I must say the only good thing about my IBS is weight loss. Since I have IBS I am about 12 pounds skinnier. When I feel better I usually gain some weight back and when I have a flare up of a few weeks I loose the weight again. At the moment I look good in my clothe because of IBS ( the one and only good thing about it). Does anybody have the same weight thing going on with their IBS ?
Any body else experience weight loss from their IBS
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I was struggling with an eating disorder around the same time that I developed IBS. I weighed 150 when I gave birth to my daughter, and I promptly dropped to 120 pounds-- my normal weight-- then to 98 pounds when she was 6 months old. I couldn't eat anything. And I'm 5'7". I looked HORRIFYINGLY thin. I'm now "over" the eating disorder, but I still can't seem to get back to 120. 115 seems to be my max.IBS will definitely change your relationship with food, especially if you also tend toward anxiety and eating disorders. It's hard to eat when you are punished with pain every time you do.Weight loss isn't a terrible side effect if you were overweight in the first place, but definitely get help if you in any way suspect that you could be developing an eating disorder. You don't wanna end up like I did.
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If your weight is going away when you eat the exact same amount that you eat when you are gaining/maintaining weight that is NOT an IBS symptom.Now a lot of people eat less when their IBS is acting up and that is normal weight loss.
I don't think I am heading towards an eating disorder because I really don't care so much about food anymore. Since I have IBS my appetite is almost permanently changed. When I don't feel bad and I am eating, I enjoy it only a tiny bit more. Food is very unimportant to me. I just eat because I have too. When my IBS started I had pain after every single meal. Luckely this changed and I only have pain sometimes after a meal but I counldn't care less about food. I wish I would like food more so I can enjoy going out for dinner with people. At 140 pounds and 5'8'' I am not skinny, just normal.
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Kathleen is right, though-- if you're eating the same amount but unable to gain weight, you may have a different problem.
Now I am starting to worry again! I didn't really count my calories but I did feel more disgust of food lately. Right now I feel a little better with my IBS but not much of an appetite. I am not sure if the small weigh loss was also contributed by a medication. I took Atenolol (a Betablocker). I have a heart defect and my cardiologist wanted me to take this medication to lower my heart rate. I took it for a while and my heart rate was really really low ( like about 49 beats per minute) Blood pressure was also very low. I took it for many months but I finally told him about the low heart rate. He told me to split the pill, and now I have a normal heart rate again (60-65 beats per minute)When your heart rate is that low wouln't that lead to weight gain ??? With a faster heart rate would this be the explaination that I lost the weight again which I gained. Of course it could be also the stress of the IBS. Kathleen, do you know anything about beta blocker side effects ? In this case weight loss/gain ? I should be happy about the weight loss but now I am freaking out again.
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Just to be on the safe side, you may want to run these issues past your doc. It sounds to me like your problem is entirely (or almost entirely) the result of decreased appetite because of IBS. But it definitely couldn't hurt to get checked out, especially if you are taking medications and have other medical conditions. A little check-up could at least offer some reassurance.
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WOW - weight loss. What is that? I am the only person who can have D for three days and the flu for 5 and gain 6 pounds.My heart rate is 92, alll the time, and no weight loss. WonkyColon:How was your acupuncture?
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Usually when people say food disgusts them they don't eat as much as they usually do. You could try any of the free online calorie trackers to see how much you need to eat every day to maintain weight.When they worry is when your appetite is really good and you are eating if anything even more than ever and still losing weight. If you eat less and lose weight that is NORMAL weight loss.Usually with beta blockers if anything they cause weight gain. But they can make some people fatigued and tired people usually don't exercise as much.
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Feeling grossed out by food is a common issue for people with IBS, but it could also be indicative of an emerging eating disorder. When I was in the thick of anorexia, everything seemed GROSS to me. You're not underweight right now, but I do urge you to seek treatment if your aversion to food continues. Nancy: the acupuncture seemed to help significantly with the anxiety and a little bit with the IBS. My pain has gotten worse since then, but my BMS are starting to look normal and I'm pretty much over the colon cancer scare.This guy does sessions for $20 so I may start going like every other week. It's good to live in a small town in Alabama where nobody wants acupuncture; I think this practitioner welcomes any business he can possibly get!(Sorry to hijack the thread.)
I thought anorexia has more to do with wanting to be very skinny. Also, I thought that people with eating disorders always feel fat even when they are not fat. I don't feel fat just disgusted with food. So, I am not sure about an eating disorder .
