Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | A good news IBS diet post

I haven't posted regularly on here probably for two years, but I wanted to share in case I could offer some hope for anyone in the early stages of the diet.

I was diagnosed in early 2007 with IBS, but have had it since about 1989. Just before I was diagnosed, I was living off turkey cold cut sandwiches with mustard -- it was the one thing I could eat that didn't trigger anything worse than the constant CCCCCDCCCCD with occasional horrible attack that was my IBS pattern. I got a diagnosis from my doctor after 5 months of tests, and I was relieved to have a name -- well, I was until I realized I had no treatment plan other than "Eh, take some fiber."

Gee, thanks.

I found this site right around the same time as the diagnosis, and that was the impetus to buy a bunch of stuff from this website. I started acacia fiber, read the book, tried the peppermint caps, and went back to the basic "nothing else works" elimination diet for about three weeks.

At first, it didn't seem like much changed, but I stopped having what I considered "attacks" -- those times where I was bound to the bathroom and could not do anything else for a few hours. I still had pretty disordered bowel movements, but I was used to that.

It took another 3 months to be eating a semi-normal diet, one where I had some variety and wasn't scared of everything I put into my mouth. Six months in, things were good, I could eat out with friends (eating with people I didn't know well still felt quite awkward, as every restaurant order had to be made with special requests and I felt very much like Sally, from When Harry Met...).

A year in, I didn't have to think about what I was eating at all. I had occasional lapses of judgment and paid for them later, but now an attack would resolve itself in a few hours, not a few days of feeling crappy.

I learned that I could easily tolerate some things I thought I'd have to give up for good -- citrus juices, garlic, hot spices. I learned that some things I'd assumed good for me and "safe" weren't, things I'd loved my whole life -- peas, lima beans, cream of wheat, lettuce. Other things I can tolerate in small doses when I have been completely stable for a while. For that first year, though, I followed the diet as closely to the letter as I could.

Dairy is no longer an option at all (I am completely lactose intolerant, I learned in testing, on top of the IBS), and that was really hard for the first year. Now I only occasionally miss it, but I remember the inevitable suffering. A lactose tolerance test is worth the extra money to drive that home in a very physical way.

I also have not had caffeine or red meat or carbonation in several years. I don't miss them anymore at all.
I have discovered that I prefer eating a primarily vegan diet, with allowances for whatever I'm really craving that I know I can safely eat. My mother is on board, and we have vegetarian meals at holidays, or occasionally seafood. We made the saffron sauce from the IBS cookbook over these past holidays and had it with shrimp -- it was amazing.

I did part of the hypnosis program. I never finished it, but it did help some anyway.

I have been primarily stable now for almost a year and a half, including during job interviews, selling my house, and moving last year.

But my biggest success? A few weekends ago, I had the chance to meet up with friends for a weekend. We had an amazing time, but I didn't get as much sleep as normal (one of my biggest triggers) and I ate a bit too much, though of good, safe foods mostly. On the way home, I got stuck at an airport overnight (funny, but you can't find a hotel room in DC on the night before the presidential inauguration). Didn't sleep well, to say the least, and had to fly the next morning. Flying is also a trigger. And I was okay. I had so much else on my mind (such as the fact that I should have been at work AND I was missing a fun inauguration party) to stress out about my IBS because it is not generally an issue anymore.

Now when I get stressed or eat poorly or things go awry, I am likely to get slightly more C than normal (I still tend that way) but not have an attack because of it.

So I do want to say, in a very long-winded way, that the Eating for IBS diet DOES work. It takes time and some dedication to complete the elimination diet process, but it is worth it. IBS is so much about the "finish line" of the eating process, but what it taught me (and what I recall reading here) was to fear food. And it didn't even properly teach me what to fear, as symptoms weren't always clearly correlated with the food eaten. What the diet taught me was how to eat again.

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IBS-C, D and nausea with acute attacks, stable on EFI for 3 years

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