# Final Year of uni-and my IBS has flared up



## Mimulus (Oct 19, 2011)

Hello,As the title suggests, I've just started my final year of uni. I've had IBS since I was 16, so I've had to cope with it for the previous two years of being at uni, and there have been times when I've missed a few lectures and seminars, but I've still managed to keep up. I'm only a few weeks in to my final year though and I've already missed quite a bit. I'm worried that I'm in a bit of a cycle where my IBS symptoms have flared up because I'm feeling stressed about this year and I'm placing a high amount of importance on it, so I'm missing seminars and tutorials, but then that's making me feel more stressed because I'm worried about falling behind! I know there's a bit of an obvious answer here-that I should encourage myself more to go to my seminars-but sometimes that's easier said than done, and because my IBS hadn't been too much of a problem, it's got me anxious now that it has flared up again.I tend to find that I'm not so bad in lectures-I think it's because the lecture rooms are fairly big so you are just one in a crowd and have a lot of anonymity, and making notes seems to distract me. Like for instance I missed a tutorial one afternoon this week but encouraged myself to go to the lecture because it was a few hours later and I felt a bit better by then-and I'll admit I did feel happier with myself for making the effort to go.My biggest problem has always been seminars/tutorials in the afternoon. I never feel that great after lunch anyway, and I try to time it so that I'm having my lunch at least a couple of hours before a seminar so that it has time to digest. I still seem to feel bad though, and I get a bit anxious about going in to uni which doesn't help matters. Luckily I seem to only have one tutorial in the afternoon for this term at least, but I missed it this week and I'm worried about missing it again. I kind of want to ask my tutor if I can be moved to one of the groups in the morning instead, even though this will mean getting used to a new tutorial group and whatnot. But like I've read from other peoples' posts on here, I'm worried that the tutor won't really believe me (plus I think we've been assigned to specific tutorial groups because of the topics for our dissertations, so I don't know how easy it would be for me to move







).Saying all this though, I was meant to have a two hour seminar this morning and haven't been able to go in (and I'm meant to be able to do mornings!). It started at 9, so I got up at 6 so I had plenty of time to get ready and eat my breakfast and go to the toilet (both of which can take a while) plus it's about a half hour walk to uni. I ended up waking up feeling sick though, and straight after eating breakfast I had to go to the toilet and had bad D, and now I just feel generally bleurgh and have a really weird tummy ache like I have a stitch or something. I intend to email the tutor and apologise for not making it today, and be honest and say I have IBS and it seems to have flared up at the mo (I did make him aware of me having IBS, but that was when I started uni so I don't know if he'll remember). It's one of the things I really don't like about uni-one day I'll be in at one in the afternoon, and then the next I'm in at 9 in the morning! My body seems to prefer a constant routine rather than getting up at different times and eating at different times each day. Is anyone else the same?What really gets me though is that yes, I might be feeling stressed which could be making the IBS worse, but I'm trying to take loads of preventative measures in an attempt to make myself feel better. For example, I don't go out at night (not that you have the time to in final year anyway!) and don't drink alcohol ever, I try to go to bed early and make sure I get enough sleep, I have a wheat intolerance so I eat gluten free bread and other gluten free products, and I try to avoid processed foods as much as I can and eat natural yogurt or drink probiotic drinks. I even take tablets called Ecodophilus which are full of probiotics, and DigestiveAid which contain enzymes to help break down food easier, and yet neither of these seem to work anymore. And I do a meditation routine each night before bed that is meant to ease your symptoms, which I was taught by a uni counsellor that I saw last year to help me deal with stress/anxiety and the IBS (and I've just signed up for more sessions to help me this year). Could it just be stress making my IBS flare up? Or could it be the weather, because it's gone really cold all of a sudden, so I might have got a chill in my tummy (does the weather affect anyone else's IBS?).I'm sorry that this was such a long message, but I will be grateful to anyone who reads it and can offer any advice. Thankyou


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## Cassie90 (Oct 4, 2011)

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