# My IBS Story/Intro



## EvelynBliss (Sep 29, 2013)

My name is Evelyn,

I am a 26 year old IBS-A sufferer, as per my diagnosis of my Family Doctor, although we are still meeting regularly due to my servere nature to ensure that it is first and foremost the correct diagnosis and to ensure that it isn't anything fatale and to eventually find a way to manage and control the attacks and pain.

I should start off back when I was 19, during my first year of college, I would have a pain start in my sternum area perhaps once a month, which eventually escalated over the course of 4 years, both in pain and frequency. I had to refuse to leave the Emergency Room to ensure that my pain would be managed as they were talking about sending me home as an out-patient for another week before surgery. I know many people talk about Doctors being indifferent, rude or outright write you off, my Grandfather is a retired Doctor (he is a little old school but tough) and he was the one to tell me to demand to be treated and refuse to be sent off or passed along. This eventually led to the removal of my gallbladder on August 16th, 2010. It took 5 consecutive emergency visits where they had to give me Toridol or Morphine to stop the pain and then my refusal to leave my Emergency bed without the necessary surgery before they would admit me the next morning for surgery.

My life seemed pretty good after the removal, I was back to eating what I wanted, although I had signed up for a gym membership and changed some of my eating habits due to the realization that my food intake and lifestyle had led to the need to remove my gallbladder. I was visiting my Family Doctor after the surgery and we noted that sometimes food would trigger pain, bloating, gas and loose bowel movements. This led to some tests and he diagnosed me with a Low Bile Salt content which the gallbladder can help regulate, so although the gallbladder isn't necessary it can be helpful. I continued to watch what I ate and now I was careful of how much I would eat at one sitting, often opting for small meals and snacks.

I do have stress in my life just like everyone else does, I do my best to manage it but I can admit that sometimes the mind can be a fickle thing and maybe a little out of my league. After my gallbladder was removed I was let go from my job on Jan 2011 and my Husband was given notice by his company that had been bought out that he would only be working until the end of December 2011. So basically that left me to scramble to find a job as quickly as I could because my Husband needed to go back to retrain at school. I found a full-time job (which was not easy to find as we all know), which is not in my field nor is it very rewarding but I have maintained it for our bills, school, and health insurance. Also in Jan 2011 I found out I was pregnant and miscarried at 9 weeks due to stress caused by morning sickness, IBS, or life I don't really know as I was pretty much bedridden from week 6 to week 9. My uncle passed away from throat and lung cancer and my mother-in-law was diagnosed with ovarian cancer during these other events as well. My mother-in-law has since been in the green but continues to suffer from the harmful effects of the cancer treatments which has severly damaged her digestive tract. So this is basically what I would consider the mental stresses outside of my IBS that can control most of your day. My life is slowly calming down with my Husband out of school, back to work however only on contract until the end of this year. We are moving to a new spot with some perks and savings which relieves some burdens and I am slowly working on a portfolio to secure a job in my industry (Animation and Game Art, I currently work as an Administrator which I can tell you is really not what I want to do, but I can make a resume for a Administrator in an hour and a portfolio can take a couple months of full time work putting in 60-80 plus hours some weeks to impress any company to get what are very competitive jobs). Most of this I am learning to leave either in the past or just letting go for the sake of my health. I am fortunate to have a supportive family that are working to help me concentrate on my health.

Back to the main issue at hand my IBS and how it has escalated in the past year since January 2013. In January my IBS really started to hit a pain plateau that I thought it could never reach or surpass. I would have pain that would make me run straight for the bathroom. I would feel my belly rumble and then the pain would explode in my abdomen and the need to evacuate my bowels immediately would hit me like a tone of bricks. I find what ever triggers the diahrea will pass through me in under 20 minutes and clear out anything in my system with a lot of whole undigested foods being evacuated. This was happening to me at least 4-5 days out of the week, at this point in the year I weighed 193 lbs at a height of 5 foot 1 inch. From January to the end of April 2013 I made four trips to my Family Doctor to monitor the situation and try medications. I have been on the stool hardeners, softeners, fibre, antispasmodics, Dicetel. Things like fibre, peppermint and other natural or easy to get over the counter methods helped a little here or there. For the most part though the Doctor prescribed medication that had worse adverse effects such as drowsiness, pain, headaches, bloating, nausea, vomiting and diahrea. I already have this issue! I don't need to make it worse. I discontinue any medication that worsens the situation.

I have given up Lactose and caffeine entirely as they will cause IBS attacks of the diahrea variety. I was a fanatic for pepsi but I haven't touched pop since March 2013. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life nor do I drink alcohol. By June 2013 I had a pretty comprehensive planner with what I ate, how much, and at what time and when my attacks hit me and what happened. I would take this to my Doctor to show I am serious about getting my health on track. I was watching my weight to ensure healthy weight loss. June 21st, 2013 I weighed in at 186 lbs. I figured that's an improvement from dropping caffeine and milk and pop! I still had to figure out the pain and other issues that come with IBS.

During June I had almost daily attacks, constant pain, bloating, difficulty breathing, dizziness, vertigo and sometimes vomiting. I went to see a walk in physican to make them rule out another virus, infection or pregnancy. It all came back negative and the walk in Doctor said it was an IBS attack and perscribed me Apo-naposyn and Tums. I threw up the pills twice and I wasn't trying a third time at vomiting the pills up again. This was ongoing and on July 12th I went to see my Family Doctor and weighed in at 163 lbs, in 22 days I had lost 23 lbs, and so I was sent to have an endoscopy. I was also tested for celiac and a biopsy was taken. Everything had come back negative. I was perscribed another medication which only made my abdomen feel like it had intense feeling pressing down on my guts. It pretty much caused an attack that had my legs all the way down to my knees in intense pain. I had to sit beside the toilet just to make sure I could make it there if my Husband wasn't nearby to help me there.

