# Pain-free for almost a year.



## epicrose (Mar 2, 2016)

Hello, I've suffered with IBS for most of my life, starting from when I was around thirteen years old. It came about really quickly and got a lot worse once I graduated high school and started working full time as an STNA. Around the time I was supposed to start my first year of high school was when it got to the point where my parents realized that something was terribly wrong, and that I needed to see a doctor. My last year of middle school was spent mostly at home, because I couldn't stand the stomach pain. The first doctor that I was taken to suggested to my mother that I was making it all up, that I just hated school. Her recommendation to my mother was a therapist to solve my issues. Needless to say, my mother refused to see that doctor again for myself or for herself. She also pulled me from school the next school year to help me figure out what was causing the stomach pain. The pain was affecting how I slept at night, too. I developed insomnia that had me awake for several days with no rest. Even though things didn't really get any better I only remained homeschooled for that single year, my first high school year. My family moved to a new city and I begged my family to put me in a public school again. The loneliness from being on my own most of the time was too much, so she agreed and my sophomore year started at a public school where I quickly made new friends. The majority of that year was absolutely the same as all the other years. The stomach issues didn't get any worse, nor did they get better for me. They were stable enough that I stayed in school when I could and made-up all the work that I missed in the random patches that I did miss from the pain and sleeplessness. Everything got a lot worse when I switched schools again to go to a technical school for my junior and senior year. To start off with, both years I was considered post-secondary because I was taking college classes at the same time as the regular classes. It was a lot of stress made worse because of a rocky relationship that was ending for me. My senior year was by far the worse. I felt sick every day and I had to leave school early almost every single time I did manage to force myself to go in. The school nurse thought I was faking it because I wasn't throwing up all the time at school, just complaining about pain that prevented me from eating lunch or focusing in class. I'm not really sure how I did get through that last year with pretty good grades... I was sleeping through some of my classes from the lack of sleep at night. Somehow I got most of my work in on time.

Around the time I graduated high school my mother got in contact with a gastroenterologist that worked near where I lived. She got me in really quickly and for the first time I had a doctor tell me that I wasn't crazy. I was 17 when I learned that IBS was a thing and that other people had the same intense pain that felt like somebody was ripping their abdomen open. At the time I was too young for the doctor to really do any tests to rule anything out. That came when I turned 18 and they ruled out crohn's disease, celiac disease, and a few other things. My doctor told me that IBS wasn't something you could cure, but it could be treated if I kept taking the pills that would stop the muscle contractions that were causing the pain. There was also a point when he told me that the pills would somewhat help to regulate my bowl movements, which for some reason I wasn't all that concerned about. From a very early age my bowl movements were irregular and sometimes would be missing a full week. I got on the medication that he prescribed me and it worked for a bit. Only a few months. During that time most of my symptoms cleared up and it was pure bliss. I hadn't felt that way since before I was thirteen years old if ever. And then the medication stopped working and everything came rushing back again. At that time I was barely 18 and I was working as an STNA in a nursing home. I ended up having to quit because I couldn't take the random spikes of sleeplessness and of course the horrible intense stomach pain and pressure came back. Most of the time my stomach was bloated badly and I couldn't touch it without it being tender, let alone wear clothing that was even remotely tight. It was misery all around. I think I could have kept working through all that, but I developed sudden diarrhea that I couldn't quite tell when it would strike. It made working impossible. After I quit my family moved again and I moved with them. When we moved again I decided it would be a good idea to see a therapist, because I got very depressed and anxious. Both were clearly caused from the illness that prevented me from having a good time with the few friends that I did have. I couldn't leave my house properly without fear that I'd be stuck without a bathroom. Car rides with people other than my mom were absolute torture. I couldn't explain to anybody that I had a fear of the person not understanding and not stopping when I needed it randomly. The therapists that I started to see also told me to see another gastroenterologist, so I started seeing somebody else for that.

I was put on medication for anxiety and depression. The meds were meant to treat panic disorder and OCD, too. They helped a lot at first because it kept my stress level down enough that I wasn't having the same pain issue caused from the stress. I didn't realize until I seen another gastroenterologist that diet could really affect IBS. The new doctor told me all about that and I started to look into it myself and realized that I had a lot of triggers. The first thing I did was eliminate all dairy/lactose from my diet. I couldn't even eat yogurt without feeling absolutely miserable an hour later. The cramps would come back and I'd throw it back up and have the issues with diarrhea. Getting rid of the lactose allowed me to remain pain-free most of the time. I also got myself on a probiotic. I started taking the cheap ones that Walmart sold. I couldn't take Align or anything name brand because it made me feel too bloated and I'd have worse diarrhea. The Walmart brand ones worked pretty well and I became fairly regular. The pain went away more and more.

A few months after I was put on the anxiety medication I had to get off of them. They were causing too many side effects, the worst being hallucinations and memory loss. The type of memory loss where you walk into a room and forget why. The medication that my gastroenterologist placed me on also stopped working. At that time I was alright, my diet was working to eliminate most pain and uncomfort that I had felt daily before. That was until a new symptom appeared. I'd go to sleep at night and I'd get woken up around 3am by my stomach cramping up with pain that was way worse than I ever felt before. This happened every single time I slept at night. No matter what time I went to bed. I'd wake up and it felt like my stomach/intestines were on fire. It didn't stop until I ever had diarrhea or a bowl movement. Sometimes it didn't go away because I couldn't from constipation that lasted days.

At this point I started to look heavily into diet because that had worked for me before. I needed something to treat the anxiety and depression anyway. It wasn't just diet that I looked into, but rather homeopathic remedies that could satisfy my needs. I quickly adjusted my diet to get rid of absolutely all fast food. There was no exception, no Subway or Mcdonalds, which my family kind of liked to go to when we didn't care to cook. Definitely no pizza anymore. I always got and still get sick any time I eat pizza. I cut out all soda. I didn't really like soda anyway making that jump not hard at all. It was more difficult cutting out carbonated beverages, such as the sparkling waters. Those upset my throat and my stomach. I started to eat mainly meals that I cooked from scratch with ingredients that were as fresh as I could possibly get them. I got stuff that was organic if I could, or ingredients from the farmers market nearby my house. A lot of my meals had some type of grain in them, which meant that I had a lot of gluten in my diet. After a few weeks I finally decided to try cutting gluten from my diet to see if that would get rid of the pain and issues I was still dealing with.

The first week without gluten was mixed for me. I had a lot of bloating that I used peppermint tea to get rid of. But after that I was completely fine. The stomach pain in the morning went away completely and I began to get regular again. The peppermint tea remedy was something I learned around the time I cut out soda and it has really helped me a lot. Now I cook with a lot of ginger. That helps to keep things regular as well.

As of right now I'm not on any medication at all. I don't take a probiotic. For some reason only eating home-cooked meals that are mostly organic and cooked in olive or avocado oil has worked for me. Getting rid of gluten worked a lot better than eliminating lactose. I can actually eat lactose again without it causing any damage.


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## jaumeb (Sep 1, 2014)

I've done everything you've done. And it has not worked for me. But probably would work for some 90% of people in this forum.


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## Moises (May 20, 2000)

Yeah, I am like jaumeb. But I am sorry to hear how much you suffered and glad to hear that you found a way to resolve it.

I think that one of the broader lessons of your experience is that, in the final analysis, no one is better placed to solve our problems than ourselves. I am not anti-doctor but I believe that we will always know more about our own individual reactions than the doctors. It always pays to test continually and monitor our responses.


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