# I Cured My IBS. “My” IBS. Maybe You Can, Too With This.



## SweetDoug (Nov 15, 2009)

To all,(If this helps even one of you, I’m happy. Let me know and let others know. Write me back.)Well, I’ve been diagnosed with IBS. Three times, by three different doctors.Had the usual “don’t eat fatty or spicy foods. Cut down on red meat. Eat more fibre. Don’t drink alcohol” spiel. (Is there anything I can have with that toothpick and glass of water, Doc?) Had the tube shoved up my butt (big hint, get them to give you local, because otherwise, it REALLY hurts.) to check for cancer, too. Nothing.If you want to skip the story, go to the end for the punchline. Write and tell me how it works out for you. I’m really curious if I haven’t found something that cures what had been, which may or may not be, “IBS”.I had all the symtoms: Bloating, diarrehea, constipation, sore stomach, blood in my dump, fear-of-the-fart!, ripped up rear-end from straining, middle of the night gas attacks/emergency trips to the john, plus all the previous, mixed up, with no trigger. Everything did it to me. And nothing did it to me. Then it would settle down for a few days, and then it would all come back. I found this all rather interesting since my IBS just came on suddenly, and of course, didn’t go away. Spicy foods certainly aggravated it, but why now? I had spent the better part of a year down in the SW deserts, swilling cheap gin and beer, whilst downing literally a large bottle of jalapeno peppers every 4-6 weeks on fajitas and other assorted tex-mex foods I whipped up out there. My stomach didn’t so much as hiccup. At one point, during one episode a few years ago, the gas and bloating (I didn’t know it then.) was so bad I felt like I was having a heart attack. I actually went to the hospital. I was only 39 and I’m gonna die!!“Oh... That’s IBS!...”Sound familiar?I don’t think there is such a thing as “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” I’m a carpenter by trade, and when a door isn’t hanging right, it’s because of something, plumb, level or square, that’s not right. In fact, whenever something’s not right in my trade, it’s ALWAYS a basic diagnosis. You just don’t get such virulent symptoms for NO reason.There’s NO test for IBS? Translated, we haven’t found anything that we looked for... WELL MAYBE YOU’RE LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACE OR NOT LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT THING! Duh-uh!?I had doctors swearing up and down, “You’ve got IBS!”And let’s just get something straight. I’ve read through a bunch of forums. Yoga ain’t gonna do a thing. And the probiotics thing? Nope. Tried that. (Some people say they’ve had some success, but that’s okay, as you read the end of this, you’ll understand why.) And yogurt, didn’t work either. Some of this will alleviate symptoms and will definitely help, but only a CURE is a CURE. The range of the symptom alleviation treatments shows how desparate we all are and just how out to lunch the diagnosis is from our medical community. But hey, if it does help, keep doing it.So how did I CURE it in 2 days? And I’m not talking reduced symptoms, that only casually flare every once in a while. I’m talking C-U-R-E-D.Simple: Good ol’ Doctor Fowler’s Wild Strawberry Extract, available North America wide, in any drug store. It’s what my mother and her mother and your mother’s used, too. I had 2 months of this BS, (and that ain’t short for Bowel Syndrome!) and I was going to be damned if I was going to put up with this all my life. I was really starting to worry, as it would be affecting my ability to work: You can’t be running off every hour because you think you’ve got #### on a job site. So’s I thoughts to myself: “Self! You’ve got the wicked runs and bloating and et cetera? What cured that in the past? Doctor Fowlers.” I don't know why I hadn't taken it before. Just a brain-cramp I guess.Nothing like “activated attipulgite” otherwise known as magnesium aluminum silcate. (The original Doctor Fowlers was a thin liquid made from a strawberry extract which was discontinued years ago, because the supplier stopped making it, although I have seen off-brand of similar stuff. I know this, because when they changed the formula, my father wrote them, because he has occasional stomach problems and our family swore by the stuff!)Do the math and logic on this people: For those of you wandering around in the diagnosis woods with symptoms that just don’t make sense, reeling from bloating and diarrhea to constipation, with no real triggers? I read the forums and everyone’s complaints are different. It’s a bacteria!! Montezuma’s Revenge. A cold is a cold is a cold. You don’t get this many people, with this many variences in symptoms, without something else going on in their stomach. It’s not your stomach, it’s what is affecting it! My thought is that there are a lot of food-born illness out there that are chronically underdiagnosed, that establish a bacterialogical foothold in the gut and are a real problem to get rid of and certainly when it’s not diagnosed properly. (That’s why “probiotics” seem to work, too. They change the flora.) And as for the odd triggers and such, you get a build up of symptoms as the bacteria flourish, then are flushed out, symptoms decline, you feel better and then it repeats as the colonizing grows back. You stomach is trying to cope, going from diarrhea due to the bacteria which it tries to stop by causing a constipation reaction, and so on...How does Doctor Fowlers’ cure this? I don’t know. I don’t care. But it made my problems go away. 2 to 3 days later, the symptoms were GONE. I can’t tell you what a great feeling it is to have a nice, solid, painless, dump!! Others may laugh, but WE know what a relief, what a pleasure, a nice. solid ####, is to the psyche and well-being of us all. To those who haven’t experienced the opposite, and for months, they just don’t know!And I’ve been IBS free from that day on. I don’t drink the water at the cottage and I javax it heavily, just in case some gets into me. I eat halapenos, hot spicy foods, hot sauces, you name. And guzzle booze like it’s going out of style! Yippi! I’m cured.Sure, sure, I know a lot of you have some real issues, like Cron’s disease and such. (I know a woman who left a rotten marriage and her Cron’s disappeared in a month.) And there’s probably something to IBS, with perhaps other components that do aggravate it like mental state, but it isn’t the catch-all disease that it’s made out to be by others. Look at all of you, the variety of symptoms, allergies, things that make you go off, with this “disease”. There’s got to be a common thread. Otherwise, IBS is just a BS term for a catch-all general set of symptoms that those great doctors have no idea of, or in