Irritable Bowel Syndrome

No IBS Symptom List on This Blog - A Personal Note

Introduction
Every once in while I read a post on another blog that is so good that I don’t just sit back and think, “Now there’s a good post.” No, I sit back and think, “What an admirable, original post! I wish I had written something like that.” Sophie, who runs the IBS Tales blog, has just written that kind of post, on “Why self-diagnosis is so crazy.”

Listing Reasons
From time to time I see lists of IBS symptoms on web sites and blogs. Without giving it much thought, I say to myself “Perhaps For My Tummy should do something like that,” and then never write it. Of course I’m a procrastinator; that’s a perfectly good reason for not setting up a page with common symptoms of IBS. A second reason is wanting to think that readers come to this blog with some knowledge of what Irritable Bowel Syndrome is (or isn’t) and what the symptom picture is likely to be. A third rationale is not particularly wanting to specialize in either IBS-C (predominantly constipation) or IBS-D (predominantly diarrhea) or IBS-A (C and D are Alternating), nor discuss the specific forms that IBS takes–so I don’t discuss the typing of IBS according to current or historical symptom. It’s just IBS, and you know what kind you have, presumably.

Deepest Concern
AND the deep underlying ultimate reason is that I don’t want you, the reader, to diagnose yourself based on this web site. Use a lot of self-help measures, yes. Avoid things that don’t help, yes. Diagnose yourself, no. If that means you go get that colonoscopy your doctor says you need to have for a diagnosis, then this site will cheer you on and provide moral support–mostly metaphorical, it’s true. And for more encouragement on that path, of getting a real medical IBS diagnosis, read Sophie’s post.

Discuss
Do you have a strong reaction to this policy? See the “No Comment” link below–or if there’s been a comment, the link will have the number of comments? Click on that and a window will open that allows you to disguise your identity and tell us what you think.

January 17th, 2008 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, Medical, general, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Symptoms | no comments

Digestive Advantage-IBS: Second and Third Weeks

reminder: In addition to using the following probiotic, I also follow a diet free of known triggers for IBS (except caffeine in small amounts), exercise, and especially important, take 20 grams/day of Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™ and another 20-25 grams of fiber/day, most of it soluble fiber. This fiber is “prebiotic”–it supplies a suitable growing medium for the “probiotic” that is the subject of this report.

Second Week on Digestive Advantage-IBS
During the second week on Digestive Advantage-IBS, I got adventurous. As you may recall, I had had an upset stomach late one day in the first week, and discovered that if I took another DA-IBS caplet, I soon felt fine–translated into IBS-speak, that means my tummy was soon mellow.

So in the second week, because I felt more control over symptoms, I tried adding more fruit to my diet. That is, more than the ever-present bananas. Kiwis worked well; I came a cropper on a new fruit called “pluot,” a cross between a plum and an apricot. I skinned it, and sliced the fruit into bits that were a cross between a slice and a chunk. Pluot pie might be interesting, but the raw fruit–not so much. That was also a night I took a second caplet of DA-IBS. I don’t know for sure that my body wouldn’t have handled the pluot by morning, but I really did not want to wake up with an aching gut. Other fruits that worked: watermelon, raspberries, and seedless grapes!

Third Week on Digestive Advantage-IBS
The second week on Digestive Advantage-IBS had gone well in exploring fruits, basically. For the third week on DA-IBS I decided to try more vegetables. The problem with vegetables is, often, that I buy them fresh and then don’t want to take the time to prepare them. So they go bad and have to be thrown away. But this week I got enough that there was always something I could fix.

The vegetables that were easy successes were summer squash and tiny tiny carrots, both steamed. I also steamed broccoli florets, right in the bag, and they were soft and delicious and great! I steamed carrot chips (Bolthouse Farms); a big bag gave me enough for several days of carrot snacks and carrot side dishes. With carrots, be sure to chew thoroughly any carrot pieces or tiny carrots that are still pretty firm, not almost mushy.

