Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Hi
I'm sorry to hear that you are suffereing so much. I know how you feel! I spent the whole fall last year in the same situation, and it was so frustrating, i missed school and work, and felt like I couldn't have much of a social life. I have had IBS for over four years, but last fall was a particularly bad flare up. And then I found Heather's book and started to follow her diet and exercise suggestions. Everything changed very quickly for me, because for years I had been eating tons of whole wheat bread and salads on an empty stomache, thinking it was a good way to get fibre! But her book taught me about the differences between soluble and insoluble fibre. I started eating larger amounts of fibre than i had before, every day as she suggests. So after months of suffering the diarhea, cramping, pain etc, it still took awhile for my system to smooth out. For months, I kept a food diary, and based on fibre counts on packaged foods, online fibre charts, and from a book I have, I made sure that i ate over 20g of fibre every day.

I had read about how exercise helps digestion and IBS, but had never really applied it longterm. So last fall I started to exercise, regularly: walks, yoga, weighlifting, biking, at least some kind of movement every day to get my spirits up and to condition my stomache muscles and improve my overall body health and stamina. It helped, and it still does, now that I am more stable, I only exercise every second day, but would like to do more now that it is summer and I can hike. Now that I am more stable, i still get attacks, every two weeks or so, and usually around my period. But i find that they only last an hour, and the next day i usually feel okay again. I still have some pain, and cant eat very big meals without feeling too full, so I continue to enjoy snacking all through the day. I have found that when i can afford to pay for it, that the accupuncture has really helped with the pain. I definitely recommend it for all ibs symptoms, as an addition to a good diet and exercise etc. I still get crazy amounts of gas, and will have to try the fennel tea for that. Also my TCM Chinese doctor gave me a herbal remedy to help with gas, to improve the organs functioning, so that food is digested properly to avoid gas. I have only just started it so am not sure of the results yet.

Meanwhile, I have lived on peppermint tea and chamomile to help with gas, and to calm my tummy. I even drink it with my meals, especially when I go out to eat, or am eating socially. I count how many glasses of water I drink, always striving to have at least eight per day. What I also realized, is that I have not been eating enough protein for many years. So I started to make sure that I ate beans, tofu dogs, chicken, fish, etc at least once or twice a day. I also found that the calcium supplements taken every day help slow the gut down, and reduce diarhea.

Anyhow, all this helped and within a few weeks, I started to feel better more often, and felt yucky less often than before. I didn't miss any work this spring, which is good! During January, I visited a gastroenterologist and a doctor, and after some blood tests, we determined that I had a vitamin b12 deficiency. This b12 deficiency can cause difficulties with digestion, as this vitamin is vital in the digesting of fats and carbohydrates. People who are vegan, or the elderly often suffer from this deficiency. Some of the population though, no matter how much eggs, meat, fish they eat (all high in B12), do not have the ability to absorb the vitamin from their food, becasue their stomache is unable to absorb it for some reason. Anyhow, once I started to take sublingual b12 pills at a high dose every day, i started to notice an improvement in my digestion of fats. Less diarhea etc. Any how, you might want to get this checked out, cuz from the diet that you describe, it doesn't appear that you are getting much protein and b12. Just a thought. I have a series of tests this upcoming month to figure out whether I am missing the intrinsic factor to absorb b12, or whether I simply hadn't eaten enough b12 rich foods in the last few years.
In the meantime, i have had all the other tests too, to make sure i don't have chrohn's, cancer, etc. I have one more tomorrow, and then I'll know for sure. Have you had all the tests yet? It's good to rule other more dangerous diseases out. I hope this helps. You are not alone!

I wish you all the luck and patience and peace of mind and gut that you need to get you through this next while.
Take Care,
Kris

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