my opinion, how to approach the problem. (And note, as a carpenter, I see the screwups everyday in a large organization, and when I asked my mother who had E. Coli infection from a hospital operation, “Doctors bury there mistakes...”Back in the 80’s, a girl I knew came back from Mexico with the same symptoms as I, as IBS is now, and sure enough, her doctor couldn’t fix it. I recommended the ol’ DF! And 3 days later, she was fixed.My third bout of IBS started the last week of November ‘07. One week later, I was a wreck. My friends watched my stomach go from washboard (Okay, okay maybe not a washboard ab...) to something that looked like the alien was going to pop out, in the space of 1 hour, after a meal of... Turkey soup?!? Yeah. Even plain old turkey soup did it to me.Here’s the insight: I have a cottage that the water is supplied by a rain-barrel catch-system. The rain runs off the roof, where all the birds sit and #### on it, then the water sits in the barrel up on the hot roof and ferments. I’d used Javex on it, but it was the end of the year, we’d had a lot of rain, and I didn’t think, so guess who had a drink of it the last time he was up in late November of ‘07?And a few years before that? Probably the same thing as I remember the summer I started adding Javex to the barrels after I figured I got something from the water which wasn’t quite so bad as it was the this last time. Probably without thinking, chugged a good mouthful of DF and fixed it then, too.A couple of years after that, I drank out of a hose at work on a construction site and looking back on it, the same thing happened.See what I mean? How often are you people drinking or eating something that may be just a little bit off? Put your hand in a bit of water on a railing at a restaurant outside, that has bird do-do on it and the next thing you know you’ve got Beaver Fever or something similar. Look it up. The symptoms are eerily similar to IBS. Same with Montezuma’s Revenge and a whole host of water/food born ailments.In fact, I was just reading an article on dissentry. You know, what everyone got in World War 1 from bad water? Read about the symptoms... Hmmm.....So, before you people condemn yourselves to a life of IBS, with strange diets and new-age remedies, try this solution as it’s a cheap, quick test. Get a bottle and chug’er down.I think these doctors are full of it. Any stomach issue now that they’re too lazy to do some work on, is pigeon-holed into the ”You’ve got IBS!“ diagnosis. My 2 cents.Hope it works. Good luck. Had to share. Hope you had a laugh, too.Doug. Let me know. Spread the word. And my gut feeling on ”real“ IBS? These amazing doctors are just now, according to an article my mom clipped, starting to analyze the flora and fauna of the gut. Are you @#$%ing kidding? You mean you didn’t do that already? Logic points to a trigger, and it’s going to be bacteriological. Mark my words. Punchline: Go out and buy Dr. Fowler’s Wild Strawberry and drink the whole thing over a period of 3-4 days.Below is a ruff diary of the winter of my discontent. Pretty much the same from the end of November to the when I started it, because it wasn’t going away. I was starting to panic and getting desparate as the idea of having this for the REST OF MY LIFE was becoming and intollerable concept. You can read the symptom base. Looks like yours, eh?---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nothing seems to trigger the symptoms, they just occur.Jan 6Felt fine all day. Snacked on coffee and two pieces of toast w/pbutter and honey. Had leftover deep fried chicken legs w/ blue cheese sauce at 11:30 AM. Felt fine. Had nice firm ####.Came home at 5 and bum was doing the contraction thing, like maybe I had to poop?Had bad bloody poop. Small ####. About 7 am. Soft and mushy.Ate and immediately bloated up. Ate homemade soup (beef, mushrooms, carrots, celery, onions. in tamarind base. with 4 slices of bread.Not burpy gas but farty feeling and couldn't. Huge stomach., distended.Had runny watery diarrhea at 7:45Back-story.Spent week at Cameron's. Had greasy chicken one night, beers, felt fine. Next day, eggs and toast and bloated all day.then turkey soup next day and was fine.Jan. 7Ate 2 pieces of toast with PB & Honey & cinnamon felt fine.Supper, chips, sour cream, soup (tamarind) got real gassy. Ass hurt from last night.Soon as soup hit the stomach, felt it start to bloat.Ate large helping of yogurt before bed.Jan 8Had decent ####. Still crapping black? Ate large helping of yogurt for breakfast. Didn't feel hungry and skipped rest of day. Felt good to be empty and not bloated.Ate some corn chips and salsa for supper. Felt okay. Had 1 1/2 burger with Kraft Dinner. Felt GREAT! Full but not bloated. Had #### later. Felt fine. Best I''ve felt in weeks!>???????sunday.Jan 11 SundayWoke up feeling tired.Had gassy, poop feeling all day.Ate enchiladas for lunch. Pooped a few times. Big airy fart/poops. And my bum started to hurt into the evening. Badly. Like I had been really pushing. I hadn't been. Ate a burger for supper.By the time evening rolled around, couldn't sleep bum hurt so much. Red hot pain right on the ######, like a knife was starting to go up it.Had to take tylenol for it. If I wiped with water, it was fine for a little while then the pain returned.Jan 12. Monday.Toast and coffee. Fine. Fine. Ate 2 pieces of toast and 1 burger by lunch. Felt good when I got up. Felt bloated and kind of queasy. Didn't want to work out. Did.Ate a fried steak with potatoes w/ ginger and Turmeric.Felt great after supper.Jan 13-TuesdayCoffee. 2 toast. FineEnchiladas-hot peppers fried beef/onion/greenpeppers.No bloating.Jan 14. WednesdayCoffee. Then leftover enchiladas for lunch. Fine. No problemsSteak and potatoes for supper. Fine. No bloating.Jan. 17-Saturday.Ate a mccains pizza. Felt bloated immediately.Did not feel well, bloating, poops not good. No diarrhea.This continued, but got better each day.Jan 20Ate same pizza again test theory. Nothing happened this time. Also ate garlic sausage. Very garlicky. But no real reaction. Still felt as bad as I did day before which wasn't that bad. No diarrhea and poop’s okay. Little acidic on bum but that's it.Jan 31 SaturdayAss was so sore Saturday night and Sunday needed 2x ibuprofen and acetaminophen to relax the pain. Huge blood in toilet.Tuesday, February 3, 2009 1:14 PMLast week stomach has been awful. Ripped up bum, bleeding, bloating. No relationship. Drank water and bloated. Woke up today and felt good then energy level just died.Sunday, February 22, 2009 10:03 AMDrank a bottle of Dr. Fowler’s Wild Strawberry over past week (adding this late).By the 21 my stomach was fine. Just before the job about 2 - 3 days. 3,4,5, it just got better. Still eating same hot foods and such. No link or trigger.


