# Is this a way to cure IBS



## Lana18 (Nov 22, 2007)

My boyfriend's mom claims that if i eat the things I normally can't eat because of IBS in little portions and then slowly work my way to eat greater portions of whatever I can eat, she claims that this will help my IBS. For example say I want to drink regular milk again...I work start out drinking small amounts of milk and drink a little more milk each week or every couple weeks...and this would some how allow me to drink regular milk again. Would this actually work?


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## overitnow (Nov 25, 2001)

It sounds like a variation on homeopathy or the old stories of people taking little bits of poison to develop immunity. (Taking a dilute form of whatever causes your problem.) I wouldn't do that; but that's just me. Mark


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## meboubou (Dec 14, 2009)

I agree with overitnow... My mom tried to convince me to do that before I was diagnosed with IBS... figuring I would stop having problems. I tried it, and it didn't work. No matter how small the portion.


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## Brianmay1975 (Apr 3, 2010)

In my case, eating small portions of the food that causes me harm from time to time might help to alleviate the cravings and to reduce my feelings of inadequacy. But if I were to eat whatever causes me harm on a regular basis, however small the portions, my gut would be worn out in a short matter of time and would eventually react badly to a heavier stimulation... Last night I ate a bit of gordon bleu and 4-5 french fries from my grandmother's serving and it was ok for me, but I could never eat a full serving of gordon bleu with french fries as a side dish in a restaurant. And if I were to eat that same small portion every day, I probably get to the point where I couldn't tolerate even a bit of it.And if you have lactose intolerance, I don't think this approach would work out. Because if your body doesn't produce the neccessary enzyme, you won't be able to drink milk again, no matter how much effort you put into it, because this approach is not likely to make your body produce the enzyme.I'm not an expert, but it just doesn't seem a scientific approach to me. If this were the way to cure IBS and it were that simple, I guess most of us wouldn't be on this forum anymore...


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

There are certain allergies that with small amount of carefully controlled exposure you can break the immune system's response and end the allergy.However.Most IBS problems are not allergies. Now a lot of foods may be OK in small amounts but not large amounts. Even most lactose intolerance people in clinical trials can have up to several ounces of milk before you cross the threshold into the amount that generates enough gas and pulls enough water into the stool so you react. Some foods cause huge reactions even in small amounts (like an allergy) but a lot of foods IBSers are intolerant of you really need more than a bite or two to get enough gas generated to cause problems. (and it depends on how gassy the other foods eaten at the same time are)The problem is sometimes food reactions are conditioned responses. Something else made you sick when you ate food A. Then your body reacts to food A as if the real trigger happened. The only way I know to break that is completely avoiding the food for a few years until the nervous system resets. A lot of people with dairy intolerance seem to have a conditioned response (not sure why that one is so easy to set up) because they don't test positive for lactose intolerance and you can hide 2 glasses of milk worth of lactose in a non-dairy meal and they don't react.That being said. If you react to eating rather than specific foods sometimes working back to a highly varied diet where you eat smaller meals generally may make you feel better. The skipping meals and eating an overly restrictive diet devoid of several nutrients will stress the body enough to make the IBS much worse and just relaxing about food and eating what you enjoy and getting all the different nutrients may relieve both the physical stress and some mental worry, and that can make symptoms better. Even if it is just because you give up the planning out every bite of food (as well as the post analysis where you go back over every bite of food) and getting more nutrients.


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