Is this IBS?

Just to add, this doesn't happen everytime I eat fatty foods (like kebabs).

Hello sm1234,

It sure does sound like IBS. Your body is trying to tell you that it doesn't like what you are putting into it.  You need to keep regular and everything will be fine. When you eat constipating foods and you don't eat enough fruits and vegetables in a day and maybe don't drink enough water...your bowels block up.... then the muscles in your bowel walls need to work harder than ever to push along the bowel contents. To keep your insides working well you can do the following:

1. Eat 6 - 10 servings of vegetables and fruits per day. No more beige meals! Only delicious, jewel coloured vegetables on your dinner plate.  

2. Get some exercise every day to keep things moving...whether it be walking or a sport or an exercise class. 

3. Limit constipation causing foods such as white rice, cured meats which are  salty like ham, salami, too much meat in general, salty foods like crisps, dairy and tea.

4. omit dairy products from your diet if you can...or limit them and replace them with delicious almond milk.

5. Drink plenty of water. (I have a pitcher by my computer so first thing in the morning I drink down 2 full glasses). For every cup of coffee or tea, both of which are diuretics (cause you to pee) you have to take one cup of water to replace the water lost.,...and then drink a cup of liquid such as water.

 6. I often take 1 tsp of psyllium husks (Metamucil or Fybogel being the expensive but identical alternative) in the afternoon in a tall glass of water. 

7. If you have particularly sluggish bowels, take 2 -3 tablets of magnesium before bed. In the morning you will produce a foot long, soft, stool that passes in 3 seconds. And that's it, no pain, no cramping. Everything should pass easily. You will need to gauge whether to take 2 or 3 tablets of magnesium often depending on how bulky your stool was from the previous day. You will learn that in order to avoide the intense cramping,  you need to be on top of your bowel activity.

When you have IBS as we all have, you will do anything to avoid the intense pain of bowel cramping.If we all just drank plenty of water, filled our dinner plates with colourful veggies (no beige meals) and moved our bodies more, we would be fine. Listen to your body. Treat it well.  And your bowels will be happy... and so will you!  Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle! 

Treat your bowels well and they will thank you. Good luck!`

How old are you. Most of the problems mentioned can be caused by not enough stomach acid. Symptoms are identical to having excess acid. As we age our body produces less acid and results in poor digestion of food. Ppi's will only make the problem worse plus side effects of the ppi's. I found water to be a bad trigger for bloating gas and acid. Reflux. I find digestive enzymes work fantastic and almost immediately unlike ppi's the that doctors tell you can take months. Coming off ppi's can have rebound effect and cause even more acid prompting you to keep taking them. As for constipation one egg will block me up for days. Oranges keep me regular. When you have a diagnosis of ibs it means that they don't know what's wrong with you just that you have a bunch of bowel related problems that don't identify a single ailment. Keep a diary of everything that passes your lips and any emotional stress you may be under. Don't put blind faith in doctors. Keep reading all the good advice on this forum

You will do well to heed robin77577 advice in general diet terms.

Though, everybody is unique in their body functions and as you will read on these forums, different foods affect different people in different ways.  Just like how some medicines get some people better and some have a bad reaction to the drug. Thats just the variety of nature, your genes.

It may well be you lack the enzyme functioning to digest fat adequately (Lipases) just because thats your weakness. There may be a number of different factors including poor diet. Whilst the rare occassional treat of junk food probably wont hurt most people, it needs to be small in the scale of what you generally eat. You need to be concentrating on whole foods....things not tampered by industrial process and corperate scientists. Just compare a wholefood vs processed. i.e. a kebab vs strawberry or cooked fish just out of the sea. You must notice the difference?

Digestion starts in the mouth, so chew and eat very slowly and the saliva enzymes with start to break down the food. It then proceeds to the stomach and the high acidity kills off the nasty bugs and the gastric enzymes break down the food further and so on through the small intestines with various other enzymes/proteases. There are also a number of different bacteria which finally help to convert the food into usable energy sources and nutrition for body functions.

Therefore, you may need support with digestive enzymes or bacteria whilst you have an irritable bowel. There`s some evidence that high carbohydrate diet causes bowel fermentation of foods and gas/bloating especially in ibs sufferers.

1. Kefir and Saurkraut are fermented foods. i.e the sugars have been fermented out and cause no distress to the stomach. Kefir also kills of yeast and candida overgrowth like a bullet! These two alone will repopulate your digestive system with wonderful freindly, toxin killing, gut lovin` bacteria. You can make both at home!

2. Something like VSL#3 probiotic has been good in trials with IBS symptoms as it contains bifidobacteria.

3. Digestive enzymes such as Digezyme or BioCare Polyzyme Forte

4. Hemp Oil and Hemp Milk, completely allergy free.

Finally, its worth getting yourself checked out by the doctor just to rule out infections (gastrointeritus) or Dysbiosis (Helicobacter pylori or infectious bugs, e.coli etc etc) with a stool sample. It could rule out a lot of things in the first instance.

Forgot to add.......simple remedies at home.

Camomile Tea

Slippery elm bark and marshmallow root

Green tea extract

L-Glutamine <------they use this in hospitals after gut operations, it really works use="" this="" in="" hospitals="" after="" gut="" operations,="" it="" really="">