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

What fun for everyone. Great story. Loved the ending. Thanks for the tip.







Mark


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

Sounds like the new stuff (which I've never seen either in the US, just Canada) is what Kaopectate used to be, and that never cured my IBS, but I liked it better than Imodium for regular diarrhea from a GI illness. Kaopectate had a formula change and now it is the same thing as Pepto Bismol.My Mom had some of that bitter thin liquid (the old stuff, maybe???) she brought back from some trip to Canada because she remembered it from when she was a kid and that was so bitter and tasted so bad we figured it cured a GI infection after one dose because your body would do anything not to have to take another dose. It wasn't made from the fruits but the rest of the plant.Glad this worked for you.One correction, there now IS a test for IBS, at least in the USA. It is new, and it is a blood test, but there are things that are different in people with IBS that you do not see in healthy people or in people with other GI illnesses. Until recently none of these things had been developed into a clinical test, but most of the biomarkers for IBS have been known for awhile and have been seen/used for research purposes.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

Someone else who has reached the same conclusion as me. Great stuff.


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## IanRamsay (Nov 23, 2008)

i have missed something, what conclusion? Good post doug.Ian


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

IanRamsay said:


> i have missed something, what conclusion? Good post doug.Ian


That doctors don't have a clue when it comes to this condition called IBS.I've searched the internet but nothing is comming up for any current products under the Dr. Fowlers name or wild strawberry extract? Is there a particular ingredient in this product that is helping you?Edit: Ok, i found it. Looks like its being produced by Columbia Labs out of Canada. Here is there website http://www.columbialabs.ca/Pages/ClassOfPr....aspx?ClassID=3Seems to me like this product is just like any other over the counter anit diareah med? Did you try taking other over the counter stuff like Immodium and Peptobismol with negative results?


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## SweetDoug (Nov 15, 2009)

Here's the Canadian site for Fowlers. http://www.columbialabs.ca/Pages/index.aspxMost pharmacies in Canada carry it, or a generic version. Some are closer to the original mix.I didn't try anything else, although I have some immodium, and while I don't really remember taking it, I probably did, and obviously, nothing happened.The original Fowler's recipe was a thin, tannic-y tasting concoction that was a little bitter, but it dried up diarrhea instantaneously. It was the new stuff that fixed me. I believe I mentioned the active ingredient in the original post.I'd love to see some literature on the test for IBS. What is the test testing for, and what is the reason d'etre of IBS? Reaction to something, or bacteria, or virus or what?These are the same doctors that years ago, started to look at the sinus guck, and figured out it all wasn't just "snot" and that different sinus infections produced different snot. I don't know, I've not got the brains/memory to be a doctor, but some of these things seem pretty simple to start researching, in terms of sussing out the problem.SweetDoug


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## survivor796 (Jul 13, 2007)

hi sweetdoug(i am not a native english speaker so excuse my english)Do you use this product constantly or you used it just for once, and do you know how it effect ibs? it effects like an antibiotic (antibiotics cure ibs sufferers temporarily as i had experienced) or it just slower down the bowel movements? By the way i am from Turkey it would be hard to get it i guess. Anyway i am waiting your reply urgently, Thanks for your attentionRegards


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## SweetDoug (Nov 15, 2009)

Hi folks,Day off at work. I'm going to try and track down some options for people ordering this from the US and other countries.I'll get back to you. While I understand your desparation, (And really, I do.) I cannot send you the product. I will do my best to find out how you could order it if you would like to try it.SweetDoug.And no, I'm not a company rep, or have any financial stake in this endeavour.


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## IPPO (Jul 26, 2009)

can this be bought in the uk?


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## SJ1985 (Apr 1, 2006)

Yeah, I'm having a bit of a relapse (happens every now and again, though I consider myself "cured"), I'd like to give this a try too, but I'm in the UK...I was going to ask if perhaps you could list the ingredients from the packaging, then we could look to see if there's something similar available to us if we can't find get same product?


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

I mean same conclusion in that I also believe that most, if not all cases of IBS are down to bacterial or parasitical activity whether we realise it or not. How many Doctors suggest that people are tested for those possible causes? Very few I suspect.I haven't a clue about the Dr Fowlers.