Coming Up Next
I have not yet done the packaging, delivery, and convenience kinds of commentary for Digestive Advantage-IBS that I did in the reviews for Align. So one of the next posts will be a review of that aspect of the Digestive Advantage-IBS experience.

Also, look for me to switch, and spend the second 32 day period reviewing a slightly different DA-IBS product, the chewable tablets that are what you would frequently find on the shelves of your friendly neighborhood large chain drugstore, like CVS or Walgreens.

Comments Wanted
And, just below this post, there’s a link to a comment form, if you would like to tell us about your experience with DA-IBS. Click on the “No Comments” part of the tags to be the first to add your comment. If someone else is weighing in, the tag will say “1 comment” or “2 comments” and so forth. Shall we try for “5 comments” on this post?

October 9th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, Food for IBS, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Digestive Advantage - IBS | 3 comments

Irritable Bowel Syndrome - What to Use Every Day?

In reviewing the questions that people ask search engines, and then get direct to this site, I am seeing a lot of “is it ok to take xyz every day.” The answers are sprinkled through this site, so I wonder whether people find what they are looking for.

In this post I review some of the queries and try out some answers. Feel free to comment by clicking on the “no comment” link, which opens the comment box:

a. By laxative do you mean anything in the laxative aisle of the drugstore? Then read beyond this question for information on Soluble Fiber Supplements, also called “prebiotics.”
b. Generally it is not good practice to do this. Over a long space of time you become dependent on laxatives, and you need a larger and larger dose to get the same effect. A diet that avoids IBS triggers, and the simultaneous building up of your intake of soluble fiber supplements (SFS) to the recommended levels will relieve constipation over time. You do not need to have a bowel movement every day; fewer than three per week is a cause for concern. “Cause for concern” is code for “talk to your doctor about this.”

When the major ingredient of Benefiber was guar gum, it was okay. At that point Benefiber was a Soluble Fiber Supplement (SFS), which is the kind that helps IBS. Now it is not an SFS, because the makers (Novartis, makers of Zelnorm) changed the main ingredient to maltodextrin.

Fibersure is an SFS, made from chicory root fiber, also called “inulin.” Anything similar that is all inulin–for example, a Walmart store brand, or a Canadian, Indian, Australian, or British product–would act similarly. This is the kind of product in the “laxatives” aisle that you should take every day. In fact, you should take several doses throughout the day to build up to 20 to 30 grams of soluble fiber every day.
I don’t receive the queries about Heather’s Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber ™, which is the other brand name Soluble Fiber Supplement (SFS). Like FiberSure, it should be taken every day. Like FiberSure, unlike senokot and similar laxatives, you should gradually build up to a base level of 20 to 30 grams of SFS per day.

There are two answers here. First, unless you have a free year’s supply of Metamucil ™ without any additives, don’t take Metamucil ™ for IBS. It has several ways of irritating a sensitive tummy. Second, if you have an otherwise nice doctor who insists that you take a psyllium fiber supplement (PFS), try bargaining with her to take Original Konsyl ™, which is a PFS with absolutely no sugar, sugar substitute, orange coloring, orange flavoring, etc–no additives at all.
So the short answer? Don’t take Metamucil ™ every day; don’t take Metamucil ™ at all! If you take Original Konsyl ™ every day, preferably add it to a base of 20 to 30 grams of SFS.

Look for a further post on “every day IBS care.”

September 30th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | fiber, general, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS-D, FiberSure (tm), Heather's Organic Acacia Tummy Fiber (tm), Benefiber (tm), Prebiotics | 4 comments

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and Pizza?

Is there any kind of pizza that a person with IBS can have?

I can answer this, I think, but you have to read to the end of the post. These are the suggested rules for pizza:

I don’t believe you can eat the whole thing. Eat pizza only when you are sharing it with someone else.
Order a pizza without cheese.
Most pizza makers are used to such order, from people who keep kosher, and from people who are lactose intolerant, so it’s unlikely that they’ll question your order.
Pizza is not for breakfast
Pizza is for one day a week, not four, five, or seven!
Mushrooms are a safe topping; if you must, order a vegetarian pizza and pick and choose your toppings.

