Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

I started it five weeks ago. I am starting the first pill of week 6 tomorrow.

I would say that it helped me, but then again I'm sure no one here has the patience to try one thing at a time while their symptoms are raging. That is, when I began taking Align I began a whole lot of other stuff, so who knows what did what.

First of all, the good. The issues I had at first and what led to my (preliminary) IBS diagnosis were frequent urgency, and D. These two problems have all but been taken out. I have had D a couple times in the sense of multiple solid movements a day (up to five one day after a couple days of C) but not what I personally define D as, which is urgent, watery D. I have had urgency once or twice, but it is MUCH improved and controllable. That alone is worth the price of admission.

The bad: My symptoms seemed to have evolved. Align says it has no side effects but I have read end users claim it gave them C somewhere and I have no history in my life of C. I began Align and am also currently following the diet and have tons more fiber every day than ever in my life, and yet I have had C three to four times in the past two months. Now, it's not crazy three day C like some of the people on here - in fact, some times it was only one day - but I call it C because I felt super full and had sharp pains in my midsection, and couldn't relieve myself. So for all intents and purposes the only thing I can think that's causing the C is the Align. Unless removing fats and red meat and dairy from my diet can somehow paradoxically cause C. The Align has also done nothing for my overall constant feeling of tightness, discomfort, and just general yuckiness.

What I think is that IBS symptoms can be caused by a number of factors, all lumped together as IBS. I think there are some people whose major issue is that have a bad ratio of gut bacteria for some reason or another. For those people, Align will work like a miracle and they will be "normal" again after a month or so of taking it. However, if the symptoms, as it seems to be in my case, are not so much caused by bad bacteria in the colon, but by stress or food difficulties or anything else, then a probiotic will be helpful but not life changing. That's just what I think and there are a thousand people on here who know more than I do, but it's how I rationalize my limited but generally positive results with Align.

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