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## SweetDoug (Nov 15, 2009)

A fellow has found a pharmacy on-line that he can order Fowler's from and I've asked him to post the contact information on line.The main active ingredient is in my first post. Apulgate something, I think. (I can't read it from here.)And you mean to tell me, the smartest/head-honcho doctors that specialize in IBS don't administer tests like that which you spoke of? Re: parasites or other?Now here's what I want to know: On this board, or else where, is anyone gathering the data that we could contribute to what's working or not? Is there any medical oversight on this board? There are years of research and a wealth of information just waiting to be collected.Has anyone else had success with anti-biotics or anti-fungals or some bacteria/parasite killing agent? From what I gather with everyone trying everything, IBS just isn't one thing causing these problems. It sounds like the schizophrenia of the stomach world.Here's how I think: Stick a syphon down my throat and take samples from stem to stern and see what's in there. Then do everyone and see if there's any common fungus/bacteria/virus/infecton whatever. That'd be a good place to start. ID if there is a physical something or someplace to start with, as a source of symptom.SweetDoug.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

We have a whole forum about antibiotics that is basically what Dr. Pimentel has been publishing about for the last decade or so. There has also been plenty of research into Post-Infectious IBS but in that case the bacteria that started it is long goneattapulgite is the name. Unfortunately the major source for that in the USA changed the formula. There are a few studies on acute diarrhea but I haven't seen anything about IBS. However back when a lot of people on the board used Kaopectate with attapulgite it didn't seem that most were cured for all time after a bottle or two.There has been quite a bit of research into bacteria flora disruptions in IBSers but that is just different levels of different normal bacteria or things you find in a lot of people who have no symptoms so it is hard to blame IBS on just that.


> Until 2003, Kaopectate marketed in the US also contained attapulgite. However, at that time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration retroactively rejected medical studies showing its efficacy, calling them insufficient despite its decades of use. Kaopectate's U.S. formula was changed to bismuth subsalicylate (pink bismuth).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalygorskiteA lot of the current research about IBS, really there are researchers looking into it, have tended to find more consistency in problems with the control system of the gut (the nervous system and parts of the immune system) which you do not see with a colonoscopy or a stool sample to see what bugs are in there. There is now a blood test that detects IBS based on that research. http://www.ibsbloodtest.comhttp://centerwatch.com/clinical-trials/lis...t.aspx?CatID=90 lists all the current studies on IBS.http://www.med.unc.edu/medicine/fgidc/ and http://www.iffgd.org/ also have info about IBS as the researchers discover it.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

What the researchers really need to be doing rather than take samples of bowel flora from 'healthy' control groups here is to take them from long-lived healthy elderly people - even those who live in Outer Mongolia, etc.!I mean, yes, they may have some different bacteria than us, but that may also be because having never been exposed to antibiotics they may well have a much bigger and better selection than us.I suspect that many people in those so-called 'healthy' control groups may also have latent IBS. It is thought that gas and bloating is normal, but is it? Maybe a little bit occasionally, depending on what we have eaten, but should it be normal?I know that the current Celiac test is set at anything greater than 10 for a positive result. Now, you and I would think, well, that's weird. Surely any response over 0 should be positive! But they have had to set it at that because the scientists found that even some of the 'healthy' control groups were getting a reading above 0. I think that put the wind up them bit because if they set it at 0 they would have a Celiac 'epidemic' on their hands!A big part of the problem they currently have is that with thousands of different microbes floating around in our systems, there is much confusion about which ones are 'good' and which ones are 'bad'. Taking samples from healthy elderly people surely would give them a much better picture of which bacteria and microbes are the 'good' and 'bad' ones.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

All the probiotic stuff started with what is in people from some part of the USSR are super healthy from like the mid 1970s or something. I remember reading about that way back then.Unfortunately most of that wasn't very rigorous, but some of the more recent research with some of the probioitcs has been good enough to actually prove something.Usually healthy people have a range in all numbers for everything not all the exact same one.I don't think it is safe to say healthy people would never fart, as most things in a healthy diet do have fermentable compounds that no human digests in them. That is why every human farts every day.


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

Heres the site that i ordered it from today - http://well.ca/products/fowlers-anti-diarr...sion_17056.htmlThey ship to the U.S. and are not too expensive. Figured since I've tried just about every approach that i have nothing to Loose. I guess the main ingredient is supposed to wipe out all the bacteria in your colon/intestines and clear out any "bad stuff" sounds iffy to me but what the hey. Maybe the OP just had some type of parasite or bad bug that it cleaned out for him? I personally have tried all sorts of Probiotics, anti-fungals and antibiotics with little to no success so im somewhat skeptical that this will work for me.


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

SweetDoug said:


> A fellow has found a pharmacy on-line that he can order Fowler's from and I've asked him to post the contact information on line.The main active ingredient is in my first post. Apulgate something, I think. (I can't read it from here.)*And you mean to tell me, the smartest/head-honcho doctors that specialize in IBS don't administer tests like that which you spoke of? Re: parasites or other?*Now here's what I want to know: On this board, or else where, is anyone gathering the data that we could contribute to what's working or not? Is there any medical oversight on this board? There are years of research and a wealth of information just waiting to be collected.Has anyone else had success with anti-biotics or anti-fungals or some bacteria/parasite killing agent? From what I gather with everyone trying everything, IBS just isn't one thing causing these problems. It sounds like the schizophrenia of the stomach world.Here's how I think: Stick a syphon down my throat and take samples from stem to stern and see what's in there. Then do everyone and see if there's any common fungus/bacteria/virus/infecton whatever. That'd be a good place to start. ID if there is a physical something or someplace to start with, as a source of symptom.SweetDoug.


