Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and the Food Diary
Naturally Controlling IBS
Amid a group of generally excellent suggestions for the treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) from Andrew Weil, M.D., there comes the following classic description of how the “Food Diary” suggestion from your doctor is supposed to work.
How a Food Journal Works
A food journal: Most people with IBS say their symptoms worsen after eating certain foods. Write down what, when, and how much you eat in a notebook. Check it for patterns that indicate food-related triggers. In a British study, people with IBS were sensitive to wheat, beef, pork, and lamb. Alcohol, caffeine, and fatty foods are other common culprits; if any seem to bother you, eliminate each for a week or two to see if you improve.1
Food-Diary Problems
There are a couple of problems with the food diary–beyond the fact that I’ve only ever been willing to do a food diary for IBS just once.
Logical?
For one thing, Weil makes this suggestion:
Alcohol, caffeine, and fatty foods are other common culprits; if any seem to bother you, eliminate each for a week or two to see if you improve.
So you eliminate one food that’s a trigger and keep on eating all the others? To be a little bit silly here, because of course our bodies don’t act in a logical fashion, but the thinking seems a little bit off. If you have ten triggers for IBS, and eliminate one, won’t your IBS still be triggered by triggers two through ten?
Grouped Triggers
At least that’s more or less what I found: I was already a vegetarian; stopped the somewhat possible things containing lactose and switched to soy milk, stopped soda, caffeine, egg yolks,
For me, I eliminated everything on the triggers list except artificial sweeteners, and still had symptoms–about half of what they were before, but still . . . I really didn’t think artificial sweeteners belonged, particularly Splenda ™. Besides, what would I use to satisfy my sweet tooth if I gave them up? I tried switching out artificial sweeteners, as Weil suggests, and did notice some difference between them.
So I stopped artificial sweeteners, too. And my IBS was under control at last.
The Point Is
What I am suggesting here is that many, many of us think we have tried the dietary approach and it hasn’t worked. We have eliminated each food in turn, and sometimes noticed a difference. So there are maybe two foods that we think we can’t eat, that are triggers for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Yet actually, there are four or five or eight or ten. We just never stopped enough of the foods all at once to notice the difference.
Elimination Diet
Yes. I am advocating the total elimination of all the foods on the “IBS Triggers” page. After a couple of weeks on an elimination diet, then cautiously add back one food, one of the “essential food groups” as one blogger has called them, sardonically. Add something back that you miss. Take it slowly, because you have reached an IBS-free (or almost) equilibrium, a platform on which to build.
Just One More Thing!
Sometimes there is “just one more thing!”
For me, wheat, only about 10% of a normal diet–it comes under the IBS second-day rule. For some people, plain wheat doesn’t work, but sourdough does.
Conclusion
Do not stop taking your Soluble Fiber Supplement (SFS), or your probiotic. Also remember the two life rules for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: “Never eat on an empty stomach,” and “Never drink anything with ice in it.”
You’ll do fine!
- ”What Can I Do for IBS? Natural ways for soothing your digestive problems” by Andrew Weil, MD. Prevention Magazine online, current issue, accessed 9-2-07. [↩]