So you *can* have pizza, within limits.

Bottom Line
Order a mushroom pizza without cheese, and with extra mushrooms.

September 28th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Food for IBS, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS food | no comments

Window Shopping for IBS Products–Now Available

For some time there has been a Page Title — in the upper right hand corner of the header menu — called “Window Shopping.” If you clicked on it, you would see a browser window that goes directly to the Best Life International website, and their “Soy Amazing” ™ Meal Replacement shake.

That was it. No blurb, no explanation, just the browser window.

I have now added several more browser windows, for products mentioned here that are not available at Amazon.com. The full list of products:

Soy Amazing Meal Replacement Shake, ™ from BestLife International–high soluble fiber content, high protein
Revival Soy ™ Chocolate Daydream Shake — no fiber content, high protein.

Ganeden Digestive Advantage - IBS ™: currently serializing a review.
Align. ™ Series of reviews, completed.

Use the Google site search, or the Category listings, for more information.

September 25th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Breakfast, fiber, Chocolate, Revival Soy, Probiotics, Food for IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS food, Align, Soy Products, Soy Amazing, Online sources, BestLifeInternational, Digestive Advantage - IBS, IBS Diet | 2 comments

Digestive Advantage–IBS: The First Days

Digestive Advantage-IBS Probiotic
The week I chose to start Digestive Advantage–IBS turned out to be more stressful than I expected. This web site went down, for reasons that are not yet clear. I had meetings two days in a row in different parts of town, and transportation was disrupted by demonstrations. I promised two people copies of a report and wasn’t able to deliver them. Tuesday I had a tooth pulled, and had to take 4 amoxicillin capsules, against inflammation/infection. Amoxicillin always gives me diarrhea. You’ve all had weeks like this.

Symptoms
My changing probiotics from Align to Digestive Advantage-IBS meant that Monday and Tuesday nights were a little uncomfortable with gas pains. Wednesday morning, knowing I would have a stressful day, I took two Digestive Advantage-IBS caplets. I had no more pain, although sitting through a long meeting I was aware of silently passing gas.

By Thursday, I had dropped back to one caplet, and in a different meeting with different people I still silently passed gas a couple of times. (I don’t know about the “deadly” part because I do not have a well-developed sense of smell–makes for a certain amount of serenity!)

Thursday night, still another meeting, and then making one of those huge copies against a deadline, I had a very quiet tummy, and it is continuing today. No diarrhea from the Amoxicillin. That looks good for Digestive Advantage-IBS, so far.

Schedule
I’ll continue to report once a week, approximately on Friday.

September 21st, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Digestive Advantage - IBS, IBS Symptoms | no comments

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. [↩]

September 16th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Sweetener, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Triggers, IBS Diet | no comments

Irritable Bowel Syndrome - The Three Rules

I have been fixing up the inner workings of For My Tummy. This involved going back over two months of posts, and that gave me the chance to notice that I had posted once on two rules for IBS, here. And then, ten days or so before that, I had posted on the one rule for IBS.

The rules in reverse order are:

Never Drink Ice Water
Never Eat on an Empty Stomach
The Second-Day Rule<

“The Second-Day Rule” needs a little explaining. If you try a new food and have no problems with it on the first day, don’t scarf it up on the second day, thinking “Oh, boy. Now it’s okay to eat xyz!” It will come back to bite you. In other words, some foods–like the IBS triggers–are ok for one day at a time, but not for day-in, day-out use.

Taken together, the three rules make life sound like hard work for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. That’s true! I don’t want to coat it with Stevia to make it easier to swallow–actually Stevia would taste bitter if you used it in that way! What I want to do is to give you some sign posts so that what is happening in terms of Irritable Bowel Symptoms, whether constipation or diarrhea or cramps or alternating stuff–so that these symptoms make some kind of sense and potentially can be controlled.