Basic stool tests are done to test for parasites, bugs and such. All my levels came back normal when they did this test for me, maybe i will request another one when i go back to my GI in a few weeks.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

Testing for parasites is pretty basic and results in an awful lot of false negatives. To quote Ann Louise Gittelman in her book 'Guess what came to dinner' -


> "Heart disease, cancer, AIDS...these are not silent epidemics. The parasite problem however, _is_ a silent epidemic. There is a dangerous misconception that parasitic infections occur only in tropical areas or among the poor who live in unsanitary conditions. This misconception has resulted in a lack of awareness of the risk factors and symptoms associated with this insidious public health threat in America today. Furthermore, American Doctors and other Medical Professionals have had so little training or experience with parasitic diseases that they are not alert to clinical symptoms. One of the most up to date clinical parasitology textbooks concludes: _The most important element in diagnosing a parasitic infection is often the physician's suspicion that a parasite may be involved - a possibility that is too often overlooked. (Ibid) _The physician's lack of suspicion and current underdiagnosis has left the public totally unaware of the scope of the parasite problem.Making the matter even more complicated, the random stool examination - the standard method of detection used by most physicians who do routinely check for parasites - has proven to be insufficient and unreliable. Unfortunately, based upon false negatives from inadequate testing procedures, most physicians rule out parasites as an underlying cause of disease. Since many symptoms of these infections are often non-specific and mimic other, more recognisable diseases, the condition is then misdiagnosed and health problems persist for months and sometimes years before the real culprit is identified."


Personally I would go as far to say that in many cases the real culprit is NEVER identified and that many people take it with them to their grave! (and even if they did find it at the PM, would they put it on the death certificate as the cause? I doubt it - they are more likely to consider it to be a 'result' of the underlying disease, not the cause itself. But then again if they did put 'parasitic infection' as a cause - relatives might then start asking a lot of very awkward questions like 'how come this wasn't picked up a long time ago'???)(She only addresses the issue in America, but that is because she _is_ American. The problem is not confined to America and is prevalent Worldwide - even in more temperate climates like the UK).


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

There is a theory that every single symptom of every single thing must be from a parasite (and there is no other reason for any symptom) and even if the most extensive testing available can't find anything that only proves you have parasites. It is true every human has a whole bunch of organisms living with them. How many of these must be the source of all disease I dunno (as even totally healthy people have bacteria in the colon and mites in their eyebrows and and a whole zooful of other micro-organisms).If you raise mice so they are bacteria free they tend to be less healthy than the ones you let have normal levels of additional organisms on board.I know a lot of organisms that sometimes get blamed are ones you often find in a high percentage of healthy people even if some of the people sick with some things have a different percentage of people with them. I dunno if that means that organism must be the cause.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

Well I think it really comes back to the fact that in spite of all the arrogance and self-delusionment of the 'Establishment' they don't really actually know very much at all!My Dad used to say - the definition of an 'Expert' is someone who learns more and more about less and less, until he knows absolutely everything about nothing at all!Thinking you know about something, and actually REALLY knowing about it is a whole different thing. How many times have they 'just' figured out the cause or reason for this or that, when someone else comes along and throws a spanner in the works and it's back to the drawing-board again!We are far better off than those who think they know, because we are able to look at things objectively and without any preconceptions. We are able to question without boundaries. That makes it much easier for many of us to be able to see the bigger picture. The further back you stand, the more of the picture you can see.I suspect that whilst they are so busy chasing their tail over the genetic and other 'red-herrings' they are actually missing the real issue completely.But isn't that a snapshot of this World in general? People so busy chasing their tails that they are missing (and dismissing) the really important stuff!


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The problem is sometimes people are so open minded they refuse to acknowledge any objective reality when making up whatever theory they want about what is wrong with IBSers.A lot of them get a lot of us to pay a lot of money chasing rainbows rather than working through anything that has actual clinical evidence it can work for 45-70% of IBSers. Unfortunately too many doctors come from the "need more fiber" era of teaching about IBS in medical school and haven't really had the time or inclination to keep up with the research.Doesn't help the FDA is filled with those "need more fiber" types and they refuse to allow any medication that has any risk at all to get on or remain on the market as safe fiber should be the only thing any of us need. They are a much bigger problem than any of the scientists doing the research that led to the development of treatments for IBS, IMO. After all the scientists and doctors doing research actually talk to and listen to the sufferers (if only to keep you in the study so they tend to be a lot nicer about listening than any overworked doc in the clinic).


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

So if undetected parasites are truely the cause of some or many of our IBS symptoms then how would one go about treating it, or figuring out what parasites are causing it and eliminating them?I'm going to chug this stuff down when it comes in from damn Canada and see what happens.


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## EstherH (Nov 18, 2009)

I was diagnosed with IBS just over 20 years ago. I tried *everything* to help it. The western docs couldn't do squat and that includes specialists at places like Cedars-Sinai.I finally turned to a naturopath. She asked me, "In all the years you've been suffering, has anyone ever tested your food allergies? I don't mean the usual stuff that an allergist would test -- IgE, but rather has anyone tested your IgG?"Well no one had. So we set off to do that. Turned out I was allergic to just about my entire diet -- dairy, eggs, sugar, garlic, coffee, baker's yeast, blueberry, cranberry and sesame. On the IgE, only pineapple and hazelnut had shown up. For 3 months, I went cold turkey on the entire list above. I never felt better in my life! I was going a few times a day (I used to skip a few days inbetween BMs). At the end of the 3 months (now it's only 1 month for others), I had to test each food (in its pure form for breakfast/lunch/dinner, 1 day only), one at a time. If I had no reaction, I was allowed to move on to the next item after 3 days; if there was a reaction, I had to wait 4. Dairy/Eggs remain on my never list but the others can be had on a rotation diet. If you haven't already tried this route, please do. Changed my life. I had been eating nothing but poison all these years.PS: I'm just now being treated for parasites too -- with 3 drops of Cat's Claw and 3 drops of Wormwood once a day.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

