I’ve recently doubled the amount of fibre I’m taking each day, and it does seem to have helped. I’ve basically had a pretty good few months on the IBS front, with a couple of quite strange attacks, but these were of the quick-and-painful kind rather than the everyday grind-you-down kind, and so in a way they were actually quite easy to deal with. I say they were ‘strange’ because one of them involved me shivering like I had a fever or something for a couple of hours, and I felt so ill I couldn’t even eat my Rice Krispies (you see how bad it was).
Actually, I’m not sure that the shivering/fever attack was even solely due to the IBS, because it was quite bizarre, but anyway – it’s over now, and the day-to-day intestinal situation is fairly positive. And as I say, I’m mainly attributing this to my increase in fibre.
I take two fibre supplements each day. Please don’t ask me why I take two different ones, I really don’t know why except it’s just one of those illogical things you do when you’re trying to feel better. I suppose at some point I thought that if one of them didn’t work then the other might, so I took both at once, and the habit just stuck.
The ones I use are Normacol (sterculia fibre) and Celevac (methylcellulose fibre). I’m lucky in that I don’t seem to have any problems with bloating or gas if I increase my fibre, but I do have one main complaint about fibre supplements, and it is this – they are indescribably dull. I mean, they’re fine for a few days or weeks, but when you’re swallowing the stuff twice a day, every day, for years, they become just a little on the tedious side.
The Normacol isn’t too bad, because it’s little granules that you can just swallow, but the Celevac comes in pink tablets which have to be chewed beforehand, which takes a good few minutes and gets them stuck all round your teeth.
Compared to the fibre supplements you drink though, these are paradise. I’ve tried the psyllium stuff that you mix into water and drink immediately (tastes like sawdust) and the Citrucel stuff which is methylcellulose that’s meant to taste of oranges (tastes like orange sawdust) and the acacia fibre which looks like cocaine and tastes like tasteless sawdust. They’re really no fun at all.
You can get some more interesting fibres if you live in America, like fruit-flavored tablets and wafers and things, but to be honest even if they were available over here I’m not sure I’d use them – I really don’t want to be eating more sugar and chemicals if I can avoid it. So I guess I’ll just stick to the pink stuff for now.
(If you want to do a little experiment to see how good your fibre is, just put a few tablespoons in a container of water and leave it overnight. It’ll go all squidgy. I did this with my Normacol and was really quite impressed at how much bulk you get out of a couple of tablespoons of the stuff, and it does help to understand why it might work for IBS.)
8 responses so far ↓
1 Liz C. // Jan 27, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Hi Sophie: I am a 54 yr. old married mother of 2 grown children, so I’ve seen just about everything & am embarrassed by very little at this point in my life. I just had to write & thank you for this blog! I’ve been suffering from this debilitating IBS thing for around 19 years, but sometimes think perhaps it’s been all my life.
I was one of the many morons who fell for the Digestrol scam and this morning took my first tablet before breakfast. After about 30 minutes, I felt close to death. After spending approximately 40 minutes in the bathroom, I began to turn beet red & my lips swelled up as if I’d had lip injections to look like Angelina Jolie. This was, however, almost preferrable to the huge logs I was giving birth to last week that threatened to stop up the plumbing.
Anyway, my hubby was so freaked out that he googled Digestrol to see what, if any, side effects were mentioned. Of course, he found nothing, so when I finally left my throne; I got online & found your wonderful blog. Next, I threw the damn bottle in the trash since I can’t remember which website I got it from anyway.
This is all very difficult for my husband since he was raised to think girls pooped little pink roses and they don’t crap like everyone else.
Strangely enough, the only reason I even tried it was because the fiber pills I’d been taking (with some success) were making me fart like some big, green, hairy monster. Very bad idea that was. I’m definitely going back to the fiber pills and my hubby will simply have to deal with it & perhaps keep a book of matches handy. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to handle being in public. Maybe I should hand out matches to everyone near me, with my sincerest apologies beforehand.
