[MandB]

OK - I am new to this, so I hope I am doing this correctly. I have suffered from IBS-D for the last 41 years, although it wasn't diagnosed as such until I was in my mid 30s. I have been reading the posts on this site for the last 2 hours and I am in AWE! I could post my story, but why, all I could say is DITTO, DITTO, DITTO.My Point - I see most post by women, which I guess makes sense since they seem to have it 2 to 1 of us. Wish they would consider a Forum for Men. The reason - I am intrigued by some of the results I have read about using probiotics and have been trying to search and find out if these work for men. I think all of the positive results, (and advertising sites) are about women.Any men out there had any luck using probiotics? I will be retiring in a few years and plan to do some traveling and need to find something that will help control this. I don't want to spend my retirement years looking for a bathroom. Traveling at work has been nothing but a bad experience, but thank goodness form Imod.Any help for a newbie would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Jeffrey Roberts]

Welcome!I completely understand where you are coming from.The reason that you are reading mostly women's stories is because more women seek help from their doctors than men in Western cultures and it follows the same for IBS. If you look at Asia, where more men see doctors than women, the proportions flip. Worldwide, a similar number of women and men suffer from IBS.Since many of the medications are developed by Western pharmaceuticals, their clinical studies involved more women then men. In many cases, they were not able to attract enough men to make a statistical difference, hence why many of the medications and remedies are indicated for women only. That is not to say that men do not respond to the medications. There just isn't enough data to support it. Many doctors prescribe off-label for these types of situations.We have tried a men's forum in the past; however, like clinical studies lacking men we lacked a regular critical mass to keep it active.In terms of probiotics, personally I have been using probiotic supplements for the last 4-5 years every day. It changed my IBS-D to IBS-C within 7-days. At times, I still have urgency and pain, but I no longer have loose stools.If you are going to select a probiotic consider one which has clinical studies to support its use with IBS. Research has shown that specific probiotics in specific quantities make a difference. The biggest probiotic that you may find in your drug store may not make a difference if it is not of the right type. Personally I use Align from P&G because it contains the bacteria Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 which has been studied with IBS patients.Jeff

 

[MandB]

Welcome!I completely understand where you are coming from.The reason that you are reading mostly women's stories is because more women seek help from their doctors than men in Western cultures and it follows the same for IBS. If you look at Asia, where more men see doctors than women, the proportions flip. Worldwide, a similar number of women and men suffer from IBS.Since many of the medications are developed by Western pharmaceuticals, their clinical studies involved more women then men. In many cases, they were not able to attract enough men to make a statistical difference, hence why many of the medications and remedies are indicated for women only. That is not to say that men do not respond to the medications. There just isn't enough data to support it. Many doctors prescribe off-label for these types of situations.We have tried a men's forum in the past; however, like clinical studies lacking men we lacked a regular critical mass to keep it active.In terms of probiotics, personally I have been using probiotic supplements for the last 4-5 years every day. It changed my IBS-D to IBS-C within 7-days. At times, I still have urgency and pain, but I no longer have loose stools.If you are going to select a probiotic consider one which has clinical studies to support its use with IBS. Research has shown that specific probiotics in specific quantities make a difference. The biggest probiotic that you may find in your drug store may not make a difference if it is not of the right type. Personally I use Align from P&G because it contains the bacteria Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 which has been studied with IBS patients.Jeff

Many Many, Thanks, I was looking at that one as one I would be willing to give a try. I will pick some up tomorrow.

 

[overitnow]

Many Many, Thanks, I was looking at that one as one I would be willing to give a try. I will pick some up tomorrow.

You might send Ian Ramsay a note. He is a biologist who has developed his own, specific probiotic mix that has pretty well reversed his IBS.http://www.ibsgroup.org/forums/index.php?/user/30121-ianramsay/I have been using a red grape based flavonoid supplement that I started taking to control my cholesterol deposits and it has pretty well resolved my D since the end of 1999. (It works on GI inflammation as well as cholesterol deposits.)Best to you with this.Mark

 

[sunspot19]

On the topic of women being affected by IBS 2 to 1 over men, I really agree with JR that I suspect this is completely wrong and that the only reason for that statistic is because in western societies men, even if they are having constipation or diarrhea, just don't go to the docs. When I first started getting IBS-D, for a while I suffered a while on my own, and only after really getting scared did I go to a doc and then a gastro. But then I also started to become much more aware and notice that when I'd visit my work office restroom, there were way too many men coming to the toilet and from what I could tell having similar issues as me.After that I started noticing more and more in conversations where certain of my male friends admitted they hadn't had a normal stool for years! FOR YEARS! Some of these guys were just thinking, oh well, diarrhea, I'll just deal with it myself.In any event, I do believe the stat is really more 1:1 than 2:1 women versus men. I am pretty sure of it. Not sure that makes me feel better to have to deal with what I am dealing with (though it is fairly under control with a variety of techniques for the most part), but it does make me feel less isolated. Clearly this web site helped a lot with that feeling too.