IBS for life!! (My Experience of Digestive Disorders)

Member Name: ibssucks (Mary Anne)

Product:	My Experience of Digestive Disorders
Date:	30/12/06 (781 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: eating more vegetables, drinking more water, and fruit and taking ginger with tea helps

Disadvantages: drinking full-fat milk is bad for it and lack of exercise worsens it

I have suffered from IBS since I was 17 yrs. old.
When I went to Germany, a year later, the diet they followed in the house I stayed in, was dreadful
something like this: a bowl of milky coffee with some bun to dip in it
lunch: spinach (good) lots of mashed puréed potatoes and something else. beer
and I can't seem to remember having dinner, think we didn't ......were too stuffed after the lunch.
I sometimes had a cake from the bakers - I was one of the only young people around in this small village, so they gave me it free!!
I suffered from lots of indigestion and bloating and change of stool (darker).......I wasn't a meat person at that age and the sticky bown bread and quark really played havoc with my digestion.
when I went back to GB I was MUCH heavier and had to lose weight fast which I did. And my body was glad of the new, more sensible diet.

I have suffered a lot in my teenage and post teenage years, trying charcoal to absorb the pockets of wind and having doctors prodding my stomach and telling my parents I had IBS - which didn't do an awful lot for me - however I was prescribed valium (5mg) to be taken 3 times a day to start off with and well, I got hooked on it, and when I was 26 and in France working as a mother's help , the woman hid my pills and told me I'd be better off without them, try doing the same with an alcoholic and they'll go berserk , right? well, I had terrible crampings in my stomach and feelings of insecurity and being at my wit´s end!
eventually I went back on the pills when I went back to the UK , and then I went to spain and when I was in the bus once (I was trying to get off the pills) someone looked at me and laughed as I was having muscle contractions and they were most amused at my extreme discomfort - so I was cross and in tears and with no one to help me, until I met this dentist who prescribed me something lighter than Valium and it really helped me.............later on after getting married to a spaniard I tried to get off them too, but couldn't.

I am now taking something for agagophobia which makes me feel more light-hearted and he weaned me off (my doctor I mean) my anxiety pills and I felt not too bad.
Now I am into my late 50's and am very upset , as I get lots of indigestiion and feeling I have to go urgently to the loo to do no. 2!!! (shit , pardon me)
I feel kind of disgusted about doing no. 2 , and ashamed - isn''t that pathetic???? I feel as if I'm not clean and I have to bidet-my anus and private parts to feel decent again. what' wrong with me??? IBS I guess which has ruined my life, make no mistake about it - My life is a social disaster, I won't go out in case I can't feel good about myself, and I am a very hygenically-conscious person but I sometimes feel disgusting, and sometimes kids will be kids and make rasping/farting noises at you and I take it personally - can you believe all this? I almost can't myself.
Why is life so complicated, and why can't I ever feel proud of myself - I think milk affects me and yet I love it sometimes, and find it hard not to have tea/coffee without it........but I feel I am lactose intolerant-.
There is not enough done about this problem, and I would plead with all you doctors who are interested in what I have to say , we SUFFER great indignities and feelings of shame and despair and we cannot lead a normal life with this problem.

I only hope that my children never have to suffer the humiliations i have had to in the past...............

I cannot go out if I have defaecated, I get more indigestion after that, and I am agarophobic now......I will never be happy , every day is a battle for me to get out the house and my husband doesn't understand why I don't go visiting, yet no one comes here either!!!!!

Please understand that we are normal people who suffer from IBS _ maybe just a tad sensitive to what others think of us. I cannot let people get to know me too much, in case they find out my awful secret.
I am quite good-looking (they say) and am a slave to showers............cannot go out without having had one.

I just hope they find a cure for this.
YOurs very sincerely
an IBS sufferer for LIFE...

Summary: Why isn't there a cure for IBS sufferers - we're living in modern times!!!!!