You might be wondering what exactly IBS is. You go to the Doctor with all of this terrible abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, bowel movements that are painful, rectal pain, burning, itching, etc and they say “Oh you have IBS!”
You respond, “YAY, what is IBS?”
The doctor will reply something like, “Well we really have no idea what causes it, or what it is, but here have some pain meds and change your diet and you’ll be fine!”
Ok, now that you are frustrated beyond reason,
let me explain what I have learned about IBS from my personal experience.
There are a lot of symptoms that will lead to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I remember going to the Dr with a lot of pain in between my legs and all in my thighs. It hurt to walk. I had interchanging diarrhea and constipation. I had rectal urgency, which means suddenly I would have to go number 2, and fast, because you can’t always hold it. I also had a lot of burning when I would pee. I had a LOT of lower back pain – with bowel movements, without bowel movements- a lot of pelvic pain in the area my uterus as well as where my large and small intestines are located. Oh! and don’t forget the stomach cramping. The list of things that cause awful pain could go on and on and on, so i’ll stop now before you get too depressed.
When you start having these symptoms you go to the doctor and you expect to have some terrifying gastrointestinal disease. There are a lot of GI problems that have a lot of the symptoms you are dealing with: ulcerative colitis, gastritis or gastroparesis to name a few, or Crohn's disease, Diverticular disease, Angiodysplasia, a few horrible conditions that cause blood in your stool, vomiting, abdominal pain as well as many many other symptoms. Don’t panic, a lot of these horrible conditions share symptoms with IBS. Most likely you don’t have really serious things like massive soars in your stomach or blockages in your intestines. **my story is different from others, everyone is different. Make sure you go to YOUR DOCTOR and tell them all your symptoms and be ready for any diagnosis, what this is saying is try not to panic too much before seeing the doctor. That will only cause more stress to your body and mind and make you feel worse:)**
I went to the Dr. with these symptoms and was prepared for the worst. They did all the tests: CAT scan, endoscopy, colonoscopy, and a gastric emptying scan - looking to see what was wrong with me. We were afraid I had Crohn's or Gastroparesis. BUT after all the tests were done, the GI doctor looked at me and said,
“You have IBS.”
IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. What is that exactly? I remember feeling very frustrated when they told me because I had never even heard of IBS before. Not only that, but all of my tests came back completely normal! The tests seemed to say my body was working and functioning fine. This is very frustrating because you are in so much pain but your body is showing no evidence of you being in any pain at all. So it looks like your crying wolf, begging for attention by faking symptoms when nothing “real” is showing up wrong with you. This is a special problem with internal and more “embarrassing” or private part related conditions because they are INVISIBLE. When you have invisible diseases people can't see the pain on the outside– YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN FEEL IT.
IT’S OK. YOU’RE NOT ALONE.
THERE ARE TONS OF US WHO HAVE HAD THE SAME THING HAPPEN TO US.
TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND READ ON,
THERE’S HOPE. :)
So, what does this mean exactly when your body isn’t showing on lab tests that there is anything wrong with you and you are slapped with this term Irritable Bowel Syndrome??? There are millions of things that cause IBS. As I was looking into what IBS was exactly I came to this understanding of my personal diagnosis. With my type one diabetes, I probably have nerve damage. Damaged nerves in a person’s bowels cause pain and dysfunction. This is what IBS looked like for me, my bowels were not working correctly and hurting when they worked in general. So what caused my nerve damage? I hadn’t been taking care of my blood sugars as I ought. The higher your blood sugar is the harder your body has to work to get your blood sugar down. Also, when have high blood sugars you don’t have enough insulin to digest food for energy . So you need more energy to make your body work normally but what gives you energy is what isn’t working and itself using up extra energy to work at all. After several months of high blood sugars, my body was “overheating” with the stress of maintaining itself while being starved of energy. This left me with nerve damage. The nerves that took the brunt of the damage were in my bowels. The tests the GI doctor had been doing were not designed to show what parts of my body had become messed up due to high blood sugars (lack of insulin). This series of ironic, frustrating, and interrelated events resulted in perfectly normal test results and a very exasperated, angry, desperate Casey.
