It’s been pointed out to me that I haven’t really given a proper update about the results of my food intolerance/CDSA treatment plan – sorry about that, and I shall now rectify that situation…
For those who are new to the blog, back in the Spring I had some testing done, which involved a CDSA (Comprehensive Digestive Stool Analysis) test and a food intolerance ELISA blood test. The CDSA didn’t show up anything much, apart from a slight lack of some good bug bacteria, but the ELISA test showed a pretty major reaction to cow’s milk, and a more minor reaction to other foods such as wheat.
So I embarked on a dairy-free diet (I was already using a gluten-free diet) and also started taking some supplements, including probiotics and some herbal stuff recommended by my nutritionist. I felt very well for six weeks, but then I had to come off a couple of the supplements, and things unfortunately returned to normality – which for me is IBS normality, not the unbelievably wonderful normality that other people have without even appreciating it.
My conclusion, I’m afraid, has to be that the gluten/dairy-free combination is not the key to future happiness, and that my six weeks of freedom were probably down to the supplements of berberine and grapefruit seed and black walnut I was taking. It might be possible to go back on these, but I need to do some research first into how suitable they are for long-term use. I also worry that something that works for six weeks may not necessarily work for six months.
So there we are – a valiant attempt, but not as successful as I was hoping (and a gluten and dairy-free diet is basically a food-free diet with a fancy title). The problem I’m having at the moment is that even my default diet – which is a simple gluten-free diet with no alcohol, caffeine, sweeteners etc – doesn’t seem to be working. I normally get a week or two of good health at a time, but right now I can only seem to manage a couple of days before everything dies a death again, so I’m really not sure what to do about that.
One of the things that really does drive me crazy about this whole business is the total lack of logic in it all. In most other areas of your life, things work in a fairly logical way. I work harder, I earn more money; I do more exercise, I get fitter; I eat more food I get fat.
Not with IBS. I eat gluten I get ill; I don’t eat gluten I get ill. Sometimes I think that maybe gluten has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with my symptoms, and I’ve been on a gluten-free diet for the past five years for absolutely no reason at all, and the real cause of my symptoms is some incredibly intricate combination of chemistry and tiny little atoms that I am never, ever gonna be able to control, so I might as well say to hell with the diet and eat all the rubbish I feel like.
Not sure what the plan is now really. Maybe I’ll really go back to basics and just eat pomegranates and lard for a week. That should do it.
14 responses so far ↓
1 Ana // Sep 16, 2006 at 10:36 pm
I won’t even take a test like that, I’ve had reactions caused by milk and then they stopped. I can’t eat now things like fried stuff(french fries will take me to the washroom within 30 mins), PASTA, chicken(any type of poultry,really), cereal and candy(like those caramel candies), among other things.
One day there’ll be something we can do to fix our stomachs. Take care, darling.
xoxo
2 Nicole Kroeker // Sep 17, 2006 at 8:00 am
I hear you! I am now on a gluten-free diet as well as a dairy-free and sugar-free diet. I have IBS as well, been suffering for three years and a bit. You’re right…I pretty much can’t eat anything, and Im pretty well fed up with it all. But fortuently I do feel better when off the gluten, dairy and sugar, although I don’t get to eat anything it seems. O well, Ive already done the “screw it” diet and got so sick that I could hardly eat anything anyways, I only wanted to throw up constantly while hunched over in extreme pain. So I’d honestly rather eat hardly anything… and more of that, then anything I want. I also am taking oil pills, cleanse pills, sympton control pills, probiotic pills, a fibre drink and a intestinal soother drink… its working (as best as it can I guess)! So there is hope, at least I like to hope that there is hope!
Sulking in despair, but Im at least a little better!
3 naomi // Sep 18, 2006 at 1:38 am
Hello,
Kinda new at this, am currently suffering with an attack at work this evening. After trying unsuccessfully to get someone to cover for me, so I could go home and sleep it out, I decided to look for maybe a little something to cheer me up. Don’t have any pills with me. I take Buscopan, it helps me with the symptoms almost immedately, and doesn’t make me feel like vomiting. I was diagnosed when I was 14, I am 24 now.
I had a coffee today, like I do everyday around the same time, and it started the ball rolling. Anything with a lot of yeast in it bothers me too. Otherwise, it’s completely random… sometimes brought on by over exerting myself physically. Anyways, I read the little blubs at the bottom of your homepage, and they gave me a chuckle. At least I know i’m not alone tonight. Thanks.
4 Jacqui // Sep 18, 2006 at 3:54 am
Hello
Have you heard of failsafe diet that avoids specific natural and artificial food chemicals.
I have had a very good response to the elimination diet and no longer have IBS symptoms, ( or a host of other symptoms) when i avoid the foods i identified in the original elimination diet. It is based on research at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney Australia
5 Claire // Sep 21, 2006 at 4:39 pm
I have to say that I am on, and have been for 5 months, a wheat free (gluten too,but not sure as thats in so many disguises) and dairy free diet.. what a difference it made! I admit, I gave up any nice sweet foods too and now I’ve got my confidence back, I have the odd glass of wine when the occasion calls for it and eat far too much chocolate. I still go out, still go to restaurants (just say you got allergies, and the chef always makes something to order), still order takeways and still enjoy life. It just means going back to old fashioned cooking,not being afraid to ask, or buying free from food available at most big supermarkets. The best way to look at it is, we as a species haven’t changed our digestive systems, but the food we eat has. We were never meant to eat deep fried icecream for example! Just wanted to let people know you can stick to a diet like this and make it a way of life (if it works for you of course)…. good luck!
