Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | New folks, please read this post first! Lots of helpful info....

Thanks for joining us! If you're new, one of the best ways to find information on a topic is to use the "search" button at the top of the board. Choose the word you want to search for (bloating, fiber supplement, travel, restaurants, etc.) and change the date range to "all posts". This will show you all posts on the board on the topic you're interested in. The same questions tend to come up over and over again, so there is a wealth of information on the boards on many topics already. It's important to search for a topic before posting a question as this helps keep the board from getting cluttered with repetitive posts (and redundant answers).

There are ongoing posts about eating out at restaurants, traveling safely, soluble fiber supplements, lists of safe foods to buy in the US, Australia, and UK, and patient-recommended doctors who are great to their IBS patients. You can find all of these popular topics by simply searching.

There's a particularly helpful "Information for Newbies" post by JenX that you can read if you click here. This is a fabulous post with tons of great info for newcomers to the boards.

You can also organize all the posts on the front page of each forum by clicking on the category - it defaults to the "posted on" date but you can click on "poster" and that will alphabetize the list. You can then find your name (or someone else's) and all your/their posts will be in a row. This is helpful when you're looking for a past post by someone specific.

You'll notice right away that the board posts tend to move around a lot - this is because each new post is bumped up to the top of the list. So if you can't find your recent post, please don't repost it! Just look a little farther down the board, and you'll find it.

Also, if you've only been gone for a few days, you should find your posts only bumped down a page or two, so you can click on the page numbers in bright blue text at the bottom of the page to work backwards through the threads that way.

You can also choose how you want the messages on the boards to display. You can view the boards in a "flat" or "threaded" mode just by clicking on those buttons - it makes a big difference, so try both views to see what you prefer.

Also, you can view the boards as "expanded" or "collapsed", which means you'll see either just the main thread topics or all of the threads on the whole board. These are two very different views as well, and people usually have strong preferences for one or the other.

So, if you haven't tried clicking on those buttons to see what happens, give it a shot. You might like the different view of the board you get a whole lot better (or not!)

It can be really helpful to add a hyperlink within your post if you're referring to another webpage. When you're typing your post, select "URL" from the Instant UBB Codes (to the right of the Graemlins). A message box will pop up and ask for your link address. Type it in if you know it, or go to the page you want to link to (I like to go to File, New, Window from my Internet Explorer menu so I don't lose my post, or I copy the address before I start my post), highlight the address, copy it and paste it into this message box. Once you do that, select "OK", then it will ask what you want to name your link. The default is "web page", but you can change it to whatever you like. Then select "OK" and it places the hyperlink in your post.

Finally, if you're new to the IBS diet, it's critical that you familiarize yourself with the guidelines, FAQ, and other info listed as links from the forum front page (here). These boards aren't really meant to provide the information that's already detailed on the website; they're for answering questions you have that aren't addressed in the basic dietary info.

Welcome!

Best,
Heather

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Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!

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