IBS

So I went to the Doctor who, despite my concerns that he was a locum, was very helpful, as well as very nice. He had me diagnosed inside of five minutes - I definitely have IBS. I've been having problems with this for around ten years and as with a lot of people, I never really went to the Doctor because I put it down to other things.
However, it's really good to finally know what I have as it now means I can manage it and help to alleviate the symptoms. there is no cure as such, but learning what will and won't cause a reaction can help lessen the symptoms.
A while back I suddenly started eating differently. I'm not totally sure what triggered it, but it was in part due to problems I was having at the time. I stopped eating about half the amount of food I would normally eat and would sometimes only eat an apple for lunch, (no breakfast,) and maybe some peanuts and cheese for my evening meal or a can of macaroni cheese or something like that.
I learned to only eat when my stomach actually rumbled, because that way I would know I was definitely hungry. Most people in western societies eat for all the wrong reasons. We eat because we are thirsty - seriously, apparently research shows that around 30% of the time we think we are hungry, we actually are thirsty, so next time you feel peckish, instead of having a bar of chocolate or something, have a drink of fruit juice instead and see how you feel 5-10 minutes later. Often you will find the hunger subsides.
Worse than that is when we eat out of boredom or because we are down. This is totally unnecessary and can be prevented, (at least I found in my case,) by taking your mind off whatever it is you're doing and finding something else to occupy you.
I found that if I listened to my body, it would tell me when I was hungry and when I was thirsty or even when I had had enough to eat and was full. Once I'd learned to listen properly, I found I actually didn't need to eat as much as I was doing and could easily get by on a lot less food with no adverse effects. If you start eating less, your stomach shrinks. Presumably this is an evolutionary effect - if food is scarce, your body reacts by needing less food. I know - go tell that to the starving thousands in Africa and all around the world right? Little comfort for people with no food.
I lost a fair bit of weight during this period, dropping from about 13-14 stones to 11 and a half. I cut out lots of things I had previously eaten and drunk. I drank almost no coffee, (big change for me,) I ate only small portions of bread, (when I was at my heaviest I was 15 stones and would have at least 3 slices of bread with pretty much every meal - one while I was waiting for the food to cook, one with the meal and the last one to mop up with,) and cut out a lot of other stuff. As I said, I'm not sure why I did this - I didn't consciously go on a diet or plan to lose weight. I didn't consciously drop specific things from my diet, it just kind of happened.
Strangely, I'd never felt better. At the time I put this down to feeling happy about being able to fit into any pair of jeans, my now flat stomach, (I never quite got a six-pack, but it was flat for possibly the first time ever,) and the confidence these things brought me. I've pretty much always been a little overweight - nothing chronic, not obese, not really even what you would call 'fat' but overweight. It came as a bit of a shock to notice how much being overweight affected my self image, but in a good way because I felt so much better. As well as my stomach, my face got thinner. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it no longer looked like a potato with a beard, but I had cheekbones and a stong jawline. OK, so I was never so overweight that I couldn't see these things, but now they had that extra gleam of definition!
What I didn't realise however, was that one of the big reasons I was so happy was that my symptoms had gone into remission. I was happy because I felt so much better health wise - not having the stomach cramps, the bloating etc. Sometimes I used to eat only a small meal but my stomach looked like I'd eaten a Viking feast to myself.
That's the problem with IBS, it's very easy to overlook the symptoms, or put them down to something else. In my case, it had been going on for so long, that it just became part of everyday life. Some days were worse than others, that was all. The other problem is that the symptoms vary from person to person. Some are affected in the throat, some in the stomach, some in the bowels or anus. See the link for a list of symptoms. If you have more than one, see a Doctor. My symptoms span the stomach and the small and large bowels, although I do sometimes get a funny reaction in my throat - not like a golf ball like the list says, but it gets irritated, so maybe I span all four categories.
Anyway, I slipped back into somewhere between being my thinnest and my biggest and back into some old bad habits, like eating probably a little too much again, starting to eat bread more often, drinking too much coffee, (maybe up to 10 cups a day,) and so on. I went back up to 13 stone, where I now sit. The symptoms returned and it was only then that I realised that they had dissapeared at all.
I thought back and decided to cut out wheat to see if I had an intolerance. I did that for a week and it's a little tough, because there are more things out there with wheat in them than you realise, even if it's only wheat flour. I felt better, but not totally, so the next week I cut out dairy too. Again, I felt better but not totally. Then I shared a bottle of red wine with my girlfriend and had a large bar of dark chocolate, thinking it would be ok because there was no milk in it. The next day I spent an hour or so curled up on my GF's bed clutching my guts. Apparently, chocolate and alchohol are two common irritants.
So this last week I had no wheat, dairy, coffee, chocolate or alcohol and felt better for the most part. My bloating after meals reduced somewhat but some of the other symptoms were still present, such as excessive burping. Apparently that may be caused by legumes, so I think a week without those may help. The Doctor told me to avoid wheat and dairy, spicy or greasy foods and also try to avoid stress (he recommended listening to classical music, which I do sometimes anyway).
Anyway I urge anyone with symptoms to see a Doctor. even now I'm thinking of things that I've been suffering with for years and finding out that it can be attributed to IBS, just another symptom.
Also check out Wikipedia's page on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irritable_bowel_syndrome
for more info and especially Sophie's IBS tales blog: http://www.ibstales.com/blog/ and website: http://www.irritable-bowel-syndrome.ws/
Lastly, I'm also a vegetarian (that topic is for another post however,) so it means cutting out things from an already reduced diet, which would worry me apart from the fact that I did it before and felt great - not like I was lacking anything at all. At least now when people ask, "You're a vegetarian? What do you eat?" I'll be able to list the entire catalogue of what I eat inside of two minutes!

Dietry requirements

Well, too long has passed since I posted again, but I wonder if that's such a big problem as currently my readership seems to extend to , uh... me.
Oh well. If you are reading this, say Hi in the comments and make my day.

So despite not solving the mystery of dark matter, what else have I been up to? Well spending a lot of time with my wonderful GF for one thing, which is always nice. recently we had a couple of trips out to Winchester and Bath, which reminds me, if you ever happen to find yourself in Bath, go have a meal at a place called De Muth's. My housemate took me there last week, (to thank me for driving out to Bath to give her her purse, which she had left at home, meaning she couldn't pay to get out of the car park. Normally this would just be an oversight, but she went to Bath to do some shopping! Heh.) and it was just amazing. It's a veggie restaurant, but don't let that put the non veggies of you off. They cater for all sorts of dietry requirements and it was the tastiest meal I've had in as long as I can remember.

Speaking of dietry requirements, I've been struggling off and on with stomach problems over the last 10 years or so and after my GF did some research, I think I may have IBS. I've just chalked it up to different things over the years, such as just eating too much, but I've decided to do something about it. For the last couple of weeks I've given up wheat and the last week I've also given up dairy, coffee, alcohol and chocolate. so far I have been a little better and have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow to see about getting tested.
I felt better after giving up wheat, so wondered if it was just an intolerance to that but then drank a few glasses of red wine and ate some dark chocolate, (no dairy,) and the next morning I had to lay curled up on the bed for a while I was in so much discomfort. Apparently chocolate and alcohol are two of the worst things to trigger an attack. Bah.

So now I have to watch my GF buy a bottle of red wine and then go home to a cup of tea with soya milk. Not so much fun.