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This week I have unfortunately been rather ill - hence the lack of postings, it’s been quite inconvenient considering that I’m four weeks into a new job and have a new baby at home. Ironically both of these factors may well have influenced my illness as stress does play a big part in my own IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), but it mainly all began with a food poisoning incident four weeks ago which upset the bodily balance. Not many people like to blog about digestive disorders as it’s a slightly embarrassing subject, but most web pages on the subject are not very helpful; everything seems to be a rip off of the same source for the purpose of generating a bit of contextual ad revenue - a theme I’ve noticed with a lot of medical sites.

Three months ago one of the local doctors (I haven’t been able to seen my ‘official’ doctor in some years) made me an appointment with a dietician to discuss my suspected IBS symptoms. Thankfully that appointment was this week - perfect timing. My dietician agreed that my diet was actually pretty good on the whole, my occasional binges on chocolate cookies and Jack Daniels were supported by a reasonable balanced diet with lots of fibre. What she noticed from my list of ‘danger foods’ was that most of the culprits were high in fibre - suggesting a fibre intolerance; Bran, Broccoli, Cabbage, Kale, Beans, Sprouts, Blueberries, Dates, Apple Juice all cause me immense pain at times, so now I have to cut fibre down again and reintroduce it later.

I find it ironic that the many GPs I’ve visited over the past decade have always just said ‘eat more fibre’ (having not diagnosed Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and not been aware that for some people it is the fibre that is the problem. Stuffing dates and blueberries to try and make myself better has been making me worse.

There are two extremes of IBS - most people suffer bloating and wind (lovely), plus some abdominal discomfort, but the bowel either speeds up (nasty diarrhoea) or slows right down (very nasty constipation). In both instances the gut can hyper stimulate which is a lot like the violent urge we all get to visit the loo at food poisoning time. Unfortunately, if your bowel has slowed right down for days on end and an IBS attack kicks in it can be very painful, cramping attacks up to once every four minutes without offering any relief are hard to cope with - especially when they last a week. It can be quite depressing, my dietician said many IBS sufferers are on anti-depressants and I can imagine why - life comes to a stop, you can’t go out of the house and even sleep can be difficult.

This week I’ve lost around 9lbs, felt crap, probably looked crap and I’ve been quite scared to eat. GPs always recommend Senna or Lactalose treatments but another revelation from my dietician - fibre intolerant people don’t need MORE gut stimulation they need hydrating medicines. I’ve always told GPs that these things didn’t work and increased my cramps, instead the dietician told me to try a Paraffin based medicine called Milpar. It sounds worse than it is; the main ingredient is Magnesium Hydroxide which when ingested produces sulphur which draws water into the gut (Milk of Magnesia also does this). I don’t joke when I say Milpar has been a godsend and saved my life. Don’t get confused though if you’re looking for Milpar - that is also the name of a US military fighting knife, and you wouldn’t want to try that as a solution!

I know I’m often much to blame for my IBS symptoms, in a busy week I may sometimes skip a bran flake breakfast, rush to work, eat out at a restaurant with colleagues, grab a KFC, work at home, and try and cram in some fruit and fibre along the way each day whilst sitting at a desk for sixty hours or so a week. We live in a fast paced world and IBS is a symptom of our age, for many people it will be hard to avoid without becoming a goat-herding farmer on a Scottish mountain.

Technorati Tags: ibs, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, food intolerence, lactalose, milpar, magnesium hydroxide, fibre intolerence, depression, diet, dietician

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