men suffering diarrhea - page nine
The tale of...Clark
I am a 23 year-old college student who has been suffering from IBS for 10 years. I wasn't diagnosed and treated until I was 16, and after reading everyone's stories it was a good feeling to know that I wasn't alone in that I was feeling so isolated from everyone. I was always extremely active in baseball, football, golf etc until my IBS got so bad around age 15 that I pretty much locked myself in the house and wouldn't do anything.
My junior and senior year in high school I ended up going from weighing 170 pounds to 130 and I'm 5' 10". I would get up every morning at 4am to take my meds so they would be working by the time school started, and only eat one meal a day, at night, due to the fact I had golf practice and matches after school every day, and I didn't want to eat until I got home to my safe place where if my stomach started hurting it was cool. It still hampers my ability to just go out on a whim when my friends all of a sudden decide to do something because it takes two hours for my meds to work before I will leave the house.
Now that I am older I have become less embarrassed about it, particularly around my friends because I finally told them the problem, and why I have to leave when we go somewhere or when I tell them I can't go out tonight. I also can sympathize with suffers who have been told "Oh, it's all in your head...just don't think about it and it will go away". It's so frustrating to try to talk to someone who doesn't have a clue what it feels like to try to eat a bite of your dinner when you are out on a date and as soon as you put a piece of salad in your mouth you are instantly nauseated, sweating, and have stomach cramps like Ben Stiller from 'Along Came Polly'.
This problem has bled into my dating and nightlife, because when you're getting to know someone the first thing you want to blurt out is the whole IBS deal, since you just can't pick up on a whim and go out and about due to worrying about embarrassing yourself with your date.
In conclusion, for those who work and go to school, here is how I try to cope with my problem and maybe it could help you. I am a senior marketing major, and I know how hard it is for people to go to school and work with IBS. You get so anxious knowing that you're going into a class or work and you'll be stuck in one place knowing that you can't go to the restroom, and if you have to you will get singled out and embarrassed.
I decided to start taking night classes, which allow me to get up in the morning and eat a little something like cereal that I know will make me use the restroom, and if I have cramping like normal, by the time I have to go to work or class later on my stomach has been soothed a little bit and my tract is cleaned out. Also I stay away from chewing gum or coke (which I love) before I have to go somewhere. I usually keep a few pieces of peppermint in my pocket when I go out to soothe my stomach. I know this isn't a comprehensive plan but maybe you can adopt something that would help you.
E-mail Clark: chollow2[at]aug.edu
The tale of...Steve
I'm a 29 year-old from Bristol, England, and I have had IBS since I was about 14. It affected me quite badly when I was at school, but then seemed to ease off when I left school. I had a pretty care-free few years up until I was about 22 when it all started again.
A point in my life triggered the IBS again and got me thinking about it all the time. One particular incident was when I was on the motorway, when I got stuck in an eight-hour traffic jam and started thinking to myself "What if I need the toilet?". Well, soon after that I did, I had to do the only thing I could do, I had to go at the side of the motorway, but luckily there was a big field so no-one could see me. Since then I hate driving on motorways, and I just hate driving in general just in case I have another bout.
Things these days are still quite bad, I think about my stomach all the time and it just drives me mad. I just get so jealous of the 'normal people' out there.
I have just started a diet and fitness program which seems to be helping a bit, cut out all the fatty foods, cut right down on alcohol, do some form of exercise every day, but I think until I get the thoughts of IBS out my head it won't fully get back to normal. Thanks for listening.
E-mail Steve: stevecurry03[at]hotmail.com
The tale of...Garrett
I am 21 years old and I have had IBS since I was nine or 10. I thought for many years that I simply had a weak stomach that could not handle certain foods. All through middle school and high school I fought with this silent syndrome with no help from my parents or the medical community. I was trapped! My parents would joke that every time I came into the house they knew where I was going...(everyone who has IBS knows where this is going)...right to the bathroom!
I'd have the worst cramps followed by diarrhea and a pain that I can only describe as blinding. I am not kidding when I say I was in so much pain I wouldn't be able to see. Everything was foggy.
Finally when I went to college my symptoms culminated. I go to a nursing school so one day I finally went to the hospital where they ran tests and found no "problems". I knew I had to take things into my own hands! I found a GI on my own and was finally diagnosed with IBS. I wish this was the end and I lived happily ever after...negative! I am still suffering every day!