At this point I am turned off eating, I have little to no appetite. I am very fatigued, my body is constantly sore. My abdominal muscles are too fatigued to be strong enough to prevent vomiting. My stomach is so tender that I have leaned up against the counter at work that made me run to the bathroom to vomit. I suffer from constant nausea which I believe is exacerbated by the tenderness and fatigued digestive tract. I can suffer from breathing difficulty because of the fatigue and soreness. I am currently seeing my Family Doctor and a Nutritionist who are both good with working together thankfully. So I have them pass along what either of us is working on medication and nutrition wise. I can no longer take pill form of tylenol, penicillin, B12 vitamin, Vitamin C and Multivitamins, etc. I had to go to one of the specialist nutrition stores where one of the clerks can bench press me 50 times to get a liquid multivitamin as per my Nutritionists suggestion while I am working with my Doctor on further options. My intake is so little that the IBS constipation is now my most predominant pain as the food that I do have moving through my system is so slow that I can spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour on the toilet and I don't feel done. I do find putting a little box under my feet making my knees perpendicular to my waist helps relieve some of the painful pressure during this time.

I continue to eat as best I can which is limited to mostly vegtables, some fruit (staying away from citrus), fibre but this can depend on if I'm having a hard time with diahrea or constipation (which can cause a growing pain the longer it lasts). I stick to bland carbs and small meals/snacks depending on if I can manage an appetite to eat. Sometimes I will just put food into my mouth and eat it because I know I didn't have anything that day except for fluids. Most mornings I wake up feeling ready to vomit or have an immediate bowel movement both of which are painful. I have begun to stop eating at 7pm as I go to bed around 9 -10pm depending on how tired I am to let most things process while I'm sitting upright during most of my digestion period. At least if I have a diahrea attack it will follow closely after the last time I ate. This way I am not kept up all night running to the washroom because I decided to have a snack right before I lied down to sleep. Also if I eat at 7pm and I am going through a constipation attack most of the food has moved out of my stomach so that by the time I go to sleep I don't have food sitting in my stomach while I am lying in bed causing what feels like the most nauseating and excruciatingly painful process as the food tries to move through my digestive system.

I have been tested for pregnancy four times since January 2013, all of which were negative. I have had a pap done and looked into any issues with my ovaries and utuerus, all of which have come back with no results that could relate to my pain and symptoms. As I previously stated I have had an endoscopy, biopsy and several blood, stool and urine tests for food allergies, celiac allergy, various bacterial infections, viruses and so many other possibilities like diabetes, cancer, cysts and funny enough every specialist I have been to hasn't really bothered to read my chart because every one of them has asked if I had my gallbladder out even though it is the first and only surgery I every list when I go to see them and I make sure to inform the nurse in writing and verbally.

I decided to join this group due to the escalating nature of my condition and its nice to be a part of a community that understands that I'm not imagining this pain and that I do want to find a way to control the situation in a healthy way that works for me. I am actually seeing my Family Doctor tomorrow to discuss a new method due to the vomiting becoming more frequent. I currently weigh in at 157 lbs, so I am happy I have slowed down the weightloss but I think my body is starting to eat away at the fat to compensate because I bought a pair of pants three weeks ago and already they are starting to fall down. I continue to excercise carefully because this can depend on how I feel and my needs. Hopefully, I can find some tips to try out, relate to some people going through this pain too and offer what I can if anyone has questions about what I'm going through. I felt really alone until I spoke to a man who is a cannabis activist and he told me about this very site where I could meet people suffering in the same way I do and I'm hoping to vent to frustration to help going about my process to get better. I'm happy to listen and understand and I'm looking forward to not having to deal with the ignorance in this community!

Now I know I mentioned a cannabis activist and I know this can cause wildfire, I don't use cannabis, I know people who do and I am fairly aware of its popularity with some people with IBS and digestive issues. Currently I am speaking to educated individuals about cannabis and looking into legitimate studies but have not yet sought it out with my physician. I have made him aware that I am open to most possibilities just give me a try as long as it isn't too invasive. My only request it stop the pain, help me maintain a slow weight loss to a gradual healthy weight, stop the fatigue, soreness and help find a way to quickly solve constipation and maybe have a day where I don't have to vomit because I stood up too quickly from bed. Just looking for a little relief!


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## rmiller1985 (Sep 13, 2011)

Hi Evelyn,

Wow, I'm really sorry to hear about all the stress that you had to deal with in a short period of time. That's enough to put ANYone's digestive tract into some sort of freefall!

What has helped me is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, but my symptoms are much different than yours; the biggest differences are that I experience little to no pain (except for isolated instances), and I don't suffer from nausea or vomiting. Most of the people I know who are on the SCD do not suffer from regular nausea, though some have discussed certain triggers for it.

In any case, if you're unfamiliar with the SCD, I'd recommend reading Elaine Gottschall's "Breaking The Vicious Cycle." Because of the very different symptoms, I don't know if it would be appropriate for you or not, but it wouldn't hurt to read the book and see if what she writes about makes sense for you. When I read it I recognized ways in which my gut could have become damaged as she described.

Cheers,

Rich


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## EvelynBliss (Sep 29, 2013)

Thank you for the advice. I will let my Nutritionist know of the method. I have some tests to go through next Saturday on the 12th which will includes more blood work, an upper GI and an Abdominal/Limited Pelvic Ultrasound. I was given some new medication to try to solve the vomiting or subdue it for the time being. I weighed in at 154 lbs today and he is starting to really push for some results for me.


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