G
Guest
·I was diagnosed with IBS in 1977, when I was about 17 years old. My history of GI problems actually started 3 years earlier, when I got sick on a cross country teen bus trip. Though I never felt that sick, I lost about 40 of my then 170 pounds from seemingly untreatable D.About 15 years ago I moved to California. I started hiking a bit and was warned about drinking even clean stream water due to Giardia.When I went cross country in 1974 I had never heard of Giardia and I drank from running water frequently in the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. When I got home to New Jersey they ran all sorts of tests, but never discovered any sort of bug.I have subsequently read that back then Giardia was unknown East of the Rockies, and that physicians back east did not know much about it or test for it.Based on my experience and my symptoms back then, I have concluded that in fact I had Giardiosis (sp?) I am pretty certain I am correct about this.So, my question is obviously whether there is any known association between bad cases of Giardiosis and subsequent onset of IBS.I'd love to hear from anyone who knows about this. Thanks.HLB