The thing is though Esther - where do the food allergies or intolerances come from? Yes, some people may have issues with certain foods from quite an early age, but for others they are things that gradually creep up on you as you get older or as your digestion deteriorates.Certain foods ARE pretty damaging in their own right - the high-carb, high-sugar processed stuff is a case in point, but why would we suddenly start to develop issues with natural foods - it doesn't make sense. Despite the fact that we may have issues with them they are not poison.But then again, if you consider that all natural foods contain certain chemicals - albeit natural ones, then that may give us clues.Certain bacteria react to certain chemicals and elements in our food. As someone who is gluten intolerant I found that many who are GI also react to quite a lot of other foods - many of them carbohydrate foods.I certainly feel that gut flora imbalance plays a big part, and yes, possibly parasites too, but it also comes down to dehydration.According to Dr. Batmanghelidj, the more dehydrated we are, the more elevated the histamine response. He states that salt is also a natural anti-histamine. I can't help wondering if the low-salt ethic that we are constantly bombarded with is not actually driving the increase in allergies these days!If people don't drink enough water or keep their mineral levels topped up by having enough salt (real unrefined sea or rock salt not the bad refined table salt rubbish) then that could well explain the problem. We need a certain amount of both in our bodies - if we are deficient then it has to impact.As much of the carbohydrate foods are very dehydrating, it could be that some of the natural ones are too - especially when we are VERY dehydrated.I found in the end by the time my digestion finally collapsed that the only foods I could cope with were the ones that provided plenty of water and didn't have too much sugar in them. Fruit had been an issue for years, but I could cope with cooked vegetables and some salad, a little fish and seafood, and soups. I didn't twig at the time that it was because they were foods that provided their own water for digestion, but I have realised that now. Smoothies were a staple at the time.Gradually as my digestion started to heal I was able to reintroduce more foods - eggs, then meat, then nuts, but I still couldn't cope with grains, starches, sugar and dairy.Now I have figured out what is going on and have started to rehydrate, my digestion is working much better and the reactions I get seem to gradually be diminishing. D is long gone and C is also now a thing of the past. I can now manage most fruit and some carbs. I stay pretty low carb not just because I am diabetic, but also because it means that I am getting more benefit from the water rather than it having to be used for digesting the carbs. I never realised how much of what we eat, and drink, is so dehydrating. Sugar, or anything that turns to sugar in the body (carbs), tea, coffee, dairy, grains and starches, alcohol, chemical sweeteners and chemical additives, all need plenty of water for digestion and processing. Without enough those processes are compromised and the body can't cope with the foods.I never was very good at drinking, and certainly never drank water - I hated that it made me feel so thirsty. Of course it did. When I drank it my body was asking for more, and stupidly I was ignoring it - well, not understanding the signal anyway! Doh!


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

Borrellifan said:


> So if undetected parasites are truely the cause of some or many of our IBS symptoms then how would one go about treating it, or figuring out what parasites are causing it and eliminating them?


I spent an hour or so at the IBS Treatment Centre in Seattle, last August. There are tests they do that will examine your fecal matter for DNA traces of parasites, so they no longer have to find one of them in your stool sample. Their fingerprints are everywhere. You might drop "betterthroughscience" a PM, let him know where you live and ask that question of him. It seems likely that he could provide you with somewhere to send your ****.I remember seeing the original bottles of Fowlers years ago. I hope the new stuff works for you.Greetings from damned Canada.Mark


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## thelibertine (Sep 8, 2009)

Thanks for posting, very interesting indeed. I totally agree with you that I think IBS is caused by bacteria in your tummy. After I had my sigmoidoscopy, which meant I had bowel prep, clearing out my bowel, I felt fine and dandy for 2-3 weeks, then slowly as the bacteria began to build my tummy went wrong again! I fully believe my IBS is being caused by bacteria building up in my tummy, but I have no way to solve it!I've tried googling a few of the terms you put up, but can't find much, I'm allergic to strawberries, does it contain strawberries? And where can I try something similar in the UK, at this point (after nearly 3 years) anything is worth trying.


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## allyjellybelly (Aug 16, 2005)

The colon will always have bacteria in it - it is estimated that we carry something in the region of 5,500 different strains of bacteria in our bodies, but there is not supposed to be too much in the way of bacteria in the small intestine. It is when they get in there and start to overgrow that we start to get problems.As most pathogenic bacteria or microbes (yeasts etc.) are dependent on carbohydrates - preferably undigested, then they will do everything in their power to disrupt digestion for their own ends.What triggers off this overgrowth? It is my theory that things like antibiotics will very often be the first catalyst. They kill the good bugs as well as the bad ones - and they don't touch the yeasts at all. That means that anything that has survived then has free reign to take over and colonise the space left by the destruction of the bugs that would have kept them in check.Candida Albicans is a normal resident in the bowel. It has a purpose. Unfortunately, when there is no curb on its proliferation, it takes advantage and eventually will become pathogenic.Eating lots of yummy sugar and carbs, especially refined processed stuff is heaven to them.Our 'normal' Western diet is 'carb-heaven'. It is absolutely stuffed to the gunwhales with carbs of all descriptions and we oblige them by eating plenty of it. Eventually, the proliferation in the gut gets so bad that it starts to impact on our digestion, our ability to absorb nutrients, and makes the gut much more vulnerable to proliferation of other nasty bugs of parasites.Add to the the fact that most people don't drink nearly enough plain water to help the food get through the gut quickly enough and help to keep it clean and you have a recipe for problems.Hippocrates said 'all disease begins in the gut'. Wise man.


