To the "Oldies"

I agree. I understand that you guys want to help but it seems to me (this is my 3rd day here) that there is more marketing people's products than there is actual conversation. Now of course I want to know every outlet, however, in my opinion, just threads of scatterbrained questions with experienced answers is better. I've read a lot of this the past few days and it appears you guys are awesome, helpful people, but most of us know america better. Money before pain. Its hard for people like me who don't trust anyone anymore. I think we should talk more about each individual moment and second in every day. People should be able to feel bad and write their all of their thoughts down instead of having their thoughts take them down more painful paths. I'm not intending to be confrontational, its just that I'd rather talk then you telling me all these things to buy and try, you know?

Hi jomo my journey on this board began in Jan 2001. It was the first time I spoke about my symptoms to anyone other than my husband and my sisters and that too with them only reluctantly. When I was asked "How do you know you have gas?" even though many people found that question offensive, I found it to be an invitation to talk about all the details of my symptoms in the anonymity of the cyber space. It helped me open up to my friends in real life. I noticed there were some experts on the board so I made full use of them and got info about every test I heard about and then some. Within two three months I had collected a whole bunch of tests which I had decided I would tell my doctor to run on me. Fructose intolerance (FI) was mentioned only fleetingly but I had had problems of a non-gastrointestinal nature with honey dew melon(headaches) so I thought if they had the test in the hosp in the city I would do that without even knowing what FI was. I tried google but all that came up on it was heredeitary fructose intolerance which was quite different from FI. And at that point one of the experts had been banned so I couldn't get info about that from him. Anyway I just coolly told my doc that I needed all the tests I had heard on the board to be done and he was too stunned to object. Also the tests were all relevant to my symptoms- I had researched them and made sure they were. So I must have had atleast ten tests done in a space of one month and I turned out to be positive for FI. But my doc didn't know much about it and I had to wait for three months to get an appointment with this doc in the hospital who knew about it,. In the mean time the expert was allowed back on the board. Ironically even though he was the one who mentioned most of the tests I needed done, he said FI had nothing to do with IBS symptoms including diarrhea and gas. Anyway I thought he must know what he was talking about I didn't take the results too seriously and it was an easy way out for me since I was a vegetarian and removing fryuctose from my diet would have left me with nothing to eat. Anyway the expert did help me figiure out the difference between herdeitary FI and FI. The first is a metabolic disorder which you have from childhood while what I had was a malabsorption disorder. Then a couple of years ago I started dieting and went on Weight watchers and veggies are good for reducing so I ate many more veggies than I normally did. Normally I ate a soy burger with lettuce and tomatoes. I found that I had diarrhea with the increased veggies.. So then for a few days I had only cereal in which the fructose was balanced by glucose and I had very minimal gas. So I knew veggies wrre bad. Theb last year I took dietinfg very seriously and I had only meat, chicken fish, salmon-the Weight watcher's ready made meals had very few veggies and I really noticed a decrease in gas. So slowly it began to sink in my mind that zero fructose=zero gas and zero D. So when I went out I ate only non-fructose and had no gas. This is how I became more and more confident that that was the way to go.And once when I had a lentil&veg filled diet I found that I had a bad case of continuous gas. Out of desperation I popped in a couple of the old Gas-X that I had lying in my house. That stoped it immediately. So now I had Gas-X in my arsenal. The expert on the board had also said Gas-X was probably useless. To be fair to him he was going by studies and Gas X according to those does not help intestinal gas. So if the studies are coirrect perhaps my gas is in the stomach. Anyhow I started taking Gas-X an hour before I went out if I had had fructose diring the day. I also had heard from the expert that Pepto Bismol helped odor. I tried it and found it indeed helped.All this I discovered last year only- 2004-i.e 3 years after I came to the board.Anyway so my strategy when I go out is to pop in a couple of GASX to eliminate any built up gas in the system one hour before leaving home along with a couple ofPepto.Do I have symptoms now. Yes if I eat fructose. So I am certainly not cured but I have learned to manage my IBS.Along the way I also tried Mike's hypnotherapy tapes on the board and I found it helped to not obsess about the gas in my mind. I tried the tapes because hypnotherapy had helped me quit smoking although subsequently I went back to smoking, so I knew it was a powerful tool. But there was a visulization in the tapes in which you had to press on a brake to slow the system down and the accelerator to speed the system upand I visualized being in my car doing that. Within a month of starting hypnotherapy I had an accident and I had noticed that I was always pressing the acceleratr even though I neede to brake in real life in my car. Now I don't know how much the thought implanted in my subconscious by the hypnotherapy had to do with what I was automatically doing in my car when I wasn't thinking too much about what I was doing. Anyway if you do the tapes don't imagine yourself in your car is my advice.I also read up books on cognitive behavior therapy(CBT) since there was a forum for CBT. There used to be a psychologist on the board and he recommended Feeling Good by David Burns as a CBT book for the layman. I read it and I found it was really helpful for my depression. I read more and more books on CBT and one of the things they stress is what is the worst that can happen to you if you do something you are anxious about. Well for me the anxiety was passing gas in public. Well I think CBT affected me enough to make me more and more relaxed in public and without the previous normal vigi;lance I found that I farted once on a plane and it escaped with a sound. I realized then I was waiting for something terrible to happen to me because I did it and my husband was with me and he said "Don't worry". That reassured me and the fact that I wasn't kicked out of the plane -it was then that I realized that was my biggest fear -being kicked off the plane. When nothing happened it was like a bulb went on in my mind and since then I have never felt anxious on a plane or in public. I figure if it happens it happens. There is nothing I cxcan do except watch my diet, take Gas-X, pepto which BTW I hadn't dioscovered then. Nothing terrible was going to happen If I farted in public.Moral: CBT, hypnotherapy can help you become less anxious and less self conscious about your symptoms and possible IBS "accidents". So that is my story.

