Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | thoughts, ideas and questions!!

Hello everyone!

I am new to this board, have been living with IBS-A for around 2 years now (most times under control, sometimes not). I left graduate school in 2000, unfinished. I was passing, but ran out of money and inspiration. All that was left was my research project. A few months back, I got in touch with my primary advisor and asked if it were possible to finish my project long-distance (I live in CA now and school is in CT). He agreed! I spoke to my bosses (I work for a pharmaceutical company) and they agreed to support me 100%. I can use all the facilities here to work on my research. While discussing ideas for a project, one of my bosses commented on how our company is looking to develop a drug for IBS. My eyes lit up and I just about jumped out of my chair I was so excited. My advisor specializes in Chron's and UC (a GI kinda guy!!), so he was very happy with the idea of am IBS project.

This brings me to my reason for this post. I would love any and all feedback from all of you. My current thoughts on the subject..... I have a handful of friends who have IBS. With most of them, their symptoms started following a period of serious stress, whether it be emotional or physical. For me, I had an EXCRUCIATING year emotionally, followed by a very bad back injury where I was in pain every single day for around 4 months straight. A couple months later my IBS symptoms started. The stress is now gone (I am extremely happy now), and the back pain is gone, but the IBS remains. My feeling is that stress, whether it be emotional OR physical (pain or illness of another sort) and constant exposure over a long period of time to the hormones related to stress cause permanent damage to the GI tract, and the body can no longer handle exposure to those hormones anymore....which is why stress is a main trigger for attacks.

What does everyone think? Any thoughts?

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