Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Eating for IBS really, really did save my life

I just wanted to introduce myself on here and share my story with Heather's diet. Prepare for a monologue.... please skip if you feel so inclined!

My name is Zoe, and I'm a 19-year-old sophmore in college. I was diagnosed with IBS in 2001. Throughout that entire year my bowels had gotten touchy, but there was a specific incident in that October that stands out in my mind as being the worst bout of stomach trouble that I had ever had. The pain literally caused me to faint. After that episode, that was it: I had the D and terrible pain every single day, multiple times per day.

I stopped eating because I couldn't stand the pain and the anxiety attacks it caused anymore, and by December I had lot a LOT of weight. My mom took me to a doctor, who told me I was just "too nervous" and I just needed to "calm down" -- I guess I had worried myself from a totally healthy, happy person into a scrawny, miserable shell of a human in a matter of weeks?

To make everything a thousand times worse, my dad, who had always had serious health problems, ended up in the hospital with respiratory failure. I remember being stuck in the bathroom in the Emergency Room wondering if my father would live, and almost considering running out of there and begging them to admit ME to the hospital.

On Christmas Eve, I went to a gastroenterologist, and she diagnosed me right on the spot with IBS. She didn't tell me much else. I was sent home with a pamphlet telling me to load up on raisins and wheat bran.

You can imagine what happened after following THAT for a few days. My dad came out of the hospital on Christmas day, so that was a big sigh of relief, but my health situation became even WORSE with the high amount of IF I was taking in the weeks that followed. That's when I decided enough was enough and I went online, did a bit of research, and ordered Eating for IBS.

When it came, I felt like I had had a revelation. It all made so much sense! My mom took me out to the grocery store and we bought all types of safe, SF foods. Within a week of adhering strictly to the diet, I was functioning almost normally again. By March of 2002, I was ME again. I was healthy.

There have been challenges and some stress-induced flare ups along the way, but the diet has become a way of life for me now, so much that I don't even think about it anymore. I want to say that anyone who is new to this diet and is finding it hard to stick to, or too radical a change, I promise you it DOES get easier. So much easier. Going away to college, getting a job, going out with friends, and doing all those things without being SICK is SO worth living without all milk, french fries, etc. In fact, not only do I not miss all the bad stuff, I can't even stand it anymore.

Anyway, that is the end of my VERY LONG-WINDED intro. I promise my future posts will not all be short novels.

Thank you SO much to Heather for getting this wonderful information out there to people who really need it. It gave me, and as I see, so many others.

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