# My Story



## Callisonanne (Apr 7, 2009)

I am 22 and just got married 2 weeks ago. About two years ago I was driving home from college to visit my parents and stopped and got some food from Wendy's. I had eaten this food since I was a kid and it had not bothered me one time. I started to feel really horrible and decided to stop and had BAD D. I pulled back out on the road and was forced to stop again about 5 miles down the road. I did this probably 4 or 5 times and then reached the portion of the trip that goes through a national forest. Needless to say there is not one restroom for 30 or so miles. I didn't have an accident but experienced my first ever panic attack/end of world feeling. I got home feeling weak, dehydrated, shaking, and almost felt out of body. Needless to say my trip back to school was a little nerve racking. I felt pretty good for a while but then moved to a new town to start my new major. I was forced to take a class that involved clinicals 20 minutes away. I got myself so worked up about it that I was stopping 2 or 3 times everyday on the way to clinicals. I would feel bad my first 5 min there and then feel wonderful on the way home. I was taking enough immodium chewables I was afraid people would ask me for one of the "mints" I was eating like candy. I knew that the only reason I felt so bad was nerves but I still visited an urgent care when my fiance at the time got nervous. I had a stool test and everything came back normally. I suffered that entire summer with feeling bad and let it really affect me. Throughout the next school year I was fine when I was at home alone but as soon as I had to travel somewhere I would feel panicky everyday until we left. My family got so frustrated yet I had no way to explain it to them. My dad has ibs but his is only with eating bad food. If he doesn't want to feel bad then he just eats healthy "colon friendly" food. I can go two days without eating but a 30 min car trip still brings about D. I still don't understand where that food i'm expelling is coming from. It's so frustrating to me because growing up I never had stomach problems. The only time I felt bad was when i'd eat too much of a rich food. It never affected me in terms of going to the bathroom. I even remember as a kid laughing at my dad when he drove through the neighborhood at light speed to get home after eating mexican. If I knew then how he felt I would have cried for him. I tried hypnotherapy but after 3 sessions the cost was not worth it. My next idea is to meet with a psychologist but the salary for a part time employee/nursing student and a first year teacher doesn't support mental health checkups. My family doctor tried to prescribe me anxiety meds but at the time I was living alone and the paper attached to the meds about increased suicide risks didn't exactly soothe my parents feelings about it. Now that i'm married and living with my husband that might be an option down the road.I think the most frustrating thing for me is knowing it's all in my head. Plus when people point that out I feel like this weak person. If i'm strong minded enough to force my body into D why can't I reverse the process? Plus I don't have the symptoms at any other time so no meds other then immodium are going to work. I feel like my only option is to attack the anxiety portion of it and hope that the ibs goes away with it. I know that I have a lot of stress and anxiety but up until the car trip from hell the anxiety never went below my chest. Now it goes straight from my brain->cramps->gas->D. As soon as I get somewhere and my mind is busy I feel like my old self again. I go into work feeling like hell and leave feeling like I could drive for days.Anyways...thanks for listening. Any suggestions in treatment options or anyone that feels the same...please reply. I'm thinking about starting a diary and then letting my husband read it. I'm hoping a window into my mind might help ease some of the tension with ibs. I don't want to hold his life back or mine anymore. I wish there was an amnesia pill so that the car trip never existed.Best wishes to everyone!


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