Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Getting very distressed

If I'm reading Heather's SFS FAQ page right, you're getting only 4 grams of soluble fiber a day. I would definitely try increasing that - go up slowly. As I said, I take 20 grams of SF from acacia a day. That's high for a D, but I think 4 grams is too low.

You don't seem to be getting a whole lot of IF, but you may be getting more than you can handle or possibly you just can't handle certain kinds of IF. For example, I noticed there are a lot of sour dough items in your diet. The sour dough bread and rolls I see all have whole wheat in them - from what I can tell, it is used in the starter somehow. Perhaps you cannot handle that - my gut objects to any whole wheat at all. At a minimum, I would try Maria's suggestion and switch to just plain French bread for a while. I also agree with her that soy cheeses can be problematic. Since you're not stable at this point, I suggest you avoid any dairy like the plague.

I really would try the Break The Cycle diet for a few days and see if that helps. If it does, then re-introduce IF very, very slowly and carefully. I'd go with cooked IF first - it seems like raw is harder to handle. And be sure to keep all dairy out at least until you're stable with a reasonable amount of IF. I still won't touch dairy. Also, my experience has been that I cannot handle fat well in the morning, which is my worst time. If your worst time is at night, then I'd be particularly careful about eating fat late in the day.

As I understand it, both the diarrhea and the cramps result from your colon going into spasms, so I don't think the diarrhea is actually relieving the cramps, although I know it feels like it. If I'm wrong about this, I hope someone will correct me.

What the Immodium should do is ease the spasms, which should help the cramps while it prevents the diarrhea. (BTW, your pattern is totally familiar to me: cramp, bathroom, bathroom, bathroom diarrhea, bathroom worse diarrhea, bathroom mostly liquid diarrhea, done. Cramps stop, diarrhea stops, but really, really tired. I don't get a sulfur smell, but I used to get ammonia smell when it was really, really bad.)

The meds I can't help a lot on. I take Immodium when I go out near home and Donnatol when I travel longer distances. They both help, but the meds I tried before I got on Heather's diet and acacia did nothing, so for me the meds are the icing on the cake - Heather's diet and acacia do 90% of the work and the meds just mop up the last little instability.

The one thing that does stand out is that you're drinking peppermint tea before bed and you're taking Prevacid. Maybe one of the GERD people can help out here, but I thought Prevacid was for reflux and peppermint tea is not good for reflux, especially right before bed.

As for the prozac, if you flared up right after you got off it, there might be a connection. I just don't know enough about it. Maybe someone else can chime in here.

The two big things I would suggest you try first are increasing your SFS (slowly!) and going back to just soluble fiber foods for a few days, then adding in other foods (very slowly!). It took me 6 months to go from all soluble fiber foods to baked beans and even longer to get to pickles.

I know you've been doing this for a while, but something seems to have de-stabilized you badly (or perhaps you were never completely stable) and I think the best thing is to kind of start over.

I also like the idea of taking Immodium as Maria suggests, but I never did that (wish I had) so I can't speak from personal experience there.

I hope some of this helps.

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