Do you think the Pioneers suffered with IBS?
#315859 - 10/01/07 11:46 AM
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Nugget
Reged: 02/10/03
Posts: 2167
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I am from the west and was thinking today how awful it would have been to be traveling on the Oregon Trail suffering with IBS-D or C....or anything else for that matter....while traveling by wagon or on foot back in the 1800s. I wonder how they would have treated it. And there was no Quilted Northern back then either! 
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oh chickey, you are funny....  Personally I doubt they would have had such thing.. I wouldn't be surprised if IBS was a product of stress, society, and all the crap that gets put into the foods.. I'm sure if you just lived on healthy food all the time, no preservatives, no chemicals ect we would be better off..
although, personally, I'm such a city girl that I can't even imagine what it would be like without toilet paper, running toiliets or anything like that.. I don't evne like to go camping..
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Well, if you read old novels you hear about people who suffer with "delicate stomachs" or who are "martyrs to their bowels" (I love that one) so I assume they did without calling it IBS. I do agree with Dajara, though, that their lifestyle may have made it less of a problem. The limited food supply would have made it difficult to get rich foods (dairy, egg yolk, fatty meat). The hard physical labor would probably have helped IBS-C (there's nothing like walking 3000 miles to loosen things up) and for IBS-D there was always laudanum (alcohol plus opium derivatives).
Plus I bet if you were too sick with IBS you never joined up with a wagon train. And while it's true there was no Quilted Northern back then there was a bathroom behind every rock. 
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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Ha! I'm glad I'm not the only one who's wondered about that!
You know, having an attack when there's a pot to sit on and a magazine is hellish enough. Squatting behind a rock with some leaves or a corn cob sounds just...marvelous. 
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I agree Snorkie...and with those hot, heavy dresses and everything they had to wear under them!! I can't imagine!  In my case it would be....the whole wagon train saying upon our arrival.."Sorry we are late...Nugget had to go to the bathroom every five minutes along the way."
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I was thinking about this exact thing today(probably because I just finished a good historical novel). I wondered how women dealt with those dresses and corsets etc when not feeling well. It was so funny to see this when I checked the boards.
My New GI doc tells me that 40% of the population suffers with some level of irritable bowel syndrome. But only 1% ever seek medical treatment from a speacialist. These percentages are surprising to me. I wonder if any one has studied the history of ibs. I can't help but wonder if the high incidence is in part due to our screwed up food chain. Things thst have been introduced into the chain that never should have been there and probably were not 100 years ago. I am talking about trans fats, HCFS, etc.
Any thoughts on this?
Laura
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I definitely think IBS must have "thinned the herd." I am evidently descended from rich sick people who could afford a doctor, though, so I am genetically doomed to a bad stomach, bad skin and a bad back.
Ugh, IBS on the open range. *shudder!*
~nelly~
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Laura....I definately think someone should research it. I believe all the stuff that our culture, technology, etc. add to our food play a big part in our health. It would be an interesting topic to research. I'm sure if we could eliminate everything artificial that is in our food chain, we would all feel so much better. Less cancer, less mental illness, less downs syndrome, less IBS, less autism, etc., etc. Even when we think we are buying Organic products...there's no way to get rid of all the chemicals, etc. that are in the air, soil and water supplies of the whole world. We as humans have doomed ourselves with everything artificial that we have introduced over the years into our environment...and we are sick because of it.
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See if I were in a wagon...I would have made a hole in the bottom so we wouldn't have to stop. Just sit at the hole and go.....think about how much shorter a trip would be with no bathroom stops.
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Susan
IBS-A, Gas, Pain, Reflux
"The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature. Every day, the sun; and after sunset, night and her stars. Ever the winds blow; ever the grass grows."
Emerson, August 31, 1837
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What a GREAT idea Blackrvn!!! 
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