Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

Believe it or not, yeah, it was and still is majorly due to anxiety. Throughout the months that I was reading and posting here, I found myself beginning to feel like a true IBSer. I guess sort of the way a man starts to feel the same symptons his pregnant wife has. I was even avoiding water! Can you believe it? I think I had read on here that its not a good idea to drink anything cold first thing in the morning and I totally always did that and I stopped. The one day that I did do it out of force of habit in October, I started feeling super queasy and I blamed it on the water when all in the meantime, it was probably anxiety and worrying about a panic attack on the way home. Yes, I do have real symptoms like Meniere's Disease and motion sickness, but I can tell the difference between those feelings and the anxiety feelings. It's a lot of mental fighting and eventually, the anxiety loses. It doesn't happen over night but I can certainly see everything going in reverse. Where nausea or the feeling of D would last all day is now going backwards and lasts maybe an hour or two at most. It's a lot of work and I'm a work in progress.

Gaia, and I hope I'm spelling her name correctly, is from Long Island (I think) and when I realized that I was going to need more help because the CDs didn't do it for me, she said she was going to a therapist and I asked her if her therapist knew of anyone in NY. She asked and directed me to Dr. Ellen Oler who I saw in October and after hearing me out, Oler said that it sounds like I need cognitive behavioral therapy and though she knows of it, she doesn't specialize in it. So she directed me to the Institute of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (www.cognitivetherapynyc.com). I chose and made an appointment with doctor Rene Zweig. The way my mind works, and has always worked as a kid, is that I remember everything. Details and all. If you and I were to see someone getting sick, you'd probably forget about it the next day. Me, I'll remember it forever, details and all, and I'll relate to it. Even if someone comes and tells me a story which I didn't witness, I'll store it in my memory and will relate to it. I've always been that way. Here's a story that kind of reminds me of me: Panic Stations by Dr. Zweig

Thankfully no. The thing about CBT is that there are so many roads to getting better. Anxiety is something that we all have and just makes us alert to whats going on with our bodies, surroundings, etc. In my case, I was listening way too much to false things--I would turn a hiccup to all of a sudden feeling nauseas because something was wrong or gas would mean that I was going to have D. I tell you, it took a lot of work and though I still feel like that, I don't listen like I used to and know that gas is just gas, a hiccup is just that, etc.

Hmmm suggestions. I guess you'll need to be more specific? Any suggestions I may have would be to ignore antsy feelings but that wouldn't be the case for a true IBSer? I was in therapy for 4 months, twice a month.

I'm not a coffee drinker but I do drink diet soda be it Coke, Pepsi, whatever. I no longer read labels unless I'm comparing calorie counts. I had pizza for lunch today and I've had turkey burgers, steak, french fries, etc. I've eaten at Spaghetti Western where I had Rigatoni Bolognese. Bread with butter. Fruits and vegetables (god did miss veggies), I'm not a yogurt eater and I haven't done ice cream yet--I don't want to pack the pounds back on! I've had lasagna, ravioli--all with ricotta. Not only have I done wheat bagels with cream cheese and/or jelly, I eat wheat pasta too.

The freedom is good. Though I had the freedom before this whole catastrophe, but something about finding it again makes it real good. The only way to find things out was to try. I would try first when I knew I didn't have to leave the house. Then I'd try when I knew I had to leave the house. Then came trying in a restaurant, etc. Reading a lot of the experiences on this form was beginning to make me ingrain the "safeties" in my head too and that actually turned out to be a negative for me because I was limiting myself thinking that I would get sick. Slowly but surely I'm beginning to see that I don't have IBS otherwise I'd be running to the bathroom! Pizza, salads, beef! Can you imagine?!

The only thing I ever took was the Acacia powder and I stopped taking it back in December. Come to think of it, I started getting sloppy and not taking it probably in November.

You can email me at BendeeWendee@aol.com. I'm going to always have this site as a favorite because part of my recovery is to eventually read the stuff on here and not let it bother me to a point where I start to avoid again.

For me I'm like 90% sure that I don't have IBS. The other 10% lies on me still incorporating foods, mainly eggs and milk. I haven't tried them yet, even though I've eaten things like chocolate chip cookies that contain eggs and milk. My anxiety thoughts will never go away because like I said, we all have some form of anxiety. The fact that I had the thoughts at all makes them linger that much longer because an anxious mind has a powerful memory. The smell, sight, feel, taste, etc. can trigger a bad memory and from there, if I'm vulnerable, I'll start the whole panic thing going. I'm the one creating the anxiety and I'm the one who's got to get rid because the anxiety doesn't have a place to go but swirl around my head. At times when panic would creep in or nausea or the feeling of D, as quick as it would come, it would leave. How I did it I don't know and we'll never know what that switch is. What we do know is how to handle it and know that its not dangerous.

I hope I answered some questions for ya!

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Wendy IBS A thru Z
Taking it one day at a time...

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