Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Wait a cotton picking minute here! Who promised us no IBS symptoms?

OK, this entire thread brings up a larger issue perhaps we need to get straight here and now: DOES EATING HEATHER'S DIET, EATING TONS OF SUPPLEMENTS, DRINKING TONS OF HER TEA AND DOING ALL THE OTHER GOOD THINGS PROMISE US THAT WE WILL NO LONGER HAVE IBS SYMPTOMS? THAT OUR IBS WILL GO INTO REMISSION AND WE WILL BE NORMAL?

I know we all want this, but is this the common experience?

I am IBS-A so I alternate between very mild "C" (where I can usually go once a day, so it isn't really very "C") to where I get "D" which can last for days.

I have yet to find any correlation between my eating and having "D". It seems like the natural IBS-A person pendulum swinging from one side to another, usually in about a monthly pace (maybe it is related to the moon?).

I have kept a meticulous diary for months. I eat the very same foods through good times and bad times. How can it be food when the same food gives me nice plump firm torpedo stools for weeks at a time, then for no reason suddenly I realize I am going into a "D" phase and they become mushy and yucky looking? I don't even have a treatment plan because I already restrict my diet to soluble fiber foods and take a lot of supplements. The cycle seems impervious to everything I do.

I have had people here tell me (in my post about what people consider "stable") that I cannot expect to have no symptoms, but to instead reach a state where I can feel well enough to live a normal life socially and at work, etc.

But then when someone like this person vents about how she has followed all the rules and STILL has an IBS-D attack (and she admits she was diagnosed as IBS-D by a doctor) everyone responds that it is probably some food or stress.

of course, food and stresss can invoke IBS symptoms, but let's say the obvious: WE HAVE IBS! This means we will (like it or not in the real world) have symptoms from time to time that can be inexplicable. Even Heather, in her book on the first year notes that she (the grand dame of IBS knowledge for many of us) still has IBS-D flare-ups that bother her.

Sometimes we have to just accept that our symptoms will get worse, and it is nothing we did, and that the pendulum will swing and they will later get better again. However, I agree it is valuable to ask for the opinions of others (I certainly do). I want to lick this thing too, but I am currently stumped! I was feeling so desperate I almost went to a clinic that has been castigated for quack therapies and is run by a man run out of a number of states for practicing bogus medicine without a license and for killing his own child in the birth process (keeping it submerged over 1 hour in water!).

Frankly, if I have more than 1 banana a day, I get the runs, so I'd cut out the bananas and see if that helps.

God Bless us all to find the path to remission or at least a livable sense of peace with IBS, even with flare-ups. For me, resisting IBS causes the most anguish, rather than the symptoms themselves. I'm glad this forum is here to help each other.

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