IBS A REAL THING, YOU ARE NOT PRETENDING OR FAKING.
The symptoms you are having are very real.
There is something wrong, it just can’t be seen on the surface.
What can you do to feel better about/with IBS? What do you do to change and feel healthy and not be in so much pain when you use the bathroom? Here are some things that I have found that have been REALLY REALLY HELPFUL for me.
Anytime I may experience any leg, pelvic, back pain or even migraines that come from feeling sick all the time I take a hot bath. Hot baths are magical!! The hot water helps your body completely relax. Any tight muscles that are clenching, any joints that are irritated or skin that has become red and tender in sensitive areas, the hot water will sooth you into a state of relaxation and it will typically make your symptoms go away faster. Make sure that it is not too hot; but very comfortable temperature for your body.
Another thing that I do when I am struggling with IBS symptoms is find a position to lay in that will give me some relief. The position that I found the most helpful was lying on my back with my knees bend and up in the air. Sometimes I will lay in this position for a half an hour. In this position I don’t feel any pain and was able to wait out the pain until I feel like I could get up. I’d be sore but it wouldn’t be the stabbing pain you sometimes get with IBS.
I am also on two types of medication. One called Nortriptyline (a nerve pain medication) and one called Dexitant (a stomach acid reducer). These two pills have helped noticable reduce my level of discomfort. Talk to your Doctor before you take anything for IBS but there are pain meds they can put you one for IBS.
Another thing that has been fantastic for IBS for me is the Paleo diet. There is also the specific carb diet that has helped tons of people with IBS but I have never done that specific diet myself. The Paleo Diet takes away anything in your regular eating routine that can cause you to be in a lot of rectal and abdominal pain. It eliminates the food that will irritate your bowels. I would definitely look into it !! I have some links attached for you to look into for the Paleo diet.
TRY NOT TO GET CONSTIPATED. It is a symptom of IBS that a lot of times you get constipated for a long time then you have
diarrhea for a long time. This is because your body has held onto all its waste for so long that when it finally lets go it wants to let EVERYTHING GO. Constipation was when I was in the worse pain. I was having chronic IBS flairs. Do everything in your power to have a bowel movement every day. Take miralax or synacot pills. Find natural laxatives like coffee or prunes – I don’t do prunes but I drink so much coffee it’s not even funny. AND EXERCISE. If you’re sedentary you are more likely to be constipated – like when you go on a long car trip you don’t go #2 enough and then you are in pain for days and the next thing you know of you are sitting on the toilet with ROPES of #2. Constipation = pain and the build up can be awfully painful in your back, in your legs, in your hips, you can have cramping, you can feel nausea from it. The minute you have a bowel movement after being constipated from IBS is EXTREMELY painful!! Some of you have probably experienced this. You’ve done all the hot baths and lyed on your back but you are still in horrible pain since you went. This recovery time after the first movement is bad as well. Even if you do everything to help the pain, walking can be BRUTALLY UNCOMFORTABLE.
I remember in college walking around and looking at girls walking to class and wanting to ask them, “You aren’t in pain? Doesn’t it hurt you when you have to walk from the parking deck to class?” It hurt so much for me to walk some days between endometriosis, PCOS, and IBS, that my legs, hips and my pelvis hurt terribly. The psychology behind invisible illness can be depressing and some days scary as you find yourself thinking these things.
I hope this shed some light for you on IBS and on how to look at it how to better understand it and some things to do if you are struggling. Don’t forget that just because IBS has no “official” definition and doesn’t show up on the tests it’s still a real illness. Treat your head, heart and body kindly when it come to the frustration, you’ll feel better, just hold on a little longer :)
If you have any questions or experiences dealing with IBS please let me know and I can let you know what I did. Also if you’ve had any other forms of pain relievers that you have done that I haven’t please email me that too and I’ll it for others. Because we all need to be there for each other as we figure out how to manage pain with IBS.
Stay strong! You can do this!