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## IanRamsay (Nov 23, 2008)

usually a gut infection like food poisoning or cdiff etc trigger the overgrowth because1. anti biotics or the bodys natural defences dont kill off all teh bacteria2. probiotics are not take at the right time to repopulate ahead of teh regrowth of resident bacteria3. a faulty IC Valve isnot treated after infectionIan


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

It really isn't just the pathogenic bacteria that feast on carbs.Pretty much all bacteria, yeast, plants, animals, fungi all use carbs as a fuel source. There are a few bacteria that live in places where there is no sunlight that get their energy from other compounds, but carbs fuel all the normal bacteria you want in addition to all the bacteria you don't want.Now some of the friendly bacteria (probiotics) do not generate gas from the carbs like most of the rest of the flora (good, bad, or ugly) but they still eat the carbs, they are not just fueled by fat and proteins we do not digest.Now the standard Western diet does have way too many refined starches and sugars, but that fuels everything in the gut.


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## NotGonnaGiveUp (Nov 19, 2009)

hey everyone,I'm new here just looking to try and figure this whole thing out. I refuse to just except that this is something i have to live with. I've been doing alot of research and came across this Doctor named Dr Mark Pimentel who wrote a book called A new IBS solution. I have yet to read the book but have read into what he believes to be the cause and he say's that it is a bacteria in the small intestine called small bacteria overgrowth. They believe that 70 to 80 percent of people with ibs have this overgrowth. If this is the case they say they can treat it with antibiotics. There is a test to determine if this is the problem, it's a hydrogen breathe test. There has been alot of review on this of people saying they have cured there IBS. When I went to my doctor yesturday he had no idea what i was talking about. He didn't know about the test or the antibiotics. I'm not sure if this is because i'm in canada or this doctor just hasn't got a clue. i know the antibiotic they use to treat this is not available in canada. Does anyone know about this research?


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

We have been discussing Pimentel's research since about 2000 when the very first paper of his came out. Some people have good luck with that approach, others do not, so it is like every other treatment for IBS.Most people here do not find it to be a one shot cure, they generally have to go on antibiotics a few times a year, and unfortunately they sometimes get too many bacteria the no longer respond so it loses effectiveness over time.SIBO was known for a long time before Pimentel associated it with IBS. It was treated long before the antibiotic he tends to prefer was invented.http://www.medicinenet.com/small_intestina...rowth/page6.htm lists all the antibiotics that are used and I know most of those are available in Canada.http://www.ibsgroup.org/forums/index.php?showforum=42 is a forum where we discuss this research and we've been trying to get most of the informational posts over the years moved there so all the information is in one place. Hope you find it helpful.


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## shepherdteeth (Dec 22, 2008)

SweetDoug, thanks a lot for posting your detailed food and bathroom visits log. While I believe your internals may be able to handle what some of us here with IBS triggers are unable to tolerate or risk consuming, like alcohol, spicy food, etc. some of us also have lactose intolerance, so that makes us extra picky eaters. That, or we take lactase supplements (LactAid or similar).Still, I'm curious about the remedy you proposed and read some history on it, how it's been used for years, etc. I can't help but wonder whether eating wild picked strawberries would be just as effective? In my experience, having too many berries leads to diarrhea though, so it may not work. Perhaps the extract is just the right amount?


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

The bottle my Mom had way back when said it was made from some other part of the plant, not the berries.http://www.herbs2000.com/herbs/herbs_wild_strawberries.htm says it is the roots that are used for treating diarrhea.


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## Phoenix684 (Nov 19, 2009)

Well I'm glad that strawberry stuff worked for you... But I'm pretty sure that it won't work like that for me. I have UC, I was awake for my scope, I saw the ulcers. For some reason I just don't think that some strawberry extract is going to magically make my ulcers in my colon dissapear...


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## EstherH (Nov 18, 2009)

allyjellybelly, you are so right about being dehydrated! That was actually the first thing that started making me feel better a few years ago. After going to Cedars and doing the breath test (yep, I had bacteria overgrowth detected, as so many have mentioned), I was given three rounds of antibiotics that did nothing. I then had to go on this all-liquid diet (trying to remember what it was called...vivonex?) for TWO weeks, having these icky sweet shakes for breakfast/lunch/dinner.... well, that relief didn't last long. Soon I started with a holistic chiropractor who took one look at me and asked, "Do you even drink water?" I always had issues of going every half hour or so, so I really didn't drink much to try to curb that. He told me I had to drink half my body weight in ounces and that made a world of difference! But I still had some issues (not nearly as bad), which led me to the naturopath, etc. But yes -- IBS sufferers definitely should make sure they're drinking a ton.


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## jmh (Aug 4, 2009)

Ok so I got reasonably excited about this 'find'. In the UK, DioCalm has the active ingredient Attapulgate as well as morphine. The latter is in tiny concentrations which will have no addictive effect but works on the nerve endings of the bowel. So I guess a bit like off-licence use of Amatryptiline antidepressant in that sense. As far as I know, DioCalm tablets are the only medicines which have this active ingredient. They are available in Boots and I guess other pharmacies.Have just taken one so will revert with results soon...


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

jmh said:


> Ok so I got reasonably excited about this 'find'. In the UK, DioCalm has the active ingredient Attapulgate as well as morphine. The latter is in tiny concentrations which will have no addictive effect but works on the nerve endings of the bowel. So I guess a bit like off-licence use of Amatryptiline antidepressant in that sense. As far as I know, DioCalm tablets are the only medicines which have this active ingredient. They are available in Boots and I guess other pharmacies.Have just taken one so will revert with results soon...


