Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Venting about annoying nighttime symptoms...

Hi!

I think a lot of your problems could come from how much or little preoccupied you are with other things than IBS. You said if I understood correctly that these days you feel better in the morning, when you're busy getting ready and also in the evenings when you're out with friends. Well, I have this theory: For us who have IBS the body doesn't filter out signals from the digestive system properly, right? So compared to a "normal" person, signals that aren't supposed to get through to our brain do, and they are often perceived as pain. Now, what is it that we tend to do a lot of the time? Well, we pay a lot of attention to what's going on in our digestive system. For some of us, this can happen when we really want to be well, like at a special event. For others, like you, it could happen when you don't have enough outer things keeping your brain preoccupied. Of course focusing on each and every thing that happens in our digestive system can't be good. "Normal" people too have lots of things going on in there, their bowels too make sounds in there et.c. but they don't pay much attention to it right? So, of course it can't be good when we IBS:ers focus on these things, since we already have a body that pays too much attention to things it shouldn't really pay any attention to at all. So I have actually started trying to NOT focus on these signals. It's certainly not easy! It's especially hard at times when I feel it's really important that my bowels behave! But I feel I have to try, since I know that a lot if not most even of my attacks actually happen because I worry on a conscious or subconscious level about having an attack. So what I try to do is to just note that I felt something from the digestive system but then leave it and continue with whatever it was I was doing. I am pretty confident that this will help me, and I certainly know it won't hurt. I hope this makes sense to you.

I think the holistic approach is really the only right one when it comes to IBS. But when you think of it most of us do take a holistic approach to it even if we don't go to an Ayurvedic or Chinese doctor. We try to keep IBS under control by eating the proper food, working with mental issues around this, exercising and relaxing. I am very interested in Eastern medicine myself and I do believe there is a chance that a really good expert on this type of medicine could cure a person from IBS, though I am sure it would take quite some time. This is my personal theory. However there are some things in the Eastern medicine that I feel very skeptical about and one example is the use of bowel cleansing to treat IBS. For people with IBS whose bowels are already very sensitive it just doesn't seem like a good idea to do repeated cleanses. If you would suffer from something like non-IBS chronic constipation however cleansing is probably not a bad idea. This is used in western medicine too for that type of problem and for people with fairly normal bowels but who have a colostomy to make the bowel empty at certain times and not in between. But like I said, there are many aspects of Eastern medicine that are very interesting.

When it comes to food you say you eat a lot of carbs and protein and sweet foods. Why is that? Is it because this is what you handle the best or is it what you like? Too much carbs and sweet foods can cause bloating in some people in my experience. So if you can it's probably good if you could add some veggies to your diet. As long as you can handle them there are a lot of nice veggies on the safe list that you can use. Heather doesn't say that you need to base your meals entirely on the safe foods with high carb content like rice and pasta. Try to find the best balance for your body.

/Ulrika, IBS-D

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