Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

I can't speak for Augie (Beth), but since I'm involved in this thread with her, I'll put my two cents in.

First, you don't seem to have a handle on Heather's diet overall. When someone asks questions like "what do I do about gas and bloating" it's easy and adequate to say "search on gas and bloating" or "try fennel tea" or "try gas-x". You're asking questions like "can I have milk", "can I have butter", "can I have cheese". The simple answer to all those questions is "No", but since you're asking them as separate questions, that's not an adequate answer. The adequate answer is a full explanation of dairy as a trigger food because you don't have that concept down. When you say you've eaten turkey and want to know why you don't feel better, the adequate answer is to talk about how you need to break the cycle with an extremely restrictive diet, then add in even safe foods like turkey gradually as you stabilize.

People can give you these adequate answers to all your questions, but by the time they do so, they've simply repeated back to you all the information that you should have read in familiarizing yourself with Heather's diet. Even if people are willing to take the time to do that for you, I still think you won't get the full sense of the diet - it's too interlocking for answers to individual questions to give you what you need to know.

Second, you asked the same question more than once without waiting for an answer. If it's been a day or so and you haven't gotten an answer, feel free to bump your post in case it's gotten lost. But waiting less than that before re-asking is confusing and chews up Board resources.

Third, at least once that I know of you asked a question that had already been answered. I know because I answered it originally. I don't know if you were having trouble finding your original post or if you were shopping for a different answer, but it annoyed the heck out of me. And it contributed to my perception that you're not doing searches, because my response gave you a list of things to search on.

Fourth - and this has nothing to do with what Beth is saying, so this is strictly my opinion - you seem to be demanding rather than asking. I get that you're panicked about this diagnosis and want your problem solved RIGHT NOW, but that's not going to happen. It's going to take time and you're going to need help from the people on this Board for the long haul. I'm very uncomfortable with the sense that you somehow feel the people on the Boards are responsible for your IBS and are therefore obligated to help you when you want, as much as you want, and as fast as you want. Of course, I'm not nearly as nice as most of the other people on the Boards, so I may be the only one who feels this way.

IBS is a miserable illness. Heather's plan has helped a lot of people get a lot better. It is not, however, an instant cure. If for some reason you aren't getting the basics you need by reading the info on the Website (outside the Boards), get hold of Heather's book "The First Year - IBS" and read it. Once you understand the basics of the diet - soluble fiber, trigger foods, insoluble fiber, what to do to break the cycle - a lot of the questions you're struggling with will become clearer.

No one expects you to stop asking questions. The diet can be tricky and the Board exists to help you with that. However, you can't learn everything you need to know by asking questions. The premise of the Board is that you have a working knowledge of Heather's diet and you're asking questions to clarify, not learn from the ground up.

I think about it like this. If you're taking Algebra 2, of course you're going to have questions. But if the questions you're asking are about stuff you should have learned in Algebra 1, you're never going to get very far in Algebra 2. And if I'm in your Algebra 2 class, you're going to drive me nuts.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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