Just got my bottle of Fowlers in today myself. Will report back within a few days and let you all know how it works.


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## Elephant (Jul 22, 2009)

I just saw sweetdoug's original post and tbh I though it was a spam posting to promote a product.


> Punchline: Go out and buy Dr. Fowler's Wild Strawberry and drink the whole thing over a period of 3-4 days.


What exactly is Dr Fowler's Wild Strawberry and what exactly does it do? i live in the UK and I've never heard of it.


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

Well, after drinking down the bottle I can honestly say that "sweetdoug" you are probably in the minority of sufferers that this stuff will cure or even help. Maybe it was a placebo effect? Or maybe it really did wipe out some bug you had but this didn't even help my symptoms at all nevermind cure me. Immodium has a much greater effect on my symptoms then this stuff. I didn't go into this thinking that this stuff would actually cure me so no biggie but i doubt it will have much effect on others either.


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## Borrellifan (May 5, 2009)

Elephant said:


> I just saw sweetdoug's original post and tbh I though it was a spam posting to promote a product. What exactly is Dr Fowler's Wild Strawberry and what exactly does it do? i live in the UK and I've never heard of it.


It seems its only being manufactured in Canada and you have to order it on-line through them. It has some type of ingredient called Apulagate(sp) that is supposed to clump up all the bad bacteria and wipe them out of your system? Didn't do much for me is all i can say.


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## idkwia (Feb 26, 2009)

Has anyone else tried this cure? I am sure we would all be interested to hear if it works for others so please let us know.


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## IanRamsay (Nov 23, 2008)

charcole will do the same thing, although there is NOTHING On earth that will gather up all the bad bacteria and flush them out of you. infact, that would be a very unhealthy thing to do, we all need some of teh bad guys in our gut because believe it or not in teh correct numbers they actually help us out. IAN


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## On Edge (Aug 25, 2009)

Any more updates on experiences with this??


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## jmc09 (Oct 5, 2009)

It sounds to me that if anybody had any success with 'wild strawberry' extract it would run alongside another type of treatment.I do believe that in nature it usually provides a cure to nearly all it's problems but strawberries have been used so often it would be amazing if they were actually a cure for IBS when used alone.


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## SweetDoug (Nov 15, 2009)

Well, I guess I didn't obviously have IBS and Doctor Fowler's isn't the cure I hoped it would be for the rest of you. I had hoped to see dozens of people posting that they were at least relieved.This pisses me off. This result tells me that the medical community really don't have a flying bloody clue as to what's going on with this affliction and don't seem to have the capacity to suss out the problem.All this attention and there's not one damn bit of headway. Or it's sketchy at best.And worse, they get it wrong.I've been fine for over a year now, and I thank the universe every time I take a dump without the problems I had, or the head trip delivered to me by the gp who "diagnosed" me.As my mom says, whose had myriads of medical issues, "They (the doctors) bury their mistakes."Good luck everyone.Send me a note if you find any relief.SweetDoug


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

I'm not sure that the proof you cannot possibly have IBS comes from one particular over the counter treatment not working for 100% of all people.No disease has a single treatment that cures everyone. It would be nice, and would make things a lot easier but unfortunately we are not all genetically and physiologically identical. Although if we were all identical that would have it's own risks as one disease could come along and kill every last one of us.There is a lot of research going on into IBS and there are a number of drugs in the pipeline (assuming the FDA will ever allow any IBS drug to be approved) but none of them will be a universal cure, either.


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## On Edge (Aug 25, 2009)

Any more testimonials about this Dr Fowlers remedy?


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## gates (Jan 10, 2014)

Why isn't much research done on ibs, I wonder. We ibs' ers r under constant lookout for options to treat it and who ever promises there is a cure, it draws our attention and look for ways to get the medicine..if there is certain medicine (Dr.Folwers), why isnt it known to so called specialists "Gastroenterologist's".


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

A lot of very old timey medications like that are often not usually taught or used much by doctors as most are grandfathered in with very little evidence they work (as they were from before you had to prove it before you could sell it as a drug)) and no one is going to now spend the millions to get it approved (and it seems when they do testing they are more likely to be removed from the market for lack of evidence they work no matter how many people swear by them).

766 articles about IBS were published in 2013 about Irritable Bowel in medical journals so I wouldn't call that no reasearch at all. Unfortunately it takes a lot of research to get one treatment in the doctor's office. With the number of people a treatment might be used by there is a fair amount of interest even though there are a lot of regulatory hurdles (they seem to require much higher safety standards for IBS drugs than for acne medications or lifestyle medications) in getting new treatments to market. There isn't likely to be a lot of new reaserch into very old treatments (My Mom took it as a kid in the 1920's, the old kind so it certainly isn't new, and most evidence based medical doctors don't get much training in any random herbal extract especially ones with no research done on them just grandfathered in with a we don't think it kills anyone)

AFAIK you can only get it in Canada which probably is part of why there aren't a lot of people trying it here. We have some Canadian folks but a lot more Americans.

FWIW sounds like the newer version is what used to be sold in the USA as Kaopectate and that was removed from the market here when they did test it as they found it wasn't generally effective and so Kaopectate changed the formulation to use the same compound as pepto bismol. That is the problem with reseraching some of the older medications, it just gets them pulled even if effective for an occasional person if they aren't effective enough for a large percentage of people then they get removed from the marketplace. Although depending on what it is you can still get it from the dietary supplement market where you can sell it as long as it hasn't killed enough people to be removed, yet.


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