Soooo… I started reading your blog and even though I still don’t feel well, your entries allowed me to giggle uncontrollably at this horrible condition I have. My husband even came in & said “Well, you must be feeling better.” Yeah, right. That was just before round 2, 3, & 4 came over me & I was once again on my “throne”. I truly laughed so hard at some of your entries that I had tears streaming down my face. Just knowing that someone else has it as badly as I do was a, shall we say, comfort.
IBS has been the bane of my existence for so long that I was relieved to hear someone speak about it. You think UK people are bad about discussing bowel problems? Well, here in the US, they are downright uptight & totally unsympathetic about it. Not even my hubby or my closest friend want to hear about it. I’m sure they think it’s all in my head. A friend asks what I did today & I say I spent the day on the toilet, how about you? End of conversation.
No matter where I go or what I do, I always make sure I know where the closest bathroom is, since I know that the hungry IBS demon could strike at any given moment. The grumblings in my tummy are something my friends have had to accept & have finally stopped telling me that I just need to eat something. Uh-huh.
Most of the time, I just stay plugged up, with the occasional Montezuma’s Revenge type diarrhea. However, I must say that my favorite is being constipated with diarrhea behind it, trying to get out of my body with all the pain & poison of being trapped. Truly, it is something I would not wish on my worst enemy, but often I secretly do wish everyone could experience it on my level, for at least a month or two, so they’d get off their damn high horses & show a little empathy.
Your newest fan ~ Liz
2 Phil // Jan 29, 2007 at 4:02 am
Hello Sophie,
I’ve had IBS for @ 10yrs now & everytime I see the GP about my stomach, you you guessed it, he said its the IBS, even when I’ve had shivering and fever, at the moment its summer here (I live in sydney) so half the time I’m not sure if its me or the weather.
I’ve asked my gastro an he saied he’s never heard of it, so I’m not sure who to belive. Anyway, great job with the web log, I want to try digestive advantage but I can’t get it here in oz. So I just live with it and don’t let it dominate my life. My young family and work keep me pretty busy anyway. Better that than analysing whats wrong. Lifes too short.
Regards,
Phil
3 Sophie // Jan 29, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Sophie,
I’m in the US and I take FiberSure (inulin) fiber supplements, and before that I took Heather’s Tummy Fiber (acacia). I’ve found that I can pretty much ignore the sawdusty taste if I mix them into peppermint tea rather than water, plus, the peppermint relaxes my intestines wonderfully. Maybe you’d find the powdered ones more tolerable if you could take them with something other than water?
- Sophie (yes, me too!)
4 Debbie // Jan 31, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Hi Sophie, Like Liz, I only came across your blog fairly recently, and I would like to say a big THANK YOU to you for helping me to feel less alone in my IBS sufferings – this whole site is amazing.
Also like Liz, I secretly wish that everybody could have the IBS experience for just a few weeks. I wish somebody could encapsulate the whole thing into a pill. The effects would wear off eventually, but last just long enough to have the desired empathy-boosting consequences in perhaps everybody except the most heartless of individuals.
I think some of my friends, family and colleagues (and, of course, doctors – how could I forget?) could certainly benefit, because after all they are mostly nice people with good intentions who don’t mean to upset me or make unfeeling comments; it’s just that I don’t think they have any idea of the absolute awfulness of IBS – and it would help so much if they did.
What do you guys think of the kind of fibre supplements that come in capsule form – the ones you just swallow with a glass of water? They are certainly much pleasanter to take than the awful powders that you dissolve in water, but are they as effective? I’ve been taking 500mg of psyllium husks fibre in capsule form for a few weeks, and I have a vague feeling that it’s doing some good. Well, it’s certainly not doing any harm anyway. Debbie
5 Galen // Feb 5, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I just recently came across your blog as part of a lengthy internet search to try to figure out what’s wrong with me. I got food poisoning last June, and ever since, things haven’t been the same. It’s been steadily getting worse lately, but I’ve just started taking some probiotic yogurt (bifidobacterium, etc.) and it seems like it might be helping (I definitely am starting to understand where you’re coming from with the “don’t want to get your hopes up” feelings). Anyway, I wanted to mention some fiber supplements that the campus doctor (at least he hasn’t said it’s emotional yet) put me on a while back that were amazingly tasty – they’re Metamucil psyllium crackers, and they come in different flavors like cinnamon and apple. In any case, keep up the good work… I will continue to follow your blog with great interest.
