[XxJustMexX]

I am a 25 year old female from NY. As a child I suffered from diarrhea almost daily. My parents thought I had a sensitive stomach and I just couldn't handle certain foods. Around the age of 14 I was diagnosed with IBS. I had all sorts of tests and everything came back fine. IBS was the umbrella term that was given for "we don't know what to tell you". I started a high fiber diet and sometimes that helped. Sometimes not. Around 20, my body started changing. I wasn't getting diarrhea every day. It was more like twice a week! That was amazing. But then suddenly, I was getting terrible bouts of gas. It really hurt and was very embarrassing. I didn't know what to do. I tried a gluten free diet, still no change. At the age of 22 after reading this board, I asked to be tested for SIBO and ding ding ding it came back positive. It was such a relief to have a concrete answer! Woo hoo! Too bad my doctor pretty much told me she couldn't do anything for me. She gave me a course of antibiotics and said that if it didn't knock out the bacteria there really wasn't anything that could be done for me. Today, I eat meats, rice, and some veggies and rice. I seem to be ok with coffee (which is weird for IBS'ers no?). Because it's so limited I tend to fall off the wagon. Any ideas on what is going on? Another aspect I should add that is completely baffling to me, most IBSers and SIBOers have problems with weight loss. I'm over weight and have been since I'm a kid. With all that diarrhea shouldn't I have been dropping weight??

 

[Kathleen M.]

Weight loss is not a symptom of IBS. Unexplained weight loss when you eat enough food to maintain weight is a sign you do NOT have IBS.Weight in IBSers is the same as it is in healthy people. Where the balance of calories in and calories out is. You eat more than you burn you are over weight, you eat less than you burn you lose weight.Some IBSers have problems with weight because they avoid eating to avoid eating-related symptoms. You eat 1200 calories a day or less you lose weight unless you are very skinny or completely immobile.Traditional SIBO which is more severe than IBS-SIBO can be bad enough to cause problems with absorbing nutrients but doesn't seem to be a factor in the new IBS-SIBO as IBS-SIBO people only have IBS symptoms and weight loss is not a symptom of that.Some IBS and IBS-SIBO people do better with a low carb diet so even the rice you eat may be too many carbs. You might get Dr. Pimental's book and see if the diet in there helps.There is no one food that is equally detrimental to all IBSers. Even common triggers like caffeine varies. Even though if you shove enough caffeine into a healthy person you can sometimes cause diarrhea. You probably drink less coffee than whatever your threshold for problems is. Because like I said people who are healthy that chug a lot of coffee (as well as have other sources of caffeine) all day long can sometimes get to where they have problems, but if you are having a cup or two of coffee a day you may not see problems with it increasing diarrhea. Now some people are so sensitive that they can't have even a cup of tea, but that is not the norm, nor is it true of all IBSers.

 

[spazzy]

I'm a new person to this forum.What is SIBO? I've not heard this term before.Thanks!

 

[BQ]

Small Intestine Bacterial OvergrowthWelcome btw... check out all our forums by using the site navigator at the bottom right of every page. See the Antibiotics: Bacterial Overgrowth Specific Forum for more info on SIBO.

 

[TanaG]

Am not a doctor or anything but I can tell you that since my IBS got bad I've put on quite some weight instead of losing it. So no, IBS does not mean weight loss unless, of course, you don't eat.