u/Ill_Conversation6932

If the issue is hypersensitivity or an issue with the gut brain axis, what’s the best way to address this? Has anyone had success in fixing this?

I mean like it’s actually gone and not because of taking prescribed medicine or over the counters. Like you were actually able to find the cause and treat it and get back to normal. I feel like every success story I see is just that they started taking a certain pill or something and it helped. I also see that they cut all of this stuff out of their diet and that helped. Is it even possible to figure out the real issue, where it all went wrong, and get back to normal or is it really just managing forever.

I starting having symptoms a year ago and it started out with some gas, pain, and urgent diarrhea. I first thought it was food poisoning and brushed it off. This continued to happen every few weeks, last an hour or two and then go away. My flare ups were not too often and I would sometimes have constipation between them. As time went on, the flare ups became more intense but they were still every few weeks and didn’t last more than a few hours. A lot of the time I would have normal bowel movements for a whole week or more. Now I have flare ups multiple times a week. They last almost all day and are practically debilitating. I have them at the worst times too. When I’m not experiencing a ibs d flare I’m not having a bowel movement for 2-3 days. It’s hard for me to even function or be at school. I went to church yesterday and almost had to turn around and go home because I was in so much pain. I was able to get through it but had two bowel movements the following hours. I’m just so tired of it. Work is so stressful trying not to flare and it’s definitely affecting my school performance. I start clinical rotations in less than a month and idk how I’m gonna swing that . I need do be by a bathroom 24/7 and idk what is making it worse. I haven’t been able to find any food triggers.

Trust me, I still pray everyday for an end to my ibs but today I was forced to face a fear and I think it honestly went the best it could’ve gone. For some background I’m 21f, in college, and in a very intense healthcare program. I’ve head ibs-m for about a year now. So far I had never had a flare up in class or at school and it was my absolute worst fear. I had convinced myself that even though my body has completely betrayed me many times before that it knew better than to flare while at school. I was in the middle of lab today when I felt a familiar feeling in my stomach. I tried to ignore it but to no avail; I was going to have a flare up. I went to the bathroom many times throughout the next 5 hours and had many bowel movements (not so pleasant) but I got through it. I told my professor in sort of a lighthearted jokey way “I’m having an ibs flare so I keep having to run to the restroom” and yeah it’s embarrassing but I’d rather her know than think I’m just avoiding class or lab. So I guess what I’m trying to say is yeah, I had a flare at school today, the one place I had hoped it would never happen, that I would constantly worry about, but I did it and to be honest I handled that shit like a champ.