6 Jo // Sep 21, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Hi Everyone!
I have just come back early from travelling in New Zealand due to the fact that my diarhoea related IBS attacked me so badly that like many sufferers i was fine for a couple of days then an attack and this pattern repeated itself for weeks!!!
I have been doing a gluten, dairy, alcohol and caffeine free diet and so far touch wood I am doing great!
Also taking probiotics and peppermint oil capsules 3 times a day and they seem to be helping to.
Did have one attack at the time of my period, man hormones suck!!!!
Anyway good luck to all of you!
Love this website it makes me feel so much better and not alone!
7 Alistair // Sep 23, 2006 at 1:30 pm
I cut out wheat and dairy products and spent weeks feeling perpetually hungry and losing quite a bit of weight – and I was skinny to begin with! I found it very difficult to get the ‘right’ kind of food at lunchtime, and eventually just accepted that I couldn’t cut out wheat and dairy long-term and that it probably wasn’t the root cause of my IBS, stress was.
I’ve since concentrated on dealing with stress as a cause of IBS: exercising more, giving myself time to do things I find relaxing, and organising myself better so I don’t feel rushed. I have ups and downs, like you would with a chronic condition, but I feel like I’m coping better now. Sometimes I feel people with IBS get distracted by looking for a definite fix – like a food intolerance, when in the majority of cases it seems most people have either (a) had food poisoning and subsequently developed IBS, or (b) are experiencing a symptom of stress. You can’t do much about the first point, but you can take steps to address stress.
8 Sophie Lee // Sep 23, 2006 at 1:47 pm
That’s great that you’re feeling better Alistair, good on you for finding a way forward. It’s true that lots of people date their IBS back to food poisoning, or to antibiotic use or surgery, but that doesn’t mean that altering your diet won’t help – the bad bugs or pills or whatever could have been the catalyst that started the intolerance.
Also, you’ve hit on one of my bugbears I’m afraid when you say the “root cause” of your IBS is stress. Stress certainly influences IBS symptoms, but it doesn’t cause them, just as stress can give people an asthma attack, but it doesn’t cause asthma.
IBS is described by organisations such as the IFFGD as a brain-gut dysfunction, and it is this dysfunction that means that stress can have such a big impact on the bowel.
Of course from a patient’s point of view it doesn’t really matter, as long as removing stress removes the symptoms (although in many cases it doesn’t even do this much), but I think it’s important to keep this point clear. IBS isn’t a symptom of stress – it’s far more complex than that.
I’ve had IBS for 16 years and have had very little stress in my life for the past two years, but my symptoms have been pretty bad. I just think it’s important to make this point, because otherwise sufferers tend to think that a) they are bringing the symptoms on themselves through their lifestyles and b) doctors are right to dismiss them with comments such as “It’s stress, there’s nothing I can do”.
9 Eve // Jan 9, 2007 at 12:49 am
Hello!
I remember some conversations with the doctors about my problems a few years ago (at that time I had no idea about IBS). I rememer them asking me to specify my problems: when it beginns, whether in the morning or in the evening,under stress or after some kind of meal and so on.
The worst thing about it was that I hadn´t have answers to their questions. If I had known them I would have been already healthy!!I was trying to explain that there were no special rules for my problems.
Sometimes it starts in the morning even when I am hungry, sometimes after meal ,sometimes when I am stressed. That´s how it is and I don´t know why!!
Of course after that they considered me to be a malingerer with some mental problems.
I wish at that time somebody had told me that all these symptoms were normal. Because I really started to think I was mad !!
Now I know that this desease is unpredictable and has many triggers .Also thanks this site.
Have a good luck all of you out there.
10 Vaughan Jones // Mar 13, 2007 at 4:45 am
Gluten
It is in some jellies, some ice creams, etc, so be sure you are not still eating some.
Those with gluten problems are often allergic to yeast, so avoid it for a while and see. Four days told me it was problem.
IBS
Is it really this or is it Letosporosis, Herpes, etc? Get tested.
Is it aggravated by, or perhaps just a plain mineral deficiency? In New Zealand selenium is very low. A stiff neck is one symptom.
If you get cramp you could need magnesium. Solgar Magnesium Citrate tablets fix mine.
11 Vaughan Jones // Mar 13, 2007 at 6:02 am
Does anyone know where I can get an ELISA blood test for allergies causing acid refluxes done in New Zealand?
12 Katie // Dec 29, 2007 at 4:26 am
It is so amazing to hear about someone else who has intolerances to gluten but isn’t celiac’s. I’ve suffered from IBS since i was 11 years which makes it nearly a decade now and with the last two years getting increasingly worse. I’ve actually been challenged by one of my managers at work with “why don’t you eat wheat if you’re not celiac’s?” the same manager required a doctors note for the one time i called in sick for a bowel attack, or as we call them in my family a “blow out”. maybe i’ll get him to read this website so he can see it’s not just me.
13 Tiffany // Jan 11, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Hun, I just had a test done that found high level of candida. And sensitivity to gluten & wheat. I do not have celiac diesease far as I know but have had IBS C for very long time. I am almost 100% positive I also have parasites. They are very common.
I know when I mentioned food allergies to my regular GI doctor, he said no way that could have anything to do with it. That bothered me.
14 Gracious // Jul 11, 2008 at 4:16 pm
IT ISN’T STRESS FOR MOST PEOPLE. I and several others with IBS-D or IBS-C have compared notes: I’ve spent the last 4 years in a non-stressful lifestyle, and no improvement whatsoever in IBS. People need to stop pulling out this old wive’s tale that “stress” causes everything. There is an imbalance in our gut, and no, it isn’t “emotional”.
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