Also I want to say that ever since I lost the anxiety about farting in public it has been quite paradoxical, I have never passed gas in public. I think when I was anxious I used to tense my abdominal muscles and that would lead to the passage of gas sometimes. And I want to say when it happened on the plane I wished the earth would swallow me up. Now I have a more realistic view of it, hell it is only gas, most people even normals have had some instance with gas. All those who fear accidents in public and by that I mean fecal leakage and not just gas, I would say if it happens in front of strangers you are never going to meet them again. So the worst is that you will have to go to the bathroom and change clothes. So yes definitely carry a change of clothes and if necessary wear diapers and dose up on Immodium if you are D, that it self will take away the anxiety like Gas X and Pepto does for me.

Brokenhit Don't Read This!!!I had daily diarrhea for 10 years. One day I began taking a supplement to control my cholesterol. My GERD stopped and my D became slowly controlled. For over 5 years. I thought it worthwhile to tell others in the same condition.My doctor, of course, knew of no one in the profession who would be interested in this outcome. After all, it's not on the list of prescribable medicines. He suggested I try the Internet. Which is how I found this place.There are others who have tried it with equal success; for others, no. I keep thinking I need to stop this. Then I will read another posting of someone who is in the same condition I was and feel obliged to at least make an offer. (I wouldn't walk past an injured dog without trying to help, why would I ignore a fellow Ibeezer?)That's it. Mark

Some people are happier taking medications and alternate meds so if they are and we know things that helped us, its fair for us to help them... afterall no snese in walking this path alone or we all wouldnt be here... my IBs kicked off in 2001... one friday morning in college, no stress, no illness... nothing just intense pain then urgency. i have a thing about public toilets only used in desperation lol that applied to college to. i went to college that morning at 9am and was sent home by 10.30am...after finally getting home, having someone fetch me, which was a struggle my parents thought i just couldnt be bothered to go, dont know why as college was my choice.i was 18 and we went away that weekend though i didnt want to but i felt weird and i didnt want to be on my own. I ate oranges on the sunday before i came home, i had always eaten stupid amounts of oranges, grapes and apples lol addicted to fruit which became my worse trigger. BEfore we had even got on the motorway a 40minute drive i had need to stop at every petrol station on the way and every service station on the way home... it was horrible adn of course never before suffering from D, i wasnt carrying anything too stop them.We thought i had a tummy bug or eaten somethng dodgy... however two weeks on, we went to the doctor and i had an urgent refferal to a GI specialist as i couldt keep food in and was having daily D upto 20times a day. I remember the pain and discomfort to this day but now i wonder how i coped having that for 18months.i was house bound for a month while my doctor refused treatment while i was being tested, i could barely go to the bottom of the garden without having to run back to the toilet. After that they started treating me by then i was anxious about how quickly i could have bad attacks and i didnt wantt o go to college on the buses as it took 30minutes and my attacks at worse were every 10, there were no public toilets on route. They gave me medication after medication, they only hospilatalised me in 2003 might have been 2004 but whenever it was too late i had given up on the NHS (the health sevrice) i didnt eat more than a round of a bread a day as in hospital they wouldnt let me take my medication the way i had learnt to use it to tae control... they let me out everyday on day release so i went home every day 8am-9pm. so there was never ever point to being there. the night i was ill there, no one would give my med so i spent all night on the toilet and in pain, ignorance was bliss.My speicalist was the most ignorant of them all, he kept screening me for laxatives... im not skinny but my BMI is normal weight... and i dont have any weight issues the chocalte that passes my lips is all optional and if people dont like me for who i am, they know what they can kiss... After the hospital venture i refused to see my specialist didnt see the point in wasting my time. He kept prescribing me orange meds, i took them once and had projile vomiting for 2 days... he kept on dilute itthen it wont affect you. i said if you cant give me non orange meds theres no much much im trying to get better not worse.I reached out for alternate meds, kept a food and drink diary. i had some electrode food interlorance test, didn't have any faith in it doing anything, however maybe by chance the triggers i knew of from my diary were worst on this test and some i wasnt aware of but when i got home and elimintated them were nasty triggers too...i eliminted most things from my diet, food adn me didnt get on. A fair few years on from cotober i have more or less complete control. Went on a feild trip with uni a week in the fielf no toilets alday adn i survived and i was soo happy that i had been "normal" and no one would of ever known what i had been though to get there...I had trouble with people, alot of people thought it was made up to skieve butt hey were the friends i didnt miss... i tell everyone before they get close, so as no one is mislead that my life can get difficult and i cant always be where i said i would of been. My family came around even my brothers after watching me for a few months lol. Though my boyfriend has been the strongest for me, he knows that i cant do things at the drop of a hat and i need a few hours to take meds before big days out. If i say im ill we leave, no questions no fights... its nice to be almost normal again, 4years ago i wouldnt of believed it could of happened, few people would!i have come from 8imodium a day everyday to 0-4 a day. Dont get me wrong if im not careful with what i eat i still have to make friends with mr toilet for the day but those days are rare now. i still hate the 50minute bus ride to uni but i know its in my head, IBS cant win like it used to any more... maybe we cant be cured but we can learn how fight and win even if the glory isnt long its still possible.finished rambling