# My IBS adventure and where I am now



## GrangerDanger (Apr 18, 2016)

Hello kind reader,

I will take this time to say hello, introduce myself and my symptoms and all that jazz! *So hello, my name is Vika, I'm 24 and I suffer from IBS-nottoosureanymore. Nice to meet you *

So as you well know, I'm not posting here because life has been ultra fun for me for the past couple of years. I always had some stomach issues, but they were very mild. I had been lactose intolerant for all of my life, even as a baby. I avoided lactose and all was well. We'll fast forward up until I started getting into some high stress/tight deadline situations in school (21 years old).

I was in class and all of the sudden, I started having some wicked stomach pains/weird déjà-vu symptoms. *I was getting sick (IBS-D) about once a month* and after looking up the reasons behind my symptoms, I realized that it was two separate problems. Turns out the déjà-vu symptoms were epilepsy (diagnosed at the time, TLE with partial-complex seizures) and *the stomach cramping seemed to be IBS (undiagnosed at the time).* I mention the epilepsy because it's important later when I started trying stuff for my bowels.

I got a job fairly quickly after exiting school, my IBS symptoms were almost absent for a while other than gassiness. I started trying to eat healthy, so I went on a raw vegan diet. Mistakes were made guys and gals, this didn't sit ultra well with me. I was just having loose stools. So I switched back to a pretty average diet, including some junk food sometimes. Candy is my vice, so I ate a lot of that as well, especially when I was PMSing.

At some point, with work, we had salads and I realized that it wasn't sitting well with me anymore. *This was the first time I had to cut something out of my diet completely.* Leafy greens were NOT digesting anymore, it would literally come out looking life a leaf. No bueno. After this point, it was all downhill from there. I started trying home remedies to be sick less often like kombucha tea. Well as it turns out, that gave me seizures. *They tried to put me on medication for my epilepsy and they were making me so sick I wasn't able to keep with a regiment. So I got put on medical marijuana instead which helped with stomach pains BIG TIME when I was having them as well, so I was totally fine with this.*

*I dealt with being sick about once a month (yes, usually a week or a few days before my period) up until mid last year.* I started seeing a therapist due to motivation problems at work. I also did an egg donation for some friends in the summer of last year, which my stomach seemed totally fine with. But the crash from the hormones afterwards gave me tons of seizures and threw me into a depression. With my motivation issues at work and the donation, I ended up on a burnout leave. My company was less than happy to help me unfortunately and were insanely demanding. *At a time where I was low on energy being forced to get about 4 doctors notes* (no, it's not an exaggeration, I really wish it was, they were really not nice with me) *started getting me sick about once a week.* *I realized stress was a trigger, and I was working on it with my psychotherapist. *

Fast forward 3 months in since I wasn't able to stay on a leave longer for financial issues, I went back to my job that I despised. They refused to give me rights to work from home (because of my stomach) since I didn't have a note, so *I started seeing a gastroenterologist* (my therapist's dad ironically enough) to figure out what the heck was wrong finally since I obviously couldn't control it myself.* At this point I was getting sick every day at work,* missing hours at my desk and getting serious repremend for it. By December, I had relapsed into a worse depression and they offered me a settlement. I took it so fast you don't even know. I got out of there as fast as I could. I started a vlog on youtube to help me with my recovery from mental health disorders as well as physical disorders and it has helped me tons morally!

I thought it was going to get better now that I was on unemployment insurance, healing at home at my own pace. It had worked for a bit, and then *in February I started being sick every day again*.* This is when I realized gluten could be the problem, so I removed it from my diet.* At the same time, I was doing tests and tests for my doctor (stool samples, blood tests, ultrasounds, you know the drill). After I removed gluten, I swear my bowels sang hallelujah. *I was finally not getting sick*.* I realized mid March that I had lost over 30 lbs since December*. I brought that up to my doctor when I went for a follow up. *This is when I got diagnosed with IBS-D.* I told him about cutting lactose and gluten, he seemed to think this was a great idea if it worked for me. He told me to keep at it, that my use of imodium when I would get sick (half a pill) was very good and that there wasn't much more he could do for me, but that he would keep his ears open for new cures for IBS-D.

I went home feeling okay with the diagnosis, it wasn't cancer at least is what I kept telling myself! *This was all fine and dandy up to about a week ago when I started feeling bloated again*. I was wondering why, but I was having normal bowel movements once a day. So I just chalked it up to eating candy or something of the sort. I'd wake up with WICKED gas but it would come out and pass and that would be that. *Up until Friday night, I woke up in PAIN*. There was no words to describe the pain I was in. I even woke up my s/o crying my eyes out thinking I was dying. *I took a bath, ended up having an "attack" of sorts and it came out at first constipated and then after it was almost like chunks of constipation with mucus.* Lovely.* I was careful with what I ate, thinking maybe the Gluten free diet was introducing a lot of starch and rice which might be clogging me up and that the pain triggered my IBS-D reaction. I ate apple sauce to get back into it with squash soup. I am now still bloated and it doesn't seem to want to go away. *

I'm kind of tired of being in a haze due to marijuana dealing with my pain and always being gassy. I'm not sure if it's because of the gluten free diet that I started having more problems? *I'm at the point where I'm asking around for a nutritionist/dietitian *(where I am located they're both regulated). I'm grateful that I have reduced my seizures to 0 but this is still something I struggle with. I am still not working, as I am hopefully heading back to school soon full time. I am waiting on an answer from the school I applied to (in psychology). I'm taking this time off to try and figure out a way of life that will allow me not to be in pain/get sick often for no reason but that is obviously not easy to do.

So I figured I would completely reach out to people who have the same issues as me, which is you!

I want to thank you for reading my story and for any insightful answers/advice you may post on my post or send me by private message.

*Have yourself a great day and I hope your bowels are treating you well!*


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## DECODE_IBS (Apr 6, 2016)

I suffered the same thing in the near past and healed too i wish the same for you..TC


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## Kimcat (Feb 10, 2016)

Hang in there Vika, you're not alone!! Just do as much research as you can possibly do, knowledge is power!! Hope you feel better soon.


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## minimalizer (Jun 8, 2014)

CBD extract tincture in a built up amount and taking a probiotic separately. If you slow down diarrhea, you still have to fix why it had needed to wash itself out, maybe because of overgrowth of bad bacteria. Best to you.


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