September 12th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Gastrocolic Reflex, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Triggers, IBS-C, IBS-D, IBS Diet, IBS Symptoms | no comments

“Attacking the Bacteria that Causes IBS” - An Interesting Advertising Phrase

Amazon is, or customers are, tagging some of its products with “IBS,” and hoping to generate some sales. As one of their “other” ads, they have a one-line ad for Digestrin which runs as follows:

Suffering From IBS? — Attack The Bacteria That Causes IBS And Eliminate The Sumptoms Today — www.digestrin.com

While there is potentially much to critique here, from grammar to the claims made, I will confine myself to pointing out that none of the literature about IBS, in a wide range of opinions, has ever said that there is a single bacterium that causes IBS and its multiple symptoms. To support of its observation, the ad itself links to the www.digestrin.com web site. The web site has a pitch for their expensive product. Nowhere in the pitch materials do they ever again say any of the following:

That a bacterium causes IBS , or any symptom of IBS
That Digestrin acts upon this causative bacterium

Repeat: Nowhere in the pitch materials is the claim about a bacterium that causes IBS ever made again!

The one-line ad does its damage, though. It skilfully suggests that bacteria make IBS happen, that the way to get over IBS is to get rid of the bacteria, and that their product will do just that.

How to wipe out their growing competition from probiotics like Align and Digestive Advantage in a one-line ad on Amazon!

September 11th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Probiotics, Amazon, general, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Online sources | no comments

Important Reminder for IBS-D

Please Note
The following point has been at the top of my list for posts for a week or so. I want to emphasize that this reminder from the NDDIC is important for people with IBS-D. If you have bouts of diarrhea, or even constant diarrhea, please heed this:

Replacing Electrolytes

Electrolytes, in addition to fluid, must be promptly replaced after a bout of diarrhea. Soft fruits, fruit juices, broths and soups with sodium, and vegetables with potassium can restore electrolyte levels.

– National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse¹

Products
Many use Gatorade ™ to replace electrolytes, those circulating chemicals that keep your body and mind working together. Gatorade ™ is designed to replace electrolytes that are lost through sweating, not the fluid lost from diarrhea. The product that does replace fluid lost from diarrhea is Pedialyte ™(or store brands like it, like CVS).

For Further Information
Ask your pharmacist or doctor for verification: my doctor and pharmacist both said that about a quart a day (one bottle) of Pedialyte ™ is a suitable amount for adults–babies and young children need more.

Discussion
What do you think? Too much to do, to keep track of, or is it useful information?

Quoted in Sidebar, Digestive Health Smart Brief, September 5, 2007 [↩]

September 5th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS-D | no comments

The Hard Work of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

I stumbled upon the blog site of someone named Seth Godin; he is a marketing guru, hardly an expert on IBS. He is also a very good and readable writer. His topic for today, Labor Day, was “work,” both the old-fashioned kind measured in productivity–chickens fed, hay baled, steel poured—and the kind of work measured in shifts of thought or attitude.

I liked the following so much I want to be able to get to it to remind myself. He said, toward the end of his post,

Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.¹

We should get paid, ya know? We do this kind of hard work every day of living with IBS.

That’s also the advantage of having IBS. It teaches us how to do this kind of work, and as we get more proficient, we realize we have skills and strengths that we can apply to many kinds of work–even the work of gaining more skills and strengths. “Or NOT,” do I hear you say?

Sophie still makes me laugh, Seth motivates me to continue blogging. What do you rely on to cope and to function?

1 http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/09/labor-day.html, accessed September 3, 2007 [↩]

September 4th, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome | no comments

Is Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) funny?

̈ ܹNo matter how many times I see this very short paragraph by Sophie at ibstales.com, I chuckle. I tried writing “giggle,” but that sounds too undignified. She’s had a calm period, and writes:

No sooner had I written an entry saying I was so well I didn’t have anything to write about, my intestines gave me something to write about. They’ve very helpful like that. Sometimes they even make the bed.¹

http://www.ibstales.com/blog/ooops.html, accessed 9-2-07 [↩]

September 3rd, 2007 Posted by tummyblogger | Blog, humor, IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, IBS Symptoms | no comments

For My Tummy

Self-Help for IBS