If anyone has any advice I would be very grateful.

Hi I'm sorry it's so long I just had a lot to say before I asked my questions. Any help would be so gratefully recieved !!!!

For the past year or so I have been experiencing what I thought to be bouts of a nervous stomach.

 When I got what I thought to be a nervous stomach I lost my appetite, felt ill, my bowel pattern was somewhat erratic and I had a feeling in my stomach like it was full acid( I know that there is acid in my stomach but I can’t think of another way to describe it) and I had a tight knotting feeling almost all the time . (I also had varying anxiety symptoms like fear and dizziness and I would have been fine with them if they didn’t come with the aforementioned physical symptoms). As well as this in a morning my symptoms seemed to be a lot worse and eating breakfast was a pain. I thought that what I was experiencing was a nervous stomach, the thought of which only increased my anxiety and made my symptoms worse. After a couple of months my symptoms somewhat subsided which I thought was the result of me overcoming my anxiety. Though the ‘main’ symptoms seemed to dissipate I was constantly scared that I was going to have another bout of nervous stomach and this time I would not be able to over come it and I would have to live with the symptoms constantly. I did have small bouts of the symptoms now and then but nothing as big and not for as long as it had been before. (Other things also persisted but I had no idea that these were symptoms). I really didn’t like this part of me ,I thought that it was all in my head and that when I got a nervous stomach it was my own fault ; I though I was the only one who could stop it and if I didn’t, it meant that I didn’t want it to stop (which is completely untrue ,obviously). I thought that it was my subconscious’ way of seeking attention (though I told no one but my mother), I thought that I was making myself have these symptoms and if distracted myself from them for long enough they would go. Though I found that distracting my self from my appetite loss did work quite often ,it didn't always work . When it didn't work or even when I found that I was worrying about it I told myself that I was being crazy and stupid and that it was all in my head, this all just made my anxiety worse when I had a bout which in turn increased my symptoms and it became like a viscous cycle.

A couple of weeks ago another bout started but this time my previous ‘techniques’ weren’t working ; I couldn’t distract myself from it. For the past week or so I have been experiencing the symptoms which I had before but much worse I have also been sick in the morning and been feeling ill at night( pregnancy is not a possibility). Though I didn’t want to go to the doctors with a nervous stomach I thought that (with the being sick,the nausea, the appetite loss, feeling tired, having acute headaches and with the change in my bowel pattern )I might have a virus. My anxiety has also increased a lot this past week with ( or more precisely after )the increase in my  physical symptoms. 

I had my appointment a couple of days ago and my doctor said that I do have a virus which he thinks I might have picked up abroad, he said  that it accounts for my being sick and feeling sick. He also said, as I’m sure you have surmised for you self, that he thought that I have IBS for which he has prescribed me medication.I have now realised that I have had many other symptoms that I didn’t recognise as symptoms such as (sorry to be disgusting) mucus, unexplainable stomach cramps and of course I now realise that what I thought was a nervous stomach was in fact my IBS flaring up which caused me to have anxiety which only worsened my IBS. I am still having a flare up at the moment but I am happy to call it a flare up as a pose me just being crazy. I still have this virus but I will just have to wait it out.

I was wondering if there was anything that you could advice because I am a little unsure about where I go from here. For example ; do I need to ensure that I drink lots more water or would an increase in liquid consumption only worsen the flare up ? or is appetite loss actually a symptom or is actually  not and has always really just been in my head ?  I'm just confused about things really.

Sorry it's so long. I'm just sick of feeling like a lunatic and even though I know that I have IBS there is still that little thought that is telling me it is stil all in my head. 

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