# Family Problems



## Wednesday101 (Aug 27, 2012)

Hello IBS forum,I'm completely new to this, but I just found the website and wondered if anyone could offer advice about some IBS-related problems I have. I've just turned 20 and I was diagnosed about 3 years ago. It seems I have IBS-C, triggered by a combination of stress, dairy, high fat foods (saturated or unsaturated) and some veg like broccoli. Taking fibre supplements (Fybogel - Ispaghula Husk) and eating more fibre seems to have helped me a lot.Despite knowing these details, I'm still struggling to accept the condition. I still eat trigger food too often purely because I don't like that the condition controls my life so much. Has anyone else had similar trouble, well, getting over it?What I mean by 'family problems' in the title of this thread is that my family don't seem to understand the condition at all. I'm at university, but I come home during the holidays and eat with them. Part of me thinks that if I don't like the food they're making, I should just make my own, but it doesn't seem very fair when my siblings don't have to do that. I've explained to my mother several times that I need to minimise dairy and high fat, but she still sometimes comes home with 'treats' for dinner like potato skins filled with bacon and cheese (OUCH) to go with breaded scampi and tartare sauce (DOUBLE OUCH). I try and explain that I shouldn't eat it, but she just seems to get upset, probably because I always sound quite frustrated. Then I'll do something like go and get some mayonnaise because I don't like tartare sauce, to which they'll respond by subtly berating me (because I did, after all, just say I'm not supposed to eat fat).Essentially, they don't just not understand the physical side of the condition, they don't understand how I struggle with it emotionally. I don't want to feel ill, but I don't want it to stop me eating the food I like either. Bad combination. I've never expected them to change their diet just for me, but I thought they would at least try and help me avoid being very very ill, every day.I should say, they are not unsympathetic or stupid. My family are lovely, caring, intelligent people. They just can't seem to grasp at all what IBS means.I would explain my dietary situation to my dad, but he has a memory like a sieve. There's just no point. Although in terms of the difficulty dealing with the diagnosis, I thought he would understand more because he has Type 1 diabetes. Weirdly, he was a lot more sympathetic when I was diagnosed with mild asthma, yet that doesn't affect me anywhere near as badly.So anyway, whiny rant over, can anyone offer advice about how to deal with people who just don't get it?


----------



## abisaki (Aug 30, 2012)

i feel your pain i was diagnosed in 2008 but i still hate the fact that i can't eat whatever i want therefore, sometimes i just eat what i want and suffer later . unfortunately unless your family members get ibs they will not understand the struggle in my opinion.my issue has been with lack of support from family and also my ex-boyfriend.i got tired of trying to convince him about how the disease affects one.even though he read extensively about it he never fully understood.at least my family tries to understand somewhat but not fully.


----------

