# New to the Board...some questions



## justwckd2 (Feb 23, 2005)

Hey, First let me introduce myself. My name is Ryan, I'm a 19 year old male, currently living in Arizona. I attend Arizona State University and am majoring in Justice Studies, to perhaps one day, become a Police Officer.I have had IBS-D since at least the first grade. My school and Mom thought that it was just anxiety, you know "in my head" and I refused to get the tests that were necessary. You know being young I was scared of a camera going up my butt. haha. Anyways I was officialy diagnosed with moderate to severe IBS when I was 17. I was put on Amnitriptlyne and Lomotil. Right off the bat it seemed to get better. The severe was becoming few and far between. I graduated and was happy. I've been seeing a girl that I love with all of my being, infact, it will be 3 years this March 2nd. Life should be great.Then 6 months ago **** hit the fan. No pun intended. My brother was deployed in 2003 and returned in May of 04. During that time I had to be the emotionally strong one of the family. Amazingly, I dealt well with it all. When he returned, he was a different person. That kind of hurt when he was probably the closet person to a father I have had. Anyways, this past summer my IBS-D started to get severe again. I saw my Internist (Gastrointerologist) and he upped my dosage of Amni. from 10mg to 25mg and put me on Belladonna. Things were okay until Finals. I returned to my doctor in January and was put on Colestid. So now I'm on 4 medications and guess what? For the three months, my stomach has been controlling my life.I now have an appt. to go see a therapist that specializes in IBS patients. I have also been reading up on treatments and one of them has been hypnotherapy. My first question is on that. Has anybody gave it a shot and what have your reactions been?My 2nd question is, do any of you ever feel competely lost and defeated? I don't know if it is my anti-depressent but for the past 6 months I sleep at odd hours, sometimes until even 5 in the afternoon. The last week has been really bad. I just feel like sometimes how the hell can I have any quality of life if my stomach dictates how I live.My last question is, I know there isn't a cure but do you believe that a cure will happen in our lifetime? Probably a stupid question.


----------



## ausername (Feb 19, 2005)

hey ryan, i don't have any answers for you, but i do have a question.is that really what you have to go through to be diagnosed with ibs? (you know, the whole camera up the butt biz) if so, i really...do not...want to go to the doctor! haha. i have no idea at this point whether or not i actually have ibs, but after reading up on it and coming to these boards it seems as though all of the symptoms are there. anyway, i do have episodes of defeatedness and confusion. my sleeping patterns are completely screwed and most of the time i have a hard time falling alseep because my head is racing. do you ever feel like just not eating? i haven't been much lately because i don't even want to bother with the digestive process, though i feel like it may be making it worse.


----------



## kateandtink (Sep 1, 2004)

sorry to hear you are having a rough time ryan







unfortunately we can go through depression, anxiety and disturbed sleep.... ibs can upset alot of things and sometimes like you know now, pressures can affect us and make ibs rule us for some time until once more we become strong enough to fight.i have moderate to severe ibs too, i control with a strict diet, i kept a food adn drink diary for months and months, very boring but evnechually i found out what i couldnt have, what i could have in moderation and now may even what i can reintroduce







i control with immodium from all drugs i tried around 12 of them these are the only things that give me any kind of peace.most of us suffer with stress or anxiety trigger ibs at some point, sometimes its at the points where you are doing great, kind of like iobs enjoys bringing you down but we are always strong enough to fight back, to regain what we had before







it takes time and paitence but it will come back.some people have "cured" thereselves with alternative meds and calcium things like that... and some of us arent so lucky, as for a proper medical cure, im not sure there are alot of things that trigger ibs and for everyoner what triggers it is different...ausername: you must be diagnoised cancer and chrohns match ibs sypmtoms exactly too but leaving them untreated isnt a good idea... you must have these tests... there is no shame in what we go through, afterall life is better than death


----------



## KayWill (Feb 15, 2005)

Hi Ryan,I can't answer your question about a cure, but I can tell you that Zoloft helped me hugely with the anxiety and I take Xanax when necessary for panic attacks. That many meds seems like maybe it's overdoing it. Have you gotten a second opinion? I'm 24 and have had IBS-D about since I was 7 or so. I do feel horribly discouraged sometimes, and before I got on Xanax it was controlling my life. I would worry I'd get D, then I'd start to have a panic attack and before I knew it I was having a full-blown panic attack and D. I couldn't go anywhere with friends, and I even felt I needed to plan my college class schedule around how far the classes were from where I could park so I could get home if I needed to.And I always felt like I was some kind of freak because I didn't know anyone else who had IBS and didn't feel like I could tell anyone outside of my family. I'm glad you found the forums here becasue they have helped me a ton. It's just really a relief to know that so many people, many of them young too, have this problem. I think you really need to try not to let the IBS control your life because it will be a wicked cycle of stress.


----------

