Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hello all,

Well, some of you may recall a couple months ago after I was first diagnosed I wrote a couple posts with questions and everyone was excellent about answers.

I pretty much follow the diet religiously. I have cut out triggers, reduced fat (so much that I went from 5'11" 190 to around 170 now, people at work are telling me I'm too thin, but I don't look rib-cagey), focused on SF and slowly have been expanding my IF (since that's where are the good foods are). I take on average a teaspoon of Heather's acacia every morn and plain instant oatmeal (I add a small handful of dried goji berries). Most days I just snack multiple times on SF and some IF snacks like pretzels, baked chips, Teddy Grahams (LOVE those guys) and skip a true lunch, but others I have a subway sandwich or a chinese chicken salad (white meat chicken with lettuce and a few slivered almonds, without the dressing). Dinner is usually some kind of ok cereal (Cheerios is a favorite) with soy milk though I have been adding a nighttime snack of low sodium V-8 to increase my veggie intake. I'll throw bananas into the mix throughout the day if I have them. In the evening I take another teaspoon of the acacia mixed with a teaspoon of Metamucil.

I get frustrated because I read Heather's book and a lot of the posts here by the "regulars" and it seems over all like IBS (stable) is basically like being normal most of the time punctuated with periods of extreme symptoms. However, with me I'm just a steady 5 on the 1-10 scale every day. I haven't had one day since this all began that I have felt normal all day, but I also feel like a crybaby because I also don't have to run to the bathroom every five minutes or have C for days like the folks on here. I'm just tired of doing supposedly the right things (diet, Align, fiber, exercise, fennel/peppermint/anise/catnip tea, Iberogast, etc.) and while yes there is substantial improvement from the terrible first two weeks, once that happened it hasn't gotten any better.

Typically the symptoms I do get are evolved from anything I used to have before (back when I was "normal" I occasionally had urgent D or just crappy feeling once or twice a month but usually I could trace it to overindulging on a bad food). I don't have true D or C at this time but aspects of both at one time or another. What I mean is some days I will have frequent movements but not necessarily loose (so half D) and others I will have one movement a day but hard and difficult to pass (so half C). The worst thing though is the non-associated stuff that makes no sense to me, such as an overall gross feeling, sometimes incorporating nausea, or what I call non-urgent urgency (the uncomfortable feeling where you know something is going on and your gut doesn't feel quite "right" but not actual urgency), or even lately my body has had weird temperature swings, like I will all of a sudden get hot and flushed in my face/neck/ears (like the feeling you get when you are just getting a cold) but in an hour or two it will recede.

As a result I can live my life like normal, functionally, which I know many of the people on here would kill to be able to do, but I feel sickly and crappy ALL THE TIME.

I would think it has nothing to do with IBS at all except it seems to occur around the times I eat, no matter what I eat, or around the time of using the bathroom. Even now, though it's not bad, my forehead is warm and I just feel a malaise. I never have sharp crampy pain like described by Heather in her book (the kind that could make you pass out) but I have a near constant dull pain, like what dry skin feels like, only inside, or better yet a weak muscle soreness.

I've been able to manage all this in my life but mostly because I don't *have* much of a life. I go to work, I come home. At this point, I can't imagine getting involved in a relationship, traveling anywhere, or being more socially active, so really, my solution is no solution at all.

I'm just really bummed. I think I have passed from the denial stage (I can beat this! I just need to modify my diet and lifestyle!) to the depression stage (I'm going to have this every day for the rest of my life....). I had anger for a little bit but it's hard for me to stay angry for long

. Mostly I get mad that in our society you can have problems with your lungs, heart, or whatever, and you get sympathy, but anything having to do with digestive issues and it's humorous to people (they don't make many comedies about lung cancer, but D is a comedy staple). I see IBS as a social disease as well as a physical one since many of the symptoms can be observed by everyone around you.

And nothing hurts worse that getting a call from my doc a week after every test telling me everything looks normal.

For those that were able to read through all this, I have a question based on one of Heather's recommendations:

In Heather's book, she recommended a lot of different herbal teas. I have tried many of them, and some taste good (peppermint, anise) and some taste awful (fennel). Since they all seem to have complimentary usages, would it be all right for me just to mix them all together? I bought them as loose herbs - or is there a commercially made combination someone has found that I can purchase? I'm in bay area, CA, so if it's holistic, there is somewhere nearby that has it - guaranteed. I also want to get into ginger, but brewing a dried herb is a lot easier than buying fresh ginger, slicing it up, and brewing that.

Thanks everyone!

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