[Bamboozle]

For a month or so my wife has been experiencing severe bloating, flatulence and diarrhoea. We thought we had it pinned down to chocolate and/or fruit juice, only now everything seems to be triggering it and she has just had a really bad bout of constipation. Everything she has eaten in the last week has set off the bloating and she is now feeling weak and nauseous, though the constipation seems to have lessened slightly and she is passing the occasional ribbon shaped stool.Does this ring true for being IBS? Is it normal for it to ramp up and seem to just be triggered by everything despite us constantly cutting out more and more foods? Is her feeling progressively worse the longer the 'bad patch' continues also to be expected if it is IBS?

 

[Kathleen M.]

Yes, especially when IBS flares up for NON-FOOD reasons. Food is not the one and only trigger. Often when IBS is flared up for any other reason simply the ACT of eating will bring on symptoms as the whole GI tract is more active after meals.Avoiding eating for as long as possible will make it worse when you finally do eat as that causes a bigger ramp up in activity than eating small frequent lower fat meals will. Especially since people who finally give in to eating after starving for awhile usually go for larger meals with higher fat content than they would if they were eating regularly.Sometimes digestive enzymes with pancreatin in them (so not the all vegetarian ones) will help as pancreatin is also a signal as well as an enzyme and taking it with a large fatty meal that makes normal people bloat (in a clinical trial) makes people much less bloated afterward.

 

[Bamboozle]

Thanks for the reply. She is always wanting to eat more, so good to know that a little a lot could be helpful.Regarding enzymes we already happen to have these which two of our children need, would they be likely to help my wife at all?

 

[Kathleen M.]

I do not see the word "pancreatin" on the label, but they might, but the only one studied was the prescription version of pancreatin.http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=pancreatin&hl=en&aq=f has a list of products. The one called "creon" would be the prescription version, at least in the USA.