# My IBS Story



## tanger32au (Apr 30, 2007)

Hi all,I have just started a blog to share my experiences with IBS - here is my story and a link to my blog.http://ibsisnotfun.blogspot.com/My Story - IBS and me.My IBS story started in early 2006. Before this my system was "normal" and I didn't have any issues like this at all. In mid 2005 I had broken up with my long term partner and I was not handling this very well. I was not taking very good care of my body and I was eating a lot of "junk" food. One night in early January 2006 I woke up during the night (which never happens) with very sharp pains in the right hand side of my head from just in front of my ear down the side of my face and in to my jam and neck. I am the sort of person who almost never gets headaches or anything like that and I hate taking even over the counter pain killers. I can remember taking some Panadol that night with a drink of water and spending the rest of the night sitting up watching TV as when I tried to lay down in bed the pain came back.The next day I went to work and managed to make it through the day without any real problems, I was able to eat and drink normally and felt fine however that night the pains came back so again I was on the Panadol which in this case at least gave me a chance to get some sleep. As this was the weekend I didn't do anything about it and I was ok for the next few days. Come the next week I was fine and as the pain didn't come back I left it as just a one off. By the end of that week the pains were back again and this time I made an appointment to see a doctor. The next week the doctor checked me out and in the end suspected my problem was dental so I made an appointment for the dentist and had to wait almost a month to get in, during this time I was sleeping quite badly and I had found the only way to stop the pain was to wash my mouth out with cold water, this would provide a short period of relief. I also had some much stronger pain killers which I think didn't really agree with me. This was late February 2006 and the dentist checked my teeth and suspected one was causing the problem so removed this, in the process of doing this they also had to remove another one next to it so I was now two teeth down, these were back ones so I didn't mind too much. Giving it a few days and the pains were getting worse not better, now as well as during the night they would come while I was working and a couple of times these got bad enough I had to go home from work as I was unable to do anything. The next week I was back at the dentist who now thought it was one of my front teeth that was causing the problem so I had this removed. The next day I was flat on my back in pain like I had never felt before, my whole head was on fire and it felt like it has been placed in a vice, I was also unable to eat or drink. My parents spoke to the dentist who told me to go to the doctor, I was in to the doctor within an hour and he said I had Sinusitis and prescribed some anti bionics and some strong pain killers. These really helped and the pain was gone from my head totally after about a week. A few days after this I started to feel quite sick in the stomach, while I didn't vomit or have any D I just didn't feel right, at the time I thought it might have been the antibiotics so didn't worry about it too much. I finished the course of antibiotics and started to feel "normal" again for a couple of days. Come late March 2006 and one Friday night I went to bed feeling quite off, I woke up in the middle of the night with very bad stomach pains and felt like my stomach was going to explode, I went to the toilet and passed a huge amount of mucus which was something I had never done before. That night and the whole next day I went to the toilet over 50 times and passed some solid waste and a lot of mucus. By late that night I was feeling a little better and had a very small amount to eat and drink. Over the next few days I had a little bit of D but nothing that I was really worried about. Within a couple of weeks I knew something was not right and after putting up with increasing stomach pains and D getting worse and worse I went to the doctor and after a check up I was sent to a gastro intestinal specialist where some stool samples were tested but didn't show anything. After a few appointments where nothing really happened and the doctors seemed to not really care I gave up on them and tried to manage my symptoms myself. I think my IBS was caused by all of these or a mix of these:- Sinusitis and the antibiotics I took.- Dental Problems / pain killers- Stress- Eating too much bad foodOver the years I have managed to calm my symptoms down. For the first few years it was a struggle always feeling sick, needing to use the toilet a lot and sometimes not being able to do things I wanted to do due to the pain, feeling sick and needing to use the bathroom a lot. My symptoms got worse for about the first 12 - 15 months until a point where I lost a lot of weight and almost ended up in hospital due to fainting. Over the next 2 years I had managed to control things to a point where I was able to lead a fairly normal life but I did have frequent issues with D and these caused some personal issues with relationships.After making some changes to my personal life I found my symptoms much easier to control. Now over 5 year later while I still have bad days they are much less frequency and easier to control. I have less "bad days" and those times I am sick it is not as bad. I have found diet to be a major trigger for me and as such I am trying to eat less and also avoid foods that I think set me off. One of the biggest issues I have found is that some foods I am fine with will suddenly start to cause me problems, the biggest things with IBS is that for me the rules are always changing and at times it is hard to know how I feel the next day / week or even in a couple of hours time. I have also found stress to be a major factor for me and this is something I deal with and am working on controlling every day. I have found having a release and something that I can do even when I am feeling sick and can't leave the house to be a great help.I guess I wanted to encourage and help others who suffer from this disorder to make the most of life. I have a successful career, a great family and a loving partner which while they don't know about my IBS per say they do understand I do get sick sometimes and don't hold that against me. Stay strong and live life the best you can, it could always be worse


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