People with stomach/digestive issues (TMI I KNOW)

i have something similar
diet soda won't kill you
raw veggies and fruits were very hard on my system.
warm fluids sooth my stomach. tea, soup, and such
processed foods are easier to digest for me as well

My stomach has turned against me for years now. Not so much your exact scenario but equally as irritating and uncomfortable. I have been on probiotics for years with no relief...I just dumped 45 lbs...but I did by a similar diet to Medifast...well the bars & shakes they had me on made my problem WORSE not better....back in March I stopped with the fake food & re-entered the world or "real food" and my issue has not totally gone away....but it is MUCH MUCH better. I think I am going to try @acmorris77 suggestion though & go find THAT particular probiotoc. I have learned that not all supplements are created equal so...I'm willing to give that a shot. I love my beer, bbq & diet coke...I am not looking to become an elite athlete or anything...Just trying to find what works to strike a balance between health & my current lifestyle & I certainly haven't mastered that yet...one hope is that by all my efforts that I can rectify this digestive issue once and for all though...I HATE IT.....

Another IBS sufferer here. It never ceases to amaze me that I can be both constipated and have diarrhoea, but there we go.

Two things that really helped me: Low fodmap and VSL3 probiotics.

Low fodmap is a bit of a pig to maintain and reintroducing food is a weird headf**k of wanting to be able to eat something but scared of the consequences. But it's brilliant for when everything's a mess and you just need everything to calm down.

VSL3 has basically made it not necessary to eat low fodmap. I don't have many consecutive poor days and try to keep it to one poor meal every other day. But it's so liberating! I can eat out again.

Also fibre. A few psyllium tabs a day and everything's more stable, even if it smells bad.

I also have a hugely supportive boyfriend and a best mate who never grew up. So there's no judgment when I need to sleep in the spare room, and I can vent about the minutae of poop to my mate.

Support is key, especially as you experiment to find out what works. And sometimes, your guts just like to troll you. Last weekend I had full on crippling spasms and the cause, as far as I can work out, was the stress relief of finishing part of my course. Go figure.

Good luck finding out what works for you!

Fellow IBS sufferer here, since my teenage years. The things that trigger mine are eating too much greasy food (like a burger and fries, sadly), eating large portions at one time, and steak, oddly enough. Also, the more stressed I am the worse it gets so trying to reduce stress helps but that obviously isn't always possible. Raw veggies were hard on my stomach at first but I have gotten used to it although keep the portions small. I go through stretches where I am fine with dairy, and stretches where it is immediate disaster, however, I've always been able to eat yogurt and it actually seems to help. I hope this is helpful to someone out there!

Your story reminds me a lot of my own experience, I coped with IBS for over a decade, with periods in my life being more severe than others (from vomiting to that which won't be mentioned). Its exhausting to feel that way every single day. I find that when I eat a lower carb lifestyle, my stomach issues go away entirely. Through trial and error, I learned that I also had a sensitivity to nuts, which impacted my IBS symptoms in a huge way. Now I'm symptom free, have more energy, and feel as though I have more control of my life. Hope you can find what works for you

singingflutelady wrote: »

you should create a food diary to try to figure out your trigger foods so you can avoid them

I will second this. I figured out early in life that dairy did not agree with me, but if someone had told me to start a daily dairy, listing foods and amounts as well as symptoms, I'd have figured it out sooner.

You might find out what helps and hurts.

Needing to poop when it's not the best time to poop...it sucks. No other word for it.

I hope you figure it out.

beckydauber wrote: »

thanks. I deal with daily pain and nausea. So eating sometimes is a chore for me and end up NPO, nothing by mouth. The month of March I was NPO and ended up losing over 20 lbs. So my brother uses this app and I thought that I would give it a try as well.

I just read your message about gastroparesis. I personally do not have that, but my best friend does. I do have other problems tho. If I eat too much of anything with gluten or fat my stomach swells and I usually have to be in the hospital for a week or so. Most of the past few months have been NPO for me. It's crazy how hunger just fades. I'm not usually hungru at all, what helps stave it though is that I drink a lot of water, between 80-130 oz a day. How long have you had gastroparesis? I tried to message you, but couldnt, I'd love to chat with you

pie_eyes wrote: »

Um ... I get umm... the runs alot

I was wondering if I have crohns or IBS , somebody said I might have celiac which I think is true, I can eat gluten but I can't in large amounts ...
Any help?

I would highly recommend getting the blood test for celiac disease. And then if that's negative - which you actually have a higher chance of - I'd consider doing a celiac-level of compliance gluten free diet and see if it helps after a couple months (it takes 6 months minimum to heal after going gluten free - can take up to 5 years. Every time a celiac eats gluten, it will take up to 2 more weeks to heal that damage)

Because celiac disease WILL kill you, quite literally. It slowly destroys the inside of the intestines until you stop being able to absorb nutrients. And the body will either die of starvation - which typically only happens on faster cases of celiac disease - or more likely, it will die because some part of your body starts to give out after months or years of nutrient deficiencies. So, things like scurvy, beri beri, other diseases of nutrient deficiencies? Yeah, celiacs can get those. Or organs giving out, or the body unable to fight off a tiny little infection because the immune system can't do it's job, etc...

The ONLY treatment is a gluten free diet, but to a compliance level that requires some information to follow - celiac forums are a good place to find that info out.

But as to why you might have a negative test, it's because our testing is still rather crude. We only have tests that can detect when you are reacting to gluten, and even then, you have to be reacting ENOUGH. So if you are gluten free, or gluten-lite, you may not be producing enough biomarkers of a reaction and the test will give a false negative. It requires eating 2 slices of wheat bread's worth of gluten, daily, for about 2 months, for a test to be accurate.

If it is not this, I'd consider an elimination diet, myself, to see if something else is going on. Even if the doctors can't figure it out, there are a number of conditions that can have food triggers that an elimination diet might at least help with.

I gave up gluten due to a completely unrelated health issue, and I no longer have that problem (except when I get cross-contaminated in a restaurant).

IBS sufferer here as well, My main trigger is onion. as well as pasta. the only thing i have found that helps calm it down is ice cold peppermint tea.