# IBS, anxiety and depression



## paulw (Feb 12, 2010)

So I've had IBS my entire life. I'm 26 now and can remember in elementary school having to run to the bathroom at the same time everyday. Found out this year that I was diagnosed when I was 4. It was never a large hindrance, as when younger wasn't a lot of diarrhea, I would always just have to go at the same time everyday, pretty much down to the minute. And never traveled well if it would take over 45 minutes to drive. During high school is when I started developing diarrhea. It became a daily occurrence, with 3-4 bathroom trips a day. As per my doctor, I took Imodium to help. During my first three years of college, all my problems pretty much went away. That was such a nice time to be able to enjoy life.Then, when I was 23, my anxiety started to kick in. At first, we figured it was mostly due to the stress of getting married. The problem is, my anxiety never went away. My doctor says it's mostly social anxiety and minor depression. But as most of you guys know, the IBS causes more anxiety and vice versa.One of my major problems is if I don't want to go somewhere, but am forced to, I'll get sick. Majorly pisses my wife off. But almost all of the time I want to go somewhere, I'm fine.I had never taken any medication or been to therapy until August 2010. Since then, we've tried many different antidepressants. All of the SSRI's didn't help, felt more depressed on them and there were sexual side effects. Next we went to Desipramine, which worked fairly well for 9 months. I got off it just last week because it wasn't helping my depression or anxiety enough. Worked wonders for my diarrhea though.Now I'm trying out Wellbutrin. We'll see how I feel in a few weeks.


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## cince (Sep 14, 2010)

Hi there! I was put on Elavil about a year ago. It put most of my IBS out and helped me focus...for once I got honors at school. However, you may need to increase the dose after a bit. I hope you find something. If not, the best thing is to not think much about the "what ifs" because if I'm anticipating an event, my IBS flares. Focus more on doing all you can such as eating right and reducing stress. Other than that, IBS is out of your control. But don't give it too much attention!


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