Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Long-term consequences of IBS on life

You guys are recommending hypnosis a lot, which is something I've been thinking of doing for a while. I'm definitely going to give it a shot this winter break.

I tried going on an anti-spasmotic (sp?) medication a couple of years ago, and I could never tell whether or not it was being effective because it would trigger sickness half the time and make me 100 percent better the other half of the time. I've also tried peppermint, both in tea for and in a concentrated liquid, but it just wasn't helping me with the frequent bowel movements and constant sense of urgency.

Immodium AD and lexapro have been my saviors, literally. Lexapro finally was able to control some of the panic attacks and acute anxiety after two years of struggling with it and Immodium AD allows me to magically feel like a normal person for four hours by taking away the sense of urgency and the loose BMs. The problem with Immodium AD, though, is that sometimes I feel like there's "payback" for using it because I sometime have a pattern with it where I become constipated and then the next day I have a dreadful IBS day. I also feel guilty whenever I take it, because it feels like someday my body is going to get used to it and it'll stop working when I REALLY need it.

The lexapro also has a couple of sore points for me because it wreaks havoc on my sleeping patterns (and taught me the word "hypersomnia") and more dreadfully, I feel sometimes that lexapro takes away my "edge," or my ability to focus and concentrate on something, like my entire brain has been numbed and is working only at 60 percent capacity. Which is a terrible thing to happen when you're in college and every moment the very best is demanded of you, and also it's bad at my job at my university's newspaper where I'm expected to be creative.

For whatever reason, I think it's mostly the risk of humiliating myself that terrifies me the most. I feel like these people that I was supposed to take the trip with are the editors that I work under and one of the people was my very fatherly advisor, and to have an IBS incident in front of these people I would feel would not only ruin my relationships with these people who are very important to me but would scar me for life. As other incidents where I've been in a bus/van/vehicle with other people and I've had the sense of urgency and panic attacks have scarred me, just for the enormous amount of anxiety alone.

I think one issue that has bogged me down during my whole struggle is the lack of understanding from my parents. They've been very supportive of the fact that I have this health problem, but they often yell at me and say stuff like I'm making the problem up or that I don't actually have irregular BMs and I don't know what I'm talking about. The problem gets really bad whenever I have to sit out of a family event such as going out for dinner (which is one of the hardest things for me because restaurants make me anxious because I always fear that I'll eat something that will trigger a nasty prolonged BM). Whenever I have to sit out of a family event, I get no support but instead vile anger for not participating, which is SO hard for me because I feel like it's my body's fault, not really the fault of me as a person.

As I've probably just illustrated, and what someone upthread has mentioned, by biggest problem really is the anxiety and the fear, not the IBS. I let the fear cripple me.

I feel now that all this happening to me couldn't have come at a worse time, because I really feel underdeveloped as a person because of dealing with anxiety and forgoing life events out of fear during my crucial late-adolescent years. It feels like I want to hit the reset button, but that's not going to happen.

Thankfully, I do have financial support from my parents for college, so staying another years at school is certainly an option. It's also smart for other reasons besides dealing with my IBS issues; I'm getting a degree in journalism, but as I'm learning in all my classes, print-journalism (which is what I'm trained to do) is dying fast and job opportunities are disappearing. This revelation is actually what triggered this recent wave of anxiety a week ago, out of fear of what the future holds and out of guilt for not choosing a better area of study.

And this brings up what's also been haunting me: guilt. I feel so, so guilty all the time that my parents pay for my college education (though I do contribute by getting lots of scholarship money and attending a relatively unexpensive school). I feel guilty because, I keep on thinking, if I didn't have financial support from my family and I had to pay for college all on my own, how on earth would I ever be able to deal with the IBS?

It's all this second guessing and this guilt that has really gotten me down this week.

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