Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Experience and Perseverance

pb7:

I think it takes a lot of experience and a lot of perserverance to figure out all your triggers. I've had IBS for 47 years and it has more or less taken me a lifetime to figure out all of my triggers!

If I were in your shoes, I would start with Heather's list of trigger foods as a guide. Once you are stable, you have to do the trial and error thing and see what you can tolerate and what you cannot. Sometimes you may be able to tolerate a trigger food (for example, I can tolerate fresh lemon juice squeezed on my chicken and veggies!) and sometimes you may not be able to tolerate a "safe" food (I have difficulty with oatmeal and a number of other "safe" foods).

In addition, you may need to look at other possible (but less obvious) triggers such as the additives, chemicals/preservatives, harmones and antibiotics, etc. used in foods, as well as genetically-modified foods.

Adding to this complex process of self-discovery, I find something that I eat today may not actually trigger an IBS-C or D problem immediately. In fact, sometimes it can be a day or two from now and can be the result of a culmination of things I ate combined with increased stress or other factors.

Therefore, it is a difficult, painstaking process to truly figure out all your triggers. But once you do, you will practically know yourself inside out!

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