I've gone through two GI's, as let's just say we did not get along! I wanted to be proactive instead of reactive. Meaning I'd like to be able to take medicine instead of having to go to the ER to get relief. I go to the hospital about once a month or every other month for IV's because I get so dehydrated from diarrhea. I am currently on Zofran for nausea, Levsin for cramps and an antacid for gastritis which I've recently been diagnosed with! IBS and gastritis! I know I don't have Crohns but damn my symptoms have a scary resemblance to it.
I am captain of my college baseball team and I have been wrestling with the issue of having to quit because of losing 20 pounds in three months and no end in sight. I just want to be normal, just like everyone else here! I'd love to travel to all the continents in the world, but frankly I'm scared of going to a third world hospital for an IBS attack! Thanks for letting me vent...
E-mail Garrett: gvogel[at]svc.edu
The tale of...Daniel
For anyone who is interested I thought I would share my story with you. I wanted to share it with people who are aware of IBS and get this off my chest and out into the open with people who may understand, and have any kind of tips/advice.
I am a 23 year old male and I have had severe IBS and stomach spasms over the last two years. I have always been fit and healthy. I am about 5'7" and I weigh about 10 and half stone.
One thing I read a lot with IBS sufferers is the fact that not many know what set their IBS off in the first place. I can imagine for a lot of people this brings added stress, as I'd imagine many people would like to know. In my case I know what set it off - I contracted a bug which was in the water supply (cryptosporidium) which gave me many food poisoning-like symptoms. As a result I have been left suffering with severe IBS.
The depressing thing is as a result of me not being able to control it I lost my very good job, my girlfriend and the last year of my life, as of most of the last year it had made me housebound. I have a great GP and I have also been under the care of a few gastro specialists. I have had all the tests to rule out anything else.
Even now, two years after I was ill, the effects on my body are devastating, and it's got so bad that my body always feels like I need to go to the loo even when I don't need to, and even when I do it's of a loose nature. I have been seeing a dietician and a physio, and although this has helped, things just have not significantly improved. I of course avoid all things that worsen my IBS - certain foods, etc.
I can have my very good days when I take my medication. On my good days I get about three to six bowel movements, and then there are my bad days where it has honestly been as high as 15-plus or I am just stuck on the loo for hours. At one point I was even sleeping in the bathroom because of the worry of soiling myself by not getting there in time! A colonoscopy revealed that my bowels were very sore, and this is due to the frequency of bowel movements.
My movements definitely do increase if I get stressed, but it's hard not to become stressed when this is so much of a burden on my life. It's not just the severe diarrhea; on some occasions I have been hit with chronic constipation (fecal impaction is a term they also used). I have spent over a month in hospital this year alone due to this problem. The worst time was when I was unable to have a bowel movement for over three weeks!
Medication I have taken, or am currently taking, include: loperamide, mebeverine, amitriptyline, colifoam, tramadol, citalopram, zopiclone, canesten, paracetamol, Buscopan, ompeprazole, diclofenac, Movicol, Senokot, Fybogel, Cirtafleet (if severely constipated), and Forti-sip food replacement drinks. Then there are also the fluid replacement sachets I take to try and prevent dehydration.
As you can see quite a list, and all of this has been prescribed by either my GP, specialist, or hospital management pain team. My days just seem to be filled with taking medication, but if I don't then things get all the worse.
I try to take a positive outlook and hope that things will eventually improve. If there was any kind of surgery on offer I certainly would have it done. I have to manage my IBS on a daily basis, and mix the medication to match how I am feeling that day (of course staying within the daily dosages). I see my GP regularly to asses everything.
If you have any questions just ask, or if you wish to share your stories with me then please do.
E-mail Daniel: danevans20002000[at]hotmail.co.uk
The tale of...Juan
I almost had a panic attack two weeks ago. I went to eat Chinese food in Chicago with my friends. I promised myself that I would never leave any kind of food just because of this damn sickness. So after we ate we went to the park to see a Chinese festival.
All of a sudden, I felt something and I thought it was gas. I was wrong, and I almost had an "accident". Because I didn't have a bathroom nearby I started to feel very anxious and desperate. I was trying not to think about it by counting candies or cars or saying "This is my body, I know that's nothing" but it did not work. I was about to start running but all of a sudden my cramps left, but I still felt nauseous and had a lot of adrenaline.
