# My IBS story or saga!



## Guest (May 29, 2010)

I have had alternating IBS for about 12 years now. It started at a period of time when I was very stressed. (Although now I think it started long before this. I remember lots of windy pain in the belly as a young teenager, and my mother took my to the doctor about it.) (Also had a very bad stomach bug in my early 20's that would cause intermittently, over about a period of a year, very bad diarrhea. It did finally go)The IBS became very bad at night (a painful lower and upper back and a very tight, very painful tummy) I had a year where I practically had no sleep. I was always exhausted. At 38 I realised I couldn't really have another child (I wanted one) as I just had no energy. I still pushed myself around all the time because I had no choice. I was diagnosed by a specialist who just said that I had IBS (no tests) and that there was nothing that could be done. Different times back then.I first thought it was a lactose (dairy) intolerance but even taking out dairy from my diet, which did alleviate some symptoms, other IBS symptoms just grew worse.Because I'm into natural therapies, and the specialist offered me no hope, I decided after a friend did kinesiology on me and told me I had certain Acupuncture Meridians that were very weak, to go to the acupuncturist she recommended. I went for quite awhile and it did help me. I could now sleep at night and had some good days. The acupunturist said that I would never really ever get over my tendency. That it could only be managed. I still see the acupunturist even now every 3 or so months. But I still had a lot of pain on some days and still days with just no energy. Just dragging myself around.I read about a parasite called Blastocystis and went to see a doctor who had some knowledge of this parasite. Blastocystis really flourishes on a diet high in carbs and sugar The doctor said all one can do is manage it as it was very hard to get rid of. I had a stool test and sure enough there was a fair amount of this in my stool. He gave me a herbal anti parasitic, told me not to eat certain foods, and also gave me a blood test for gluten intolerance.I also read about a famous professor (he had found the cure for stomach ulcers) doing a study on the link of Blastocystis and IBS. I thought I would try the same antibiotics he was using in his trial.... Some very expensive antibiotics later (I had to get them specially as they were not allowed in Australia)... I just felt worse.The gluten intolerance test came up positive, very low on the scale and definitely not a Celiac. I absolutely hated the idea of going off gluten. Already having given up dairy I was not keen on this at all. But as all else had failed I decided to do it. I started having no gluten and nothing much happened to begin with. But the first sign that I really noticed was that all the aches and pains in my back and body disappeared! This was amazing and when I realized that if I had even the smallest amount of gluten they came back I was sold! The pain in my bowel didn't go immediately in fact it took a long time but eventually (I can only guess that my small intestine was healing) I started to experience no pain there either. And best of all I had my energy back, consistently! I was very happy as you can imagine but I was still not happy that I could have no gluten at all. I hated not being able to go restaurants and eat what was on the menu. I'm not Celiac but I am just as sensitive to tiny amounts of gluten and it is not easy. Luckily my friends are fairly supportive although they get kind of impatient with me when we go out -all my questions about whether a dish has this or that in it. Also very lucky for me my husband turned out to be Gluten sensitive too and when he went off gluten his long standing back problems all cleared up! I decided to try Chinese herbal medicine. Boy was that a mistake! I don't know if it was the inept practitioner or what but the remedy he gave me started the pain off in my body again. I felt angry and frustrated. He had no answer as to why this had occurred. After this mistake it took ages to recover. I believe I am a very sensitive individual (maybe this is so for all IBS sufferers?) Next I embarked on Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). I don't believe that IBS is in my head but I know it is badly affected by stress and I have nothing to lose. I used it for a quite a few months. I tapped (EFT technique) a lot on dairy and for a while I could eat it but it didn't last. Probably only worked because I wasn't so intolerant of it as I hadn't had dairy for quite a while.I did have some Gluten as well and had no bad side effects at all the first few times I ate it. Which is just amazing for me. But soon I started burping continuously and became bloated (which was one of the first symptoms I ever had) Next came the bad pains in the small intestine and lots of wind that doesn't move. In the next few days pain in the lower bowel and diarrhea and then a few days after that absolutely no energy. All in all it took about a week to get through that mistake. Now there is a lot of fear around trying gluten again. I think I was able to eat it because as with the dairy I hadn't had it for quite a while and it took a while for the reaction to occur. I have been through a myriad of other remedies I haven't mentioned that initially seemed to help only to stop working after a short time. So I deeply understand the cynicism