Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | I think part of what's going on here is...

that language nuance issue I mentioned in response to your other post. It's one of the reasons I wanted to confirm that English is not your first language, despite your excellent mastery of it. Nuances in meaning can be a little tricky.

What I heard you say when you first started posting is that you have had a lot of tests done, you have seen the best GI guys in Switzerland (possibly Europe), they have all told you you have IBS, and yet you do not believe them and are still worried that it is something more serious. So when the people on the Board tell you to have a colonoscopy, what we are reacting to is your own thoughts that you do not really have IBS, but something worse.

From your more recent posts, it sounds more like what you're really saying is that you want to believe your doctors, but you're afraid to do so because your symptoms do not seem to fit with what you're reading about IBS. The difference between the two positions may not seem like a big one, but I think it will make a significant difference in the type of advice you get.

What I've gotten from reading all the responses to you is that your symptoms may very well fit IBS because people who have IBS report all different types of, and locations for, pain. If I'm right about your wanting to believe you have IBS, then I say believe you have it and give Heather's plan a try. As I said before, it can't hurt and if it helps then that's further reassurance you do, in fact, have IBS. Part of Heather's plan includes stress management - she has various suggestions for that and one of the recent replies to you here talks about that extensively - and that should help with the worry.

As for the colonsocopy, you are unlikely to hear on this Board from people who have not had one because it is one of the diagnostic tests that Heather recommends in her books. In other words, if someone is posting on this Website, he or she has almost certainly had a colonoscopy. However, nobody here is going to refuse to help you if you don't want one.

One final suggestion: Update your profile to show your location as Switzerland. That way, as you get into the diet and start asking for advice on products, no one be fooled by your excellent English into suggesting you run down to Wal-Mart to shop for an SFS.

HTH.

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

Edited by Sand (04/21/05 02:07 PM)

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