stomach (not bowel) "episodes" were after eating heavy wheat things (lasagna, bagel and cream cheese, pizza )(Previous to this onset of C and stomach problems 8 months ago -- she ate those things without a problem, but did always have a sensitive stomach -- but no problems with C )....... We are realizing now that all those things which caused big problems also had cheese so....maybe that was the problem... or the combination. ( She was living on low fat yogurt for breakfast ( or whey protein powder ! drinks )till we found your website -- now she has stopped all dairy -- she didn't notice any bad reactions to the yogurt and shakes but maybe it was causing the ongoing C problems in a more subtle way (?)..... For a while, we thought we had found the answer with the wheat, as she improved quite alot on that for about 2 months, but she has been almost totally avoiding wheat and then
started having way more C problems lately. So far (only 5 days) she seems to be responding rather dramatically to the fiber supplements (she is still taking a low dose) and doing the IBS diet as best she can. There is no way she could do an endoscopy now. She is barely managing school and all this diet and sick stuff. She is truly terrified of invasive medical procedures-- you should see what it took for me to get her to do just a blood test -- that's a long story, she had a very very bad experience with a blood draw when younger -- and it would stress her out completely, which is the last thing she needs. She is also terrified of medication (like being put under) so I don't want to put her through it unless I am really convinced there is no other alternative. When we looked into the testing a few months ago -- it seemed that the endoscopy is not even really definitive -- seems like alot of torture for something you cannot be sure of. Why wouldn't it be ok to test and experiment with her reaction to wheat - the same way you all are doing with all foods? The whole celiac thing is confusing and disturbing, so extreme -- i really don't know what to do with that. I am kind of leary of western medicine, i have to say. I know it has a place -- but you don't have to look far (on your own message board) to see how off base some doctors can be sometimes, and how often they can make things worse. I really hope I don't offend anyone -- these are just my own very personal feelings, I realize alot of people would not agree with me on this -- i'm probably too extreme in that direction. For all those reasons, I am leary of torturing her with alot of scary tests, when it seems like trying the diet ideas and seeing how she reacts should be good enough, if they work. Of course -- if she doesn't improve dramatically, then I think we need to pull her out of school and do some testing while she is home. Does that make sense?

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