for the so called "cures" that comes with this kind of disease. For me it was very important taking gluten completely out of my diet was. I do believe my small intestines have healed alot due to this. But gluten is in wheat glucose, malt, additives and a lot of foods which you wouldn't believe! And of course oats are a no no and you need to find gluten free beer because of the barley they use to make it -basically I am on a celiac diet even if I not celiac. I really wonder why it's so hard to give up wheat. I think it might be quite addictive because it does gets easier to not eat it as time goes on. I also now eat a whole lot less sugar. I really find it is also important to eat too much at one meal. Really bloats me. I took out casein (decided it was this and not necessarily the lactose in dairy) and gluten out of my diet but I still got painful episodes. I was getting really paranoid about my food, this is not good for stress! I noticed coffee was really hard on my gut. I mostly cut it out.I started eating less carbohydrates-more veges and meat, less grains etc. Seemed to help. I had already cut out legumes (beans, lentils) as they gave me painful wind. Realised later that I had cut out most of the high fibre foods so of course I was a lot more constipated! Found out that not only was dairy and gluten a problem but so is white potato (which I loved!). There really seems to be no end to what I can be sensitive to in the way of foods. I threw up a couple of times after eating Eggplant. Eggplant and White potato are from the Deadly Nightshade Family. I went to see the Advanced Allergy clinic who said they could use kinesology to find what foods I am sensitive to and fix the intolerances. Sure enough all the familiar intolerances (they used little vials of particular foods etc and used kineseology to ask the body which ones were a problem) and then the practitioner also found I was sensitive to Salcilates which is in so many foods including veges! I got treatment for dairy first.... didn't work. Went back for treatment for gluten... didn't work. Decided not the go back, expensive and useless. So much for that.A friend told me about a treatment he had getting Human Probiotics back into the bowel. He said it was worth it. Started to research the correlation between IBS and Gut Flora, in fact any Auto Immune Disease and Gut Flora. Seems there is a huge connection that is just being found out. Of course people have said that probiotics have helped them but I never got any help using them. I can see that Human probiotics infused into the bowel could really work. Plus the excellent part about it is the actually adhere and stay, unlike oral probiotics. Went to the clinic that does this and had a colonoscopy and a pandescopy to find out what problems I might have eg parasites, celiac, lactose intolerance etc. No problems with my small or large intestine. Not even a polyp. Not a celiac either according to their test. No problems with lactose. There was inflammation however in my stomach. Found out this could be due just to food intolerances. They tested for parasites (one of which was Blastocystis Hominis) and heliobactor pyloris but nothing showed.Diagnosis by the clinic was - As there was absolutely nothing wrong with me - IBS.Decided to go ahead with the Human Probiotic infusion (HPI). Was given a course of Rifamicin antibiotics for 10 days prior to treatment. Had to travel hundreds of kilometres and spend two weeks away from home for this treatment. Did the prep that must be done prior which is clearing out the bowels complelety by fasting and used a very strong laxative.Had another colonoscopy in which they put human faeces into the small intestine. I smelt very different to myself. They told me this was the new flora in my bowel. The next day I had more HP but this was just using a enema into my large bowel. My tongue was coated yellow. This is strange as I usually have a very clean tongue. Didn't have a bowel movement for five days. Finally went on fifth day, smelt very different from my old feces smell.I can really say now that apart from the fact that there is nowhere to eat when you are gluten, casein (Dairy) and white potato intolerant that I don't miss these foods so much in my life that much anymore. I was truly addicted to them and now I eat so much better. I now love my salads and greens which I really didn't before. I am eating a lot healthier all round. I was told to eat lots of Prebiotics (soluable fiber- legumes, vegetable etc) to feed the new flora. the Results after spending thousands of dollars? Nada!1 year and a half later though I started for the first time for years and years to feel good. Who knows exactly why! Could be the HPI finally kicked in?Still off my gluten and dairy but able to eat some other foods that I couldn't, not too much of course but some. Had lots of energy. Am 50 years old now. But I decided to have elective surgery and of course had the obligatory antibiotics. My health regressed badly. Bad diarrhea, tired, asleep by 8pm, fuzzy thinking, abdominal pain, food sensitivies and cravings for alcohol very bad again. Took me two months and a bad bout of thrush to make be realize it had to be Candida from the antibiotics?So with nothing left to do went on a Bee's Anti Candida diet without the butter. Have been on it for 2 weeks. Also using Symbion as I saw a post on this site for it. Fuzzy thinking is better.By: Cassyb


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