My IBS Story

I was offi­cial­ly diag­nosed with IBS (irri­ta­ble bow­el syn­drome) in 1995 although I prob­a­bly had this con­di­tion since child­hood. IBS is usu­al­ly diag­nosed by process of elim­i­na­tion after oth­er bow­el dis­eases which show up with dis­tinct inflam­ma­to­ry mark­ers like Crohn’s or Col­i­tis have been inves­ti­gat­ed first. Many IBS suf­fer­ers often go undi­ag­nosed for some time, even years, until their fam­i­ly doc­tor or a spe­cial­ist final­ly arrives at the IBS con­clu­sion. Many suf­fer­ers are told that they are sim­ply lac­tose intol­er­ant or have food sen­si­tiv­i­ties which are only a small part of the pic­ture. The ner­vous sys­tem and life/nutritional habits need to be investigated.

Chal­leng­ing stress­ful events can often lead to this IBS con­di­tion even though it may seem to the indi­vid­ual that they are not stressed. There is no fool­ing the enteric ner­vous sys­tem (which has also been called the sec­ond brain) locat­ed in the gas­troin­testi­nal sys­tem which is con­stant­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with your cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem. Every emo­tion the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem feels is felt in the gut and if this hap­pens to be the body’s weak link, bow­el chal­lenges can occur.

IBS, as well as oth­er bow­el con­di­tions, vac­il­late between con­sti­pa­tion and diar­rhea and learn­ing to man­age the entire range of symp­toms is very impor­tant albeit some­what frus­trat­ing and I have spent over a decade per­fect­ing which foods to eat depend­ing what stage the suf­fer­er is in. The morn­ing is the most vul­ner­a­ble and sen­si­tive time for the IBS suf­fer­er espe­cial­ly dur­ing the diar­rhea phase. Learn­ing to man­age this phase is a very impor­tant step to get­ting you back to good health as quick­ly as pos­si­ble to avoid mus­cle wast­ing, weight loss, and the inabil­i­ty to absorb vital nutri­ents due to leaky gut syndrome.

I was no dif­fer­ent; chal­leng­ing life events def­i­nite­ly led to my IBS diag­no­sis. My fam­i­ly doc­tor was help­ful and he did every­thing he could; how­ev­er, the allo­path­ic approach could only help me to a cer­tain point. I did a lot of inves­ti­gat­ing on my own and researched many holis­tic approach­es to nutri­tion and stress man­age­ment. Even­tu­al­ly I enrolled at the Insti­tute of Holis­tic Nutri­tion to attain a cer­ti­fied nutri­tion­al prac­ti­tion­er des­ig­na­tion. The cur­ricu­lum address­es nutri­tion at the cel­lu­lar lev­el as well as ortho­mol­e­c­u­lar appli­ca­tions and I have con­tin­ued research­ing and study­ing oth­er modal­i­ties which have been immense­ly phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly help­ful to me in my life like herbal­ism, home­opa­thy, and tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese medicine.