# Taking Control of my IBS



## tesselisa (Apr 2, 2018)

Hi Everyone,

I was first diagnosed with IBS-D when I was about 18/19 (10 years ago). Shortly after, at 20, I became pregnant. Your GI system slows down naturally with pregnancy, and so my symptoms mostly went away. Thankfully, since then, I still suffer, but it's never been as bad as it was for the first couple years before being diagnosed.

Unfortunately, after catching some stomach bug in December, my symptoms have been much worse and it's been incredibly frustrating. I finally saw a new gastroenterologist and last week I had a colonoscopy and an EGD, to make sure nothing else was going on. Everything looked perfectly normal, biopsies were fine, and all the bloodwork I had done in the last couple months was also normal. So, again, am being told it's IBS. This diagnosis really frustrates me because there is physically nothing wrong with my body, so why am I suffering?

I have always been a very private person about my bathroom habits, so when I'm having a bad bout of IBS, it's embarrassing, overwhelming, stressful, and it makes me incredibly anxious and depressed. I am going to try really hard to overcome these feelings and to take back control of my life. I will either be starting Bentyl or Elavil soon (I want Elavil, but not sure what doc will say) and will be seeing a dietician in May. Also hope to start yoga classes up and take more walks.

What do you guys do to cope? How do you combat the depression and anxiety that comes along with IBS?

Talk soon!


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## Cherryman (Apr 11, 2018)

Hi, I can totally relate to your feelings. It's horrible. I started getting gripping burning feelings in my stomach many years ago. These went away and thought nothing of of it for about 10 years. Then at the beginning of 2015 they came back and for the whole year I was almost 2 weeks OK 2 weeks bad. Like you I had a couple of very extreme stomach bugs around a few months before. I coped but don't know how. Went to the doctors numerous times but always diagnosed with IBS which I couldn't accept. Around May/June 2016 I thought I'd solved it as I only had 2-3 flare ups up until March this year when I had the worst flare up ever that lasted almost 5 weeks. This got me so down that I broke down in the doctors. I'm a 44 year old man! I was put on a course of Sertraline which has been very tough and signed off work for 2 weeks. I have had a few CBT therapy sessions to see if this can calm me down and some self meditation. I also may see a dietician. I always have been an anxious person but never thought it could affect the gut this way. The pain is debilitating and it gets you so down. It's so hard for people who don't suffer to understand. Hope you can feel better soon.


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