6 Robert // Feb 5, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Lucky person who is trying the fibre supplement and it is helping. I tried all the supplements and they very little. I tried an experiment for about a month I supplemented fiber and also tried to do the Eating for IBS diet (soluble fibers) as I am prone to the Big D. And then one month I did the Eating for IBS Diet (no fiber supplement) I saw and felt no difference. I was still suffering from the cramps, pain, and the Big D. My attacks would hit me at anytime. It doesn’t matter what I was eating. I read studies from England that people who supplement with fiber have no affect actually some tend to suffer worse symptoms.
7 Sophie Lee // Feb 12, 2007 at 11:00 pm
Hi guys, thanks for all the comments as always. Welcome to the site Liz and Debbie and Galen and any other newbies. Sorry I haven’t replied before now, I’ve had a mega cold and have just sniffled my way through the last week. Finally on the mend now.
To Sharon – sorry I didn’t reply to your email, couldn’t face my overflowing inbox with the amount of phlegm that I was dealing with. And that’s too much information right there.
On the leaky gut issue, it could definitely be a factor in IBS. If you search at pubmed.com for “intestinal permeability IBS” (the docs prefer to use longer words to make themselves look clever) there are some references which mention leaky gut as a possible factor in IBS.
However, it doesn’t provide a framework for complete understanding. For example, one of the studies looked at the people in the town of Walkerton, after a very bad E coli outbreak which had got into the water supply. A huge number of residents went on to develop IBS.
In a study of the Walkerton folk, it was found that 36% of the IBS sufferers residents had leaky gut, and less than 19% of the non-sufferers also had leaky gut. This finding does suggest some link between leaky gut and IBS, but it also shows that it can’t be a factor in all IBS cases. It’s also interesting that 19% of sufferers could have the leaks but not suffer from anything like IBS.
I have to be honest Sharon and say that I’m a little bit suspicious of your allergist…it’s just that anyone who assumes that all of their patients suffer from the same disorder sounds pretty unscientific to me – how can that possibly be a good way to practice medicine?
I’m always suspicious when a practitioner says “Almost all my patients suffer from candida” or whatever it might be – it just seems a very convenient way to avoid treating people as individuals, apart from the fact that it can’t possibly be true.
How did the allergist used to test for leaky gut, was it a urine sample? Did he make sure to test some healthy people now and then to guard against false positives? Or did he really believe that every single patient he ever saw had a leaky gut?!
Also, I’m not sure I’d agree that most of the stories on IBS Tales go beyond basic IBS (sorry to debate with you so much, forgive me!). I think the majority of stories are pretty classic IBS, and there’s no doubt that this thing can produce extreme pain and GI symptoms. IBS is characterised by altered gut motility, but also by brain-gut dysfunction and visceral hypersensitiviy, which can be a powerful combination.
8 rachel // Feb 14, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Hi Sophie again, I haven’t commented in a while. I finally had a colonscopy on Monday, and it definitely ruled out any serious problems. my doctor said i was fine and that i definitely have IBS. it was a happy but sad moment at the same time. i was nauseous the whole week before just thinking about the procedure, and the preparation was horrendous. anyway since the procedure i’ve felt like i’ve had stomach flu for 2 days. it is awful. i have got to get some kind of mental control over my digestive system. i was also tested for gluten intolerance and i am fine.
we have the metamucil in gelcaps here int ehstates. they are very easy to take. just pop one or 2 down your gullet with lots of water. i do find when i take them that they certainly help me “go” but they also seem to make me feel pretty sick during it. the shakes/chills you were describing earlier actually happen to me a lot. i also suffer from a great deal of nausea. i’m not sure what the deal is but i am still workign to find a solution. anyway thanks for this blog again. i will try to keep up more regularly. Rachel Erie, Pennsylvania U.S.
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