I’d like to prefix these comments by saying that I know Irritable Bowel Syndrome may be caused by a variety of different factors and that treatments that work for one person, may not work for another. Also, my analysis of what works for me and why is what I have deduced from the effects and results of various treatments and events that occurred during the period I was afflicted with this disease. Since I am an “n” of one and the controls on my experience are limited, my description of what I think is going on may be entirely wrong; however, even if that is the case what I have done to ameliorate my symptoms worked for me. So it stands to reason that it may work for some other individuals afflicted with this condition. Finally, before trying any of this you should discuss it with your doctor. If he/she is agreeable, it might be worth a try.

Those of us who have or have had irritable bowel syndrome know it is an insidious condition that affects not only our guts, but just about everything we do, both mentally and physically. I suffered with this condition for about 7 years with more or less constant abdominal pain and loose bowels except for brief remissions. Nothing that my doctor prescribed did much more than make things slightly better.

During those years, for a variety of reasons (once due to an intestinal infection and other times in preparation for colonoscopies), my intestinal contents were totally flushed out. Following these “flushes” I would experience a period of remission in my symptoms that would last from days to a month or so. I finally correlated the re-occurrence of my symptoms with three specific types of food that I ate (products containing raw milk, caffeine, and alcohol). It took me quite a while to figure this out because if I had symptoms and simply stopped eating such items, the symptoms wouldn’t go away. Thus, my disease does not appear to be due to a simple food allergy. My hypothesis is that I do have an allergic reaction to such food products, but what it does is change the environment in my intestines such that some microbe or microbes that are always present in small numbers get the upper hand thus taking over and changing the composition of my intestinal flora. This new flora then causes physiological changes that result in my disease. When I flush my intestines out, a more normal flora is able to restore its dominance and my symptoms go away. Whether this is correct or not would take a considerable amount of research to determine, but it seems to me to be a reasonable hypothesis.

Once I figured out that flushing out my gut eliminated my symptoms and that apparently certain foods would get them started again, I asked my doctor for the “flush-out” treatment that was given prior to my colonoscopies (“Colyte”), did the flush-out procedure and stopped eating foods that I thought might be the problem. This sort of approach finally led to my determination of the three types of food that would set off my symptoms. Supporting this was the fact that after figuring it out I might go for a year without symptoms, but at some point would think that maybe I could get away with eating some ice cream or having a beer, only to have the symptoms return full-force after I did this. On these occasions, the only solution to getting rid of the symptoms was to again go through the flush out procedure and stop eating the food products that caused them. After a few such rounds, I got smart and totally and forever eliminated those food products from my diet. As a result I have had no irritable bowl symptoms in years.

So, if you think food allergies might be the cause of your symptoms (and I imagine it could be different foods than those that cause my problems), it might be worth discussing the flush-out procedure described above with your doctor and, if he/she is agreeable, giving it a try. As I said at the beginning of this essay, I don’t think this is a cure-all, but it may work for some people.

By: Zoox