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It's certainly true that many people with anorexia want to be extremely thin. But many of them don't want to be thin; they just don't want to eat.I never had any delusions of being fat. When I weighed 98 pounds at 5'7", I knew that I looked horrifyingly thin and was bordering on needing forced intravenous nutrition. But I still couldn't eat, because food grossed me out. Wanting to be thin had nothing to do with it, in my case.After a lot of help and determination, I managed to gain a lot of weight back. I had to overcome my aversion to food.Many other people who I know with eating disorders don't want to be thin; they just don't like eating or think that food is gross.I'm not saying that you definitely have an eating disorder or need a lot of help-- I'm just encouraging you to get help if it gets out of hand. If you are persistently grossed out by food and continue losing weight, you could easily spiral into the realm of anorexia (whether you want to be skinnier or not).
I just looked up anorexia on the Internet but it didn't say anything about being grossed out at food. Just about wanting to be skinny and feeling fat even though they are not. I will look into it a bit more on the Internet. Maybe I find this information you are talking about.
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While the main thing with anorexia, in specific, is the feeling one is too fat, I suspect for some people the "fat is gross" transfers to also include "food is gross" and some people whose stories I have read do have a lot of feelings about about food or how they feel when they finally are forced to eat some food.That being said, it is not the one and only way people's eating gets disordered. A lot of IBSers get any number of food phobias which can lead to just as bad and mixed up of a diet as someone that doesn't eat much of anything for any other reason. Disordered eating (no matter the cause) is not good for the GI tract. It is designed to get regular inputs of food and when people don't eat for days (whether to fit in a size 0 dress or to avoid IBS symptoms) it isn't good for the system and leads to more problems. Your GI tract doesn't care why you don't feed it properly, any reason you stop eating will do the same thing, even if you stop eating because you are caught in a famine and literally have no food to eat. They have to be careful when the start feeding people from a famine zone as their GI tracts are not in good shape.Most people's food intake varies over time, even if they don't notice that they eat more or less when stressed or eat less when they have no appetite or eat more when some drug increases their appetite. I gain weight from gastritis when I get it not because it does something to my metabolism but because the pain mimics hungar and I feel extremely hungry all the time and the only thing that helps is to eat something (until I go on medication to heal the irritated stomach lining).Now if we are talking you lose a few pounds/gain a few pounds and you are always in a normal weight range for you anyway and you eat food at least a few times a day even if it isn't as much as you eat when you actually feel hungry that probably isn't enough to tip you into severe problems. However, if you notice you don't eat every day or your up and down includes weights that are low enough to be a health risk, you need to make sure you do eat even when you don't feel like it.
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WonkyColon,For $20 you should go as often as you can. Mine charges $85 per visit. You will see a marked difference. Have a terrific weekend everyone.
I lost 14 lbs with my IBS. Thats when I went to the doctor to get checked out. I lost weight because of the numbers of times I went to the toilet (an average of 15 times a day). I understand completely how you feel about food. I also eat because I have to. I don't enjoy food and I think its probably due to it making me ill so often. I try to eat "safe" food which is boring but it doesn't bother me too much. I am starting an elimintation diet as food seems to be a trigger for my ibs.
I think the term "anorexia" refers to any condition in which you don't eat enough to meet your dietary needs, whether you do so because of body image, pain when eating, or anxiety about food. At least, when a pet goes off their food, they're called anorexic.In any case, I have definitely "gone off my food" because of the pain I feel when I eat. It's always there when I eat, but worse when I eat food that is in any way rich, so I do not eat enough. This has happened to me sort of suddenly (diarrhea for about 6 months, but the intense pain just since March) and I have lost a lot of weight fast because I'm not eating (and when I do, it's very light food like rice cakes). I lost 20 pounds in the first month, and about a pound a week since then (since I discovered the joys of sugary drinks, which I can tolerate when I can't eat at all).I've wanted to lose weight (overweight all my life), but not like this!!! I supposed I should be happy to be fitting into all of my "thin" clothes, and can't shop at the plus size store anymore, but all I see when the scale keeps going down is there is something wrong happening to me.
You really should see your doctor if you are continuing to lose weight. Since I eat a very bland diet and not that much my dietitian suggested I eat lots of seeds and nuts (if I can tolerate them) as they are high if good fats and calories. I have tried sunflower seeds and they are fine so I'm trying to add them in with my meals.
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