Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: Bowel Irritable Migraine Syndrome

Question:
Irritable Bowel Syndrome...a condition? or the result of poor understanding of bowel management (ie constipation, followed by drastic measures to resolve such which results in diarrhea) After a long conversation with a friend who thinks she has IBS, I realized that she has a poor understanding of how bowels function esp as we age.  She waits too long before having a movement, then throws all kinds of measures at it and ends up in diarrhea...are we surprised? the bowels like regularity ...and stop and starts...forgive the analogy.

Answer:
Obviously you don't have IBS.  Just because some people don't know how things work or are supposed to work doesn't mean we don't know what our problems are! There are no simple answers only simple people! I don't know whether to laugh or be completely outraged at this post.  I was diagnosed with IBS/colitis 20+ years ago.  I can only wish it were as simple as understanding bowel function.  Those of you on this group can probably understand what I mean when I say I've lost a LOT of my life because of this damned disease. IBS/colitis/Crohns is just about as misunderstood by those that do not have it as fibromyalgia is.  If these water/fiber suggestions work for a person, fantastic, but maybe they don't actually have IBS.  To me, it'd be like using a cup of water to try to put out a house on fire. IBS is a syndrome.  It exists.  It flares under stress.  There has been a tenuous correlation with fibro patients having IBS as well. (Insult to injury, IMHO.) Some measures work for some people and not for others.  Just like Fibro, or migraines.  And we know both of those are real.