I didn't know IBS existed until I saw Along Came Polly.
I first came across the term “irritable bowel syndrome” (IBS) when I saw a film
called Along Came Polly with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston (great comedy - here is an IMDB link for you). The IBS part of the story goes like this: Ben Stiller’s character Rueben, who suffers from IBS, goes to a Moroccan restaurant on a date with Polly (Jennifer Aniston) and feels very unwell (stomach-wise)
after his meal so much so that by the time he arrives with Polly to her place, he has to lock himself up in her bathroom for quite a while, which leads to a funny bathroom scene.
N.B. : this was not the plot summary, this was just the part related to IBS ;)
At the time when I saw this film, I was already starting to realise that something was not quite right with my gut. I thought that maybe this syndrome was exactly what I had, but it took a while (two years to be precise) for this to be diagnosed. I do not even remember how my condition developed, but it did so rather promptly, when I was about 26. I used to always eat healthily; junk food never existed for me. As I developed all these stomach cramps and pains I decided to add even more healthy foods to my diet – more fruits and vegetables, more yoghurt, more variety of foods and lots of fibre. This, however, did not bring any positive results, on the contrary, I felt worse.
My symptoms were:
abdominal pain
inconsistent bowel movement
constipation despite sometimes having a bowel movement up to 5-6 times a day (I later learnt that this was called rectal tenesmus or incomplete defecation)
severe irritability
severe lack of sleep (my abdominal cramps often kept me up all night)
inability to concentrate
depression
wind and bloating? I had those too, but all of the above was so much worse that I think I didn't even notice them, let them be I thought
For about two years I relied on the advice of general practitioners, who sometimes told me to take Ortisan tablets, eat more yoghurt or simply accept the fact that some people are more sensitive to the foods they eat than others. Of course I was tested for gluten and lactose intolerance as well as for any possible infections and all tests came negative.
When I had enough I went to see a gastroenterologist, who looking at my perfectly normal test results suggested that what I was experiencing was this condition called IBS (ding! went in my head – I remember that I heard this term before and even thought that I might have it!). I did not yet realise how much time and effort I would need to put in order to find out the food triggers, after all my IBS turned out to be much more complicated than just a reaction to spicy cuisines, such as Moroccan. However, getting this finally diagnosed was already a huge achievement and relief. I kept praising God and saying to myself "nothing is wrong with me, it is just my sensitivity, just the way I am, I do not have some hidden disease that GPs have missed! Alleluia!" I then was recommended a dietitian, who introduced me to low FODMAP diet and this is how my Gut time journey began. I have by now learnt to keep my IBS more or less under control and I have decided to launch this blog to share my recipes, travel and eating out tips and hopefully help some other IBS sufferers out there.
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