Coming back from Chinatown the traffic was very intense and I felt trapped. I started to breathe heavily, feeling desperate and getting crazy with the noises in my stomach and the cramps. I was thinking "Get out of the car and run". After counting to 1000 everything vanished and the traffic started to move.
I never had that symptom before, and it was maybe the worst thing that has happened with this damn sickness. But also I realized that with a lot of concentration the sickness can be fought. Since then, every day I say to myself "I'm stronger that this sickness, I will do my errands even if I have an accident!".
My symptoms are the same, but now I can make myself think about something else, or at least make my body wait to find a bathroom, telling myself that there is nothing I can do but wait. I also say this to myself: "What will happen if I have an accident, people are not gonna see me again" or "What's the worst that can happen if I'm late, if I lose my job, I can get another one, or if I miss a class, I can explain to my teacher what happened".
Making things look simple is working for me. It is hard but I'm seeing improvements, little by little. Let me know about you. This is my Cross...and I want to end it by my own means.
E-mail Juan: bernal.aguilar[at]gmail.com
The tale of...Paul
First of all I haven't been diagnosed with IBS yet, but it has been mentioned to me by the doctor several times. It all started after getting food poisoning in January 2007. After that I recovered (or so I thought), but about mid-February time the symptoms came back but for a prolonged period. I eventually went to the doctors in March, and was immediately referred for a colonoscopy. I've now had this done and several biopsies were taken, which I'm now awaiting the results of.
What I'm really asking is for help from anyone else here suffering from this on the basic issues of how you carry on a normal existence with this condition. I have diarrhea and have had it since the initial bout of food poisoning, terrible tummy cramps, and just can't take any food in without having to rush to a toilet 10-30 minutes later. Because of all this I am constantly exhausted, to the point where even getting dressed is a major ordeal.
My doctors have put me on several tablets (Lomotil, Codeine and Imodium, and I also take peppermint oil which is supposed to help), but none of these tablets are working at all. On recent trips to the doctors I've been told that they cannot give me any different medication until the biopsy results are back, but I've been told this can take up to 10 weeks!
I've been off work sick since the start of March, and even if my symptoms were to stop tomorrow this has left me so exhausted I wouldn't be able to face work for a while anyway. As I'm sure everyone who deals with this can imagine it's getting me very depressed, I'm only 24 yet I can barely move around without needing a rest.
What I really need is some advice from anyone about what I should do next. I can only wait for the biopsy results, but are there any tips or anything that someone can give me to help me cope with all this? If you've managed to read all this essay thank you very much.
E-mail Paul: bigpmc1983[at]hotmail.co.uk
The tale of...John
About 10 years ago I noticed a change in my digestive process. I was 33 at the time and never in my life had any issue in this area if you know what I mean. I noticed that I would have to go to the bathroom shortly after eating, several times a week. This was especially fun when I was commuting from NJ to NY via the train and subway where bathrooms are either disgusting or non-existent.
I also began losing some weight, which several of my fellow workers commented on or joked about (they called me bubble boy or bug boy and suggested that since I visited the restroom so much they would move my computer to the handicap stall for efficiency). After several months of this I saw my GP who did a stool test, checked for blood and said she could not find anything and that I should see a specialist.
I then sought out a gastro guy who took a history, ran the same stool tests and said that he thought it was nerves but that to appease me, he would do a colonoscopy which turned out to be fine (ie: no problems detected). As my symptoms got worse and I lost more weight (25 pounds) I got desperate and sought the advice of the one doctor I would trust with my life, my wife's OB/GYN. She sent me to a specialist in NY City who took a history and ran a bunch of blood tests. He discovered that I had giardia and put me on very heavy duty antibiotics. Further tests revealed that the giardia was eradicated but I still did not feel well.
After several more months, more aggressive tests were taken. I had additional colonoscopies and endoscopies, CTs, and sonograms which revealed that I had H Pylori. This entailed more heavy duty antibiotics to eradicate the infection. While a follow-up endoscopy several months later revealed that the infection was cured, I still felt bad.
That is when I was told that I may have IBS. After a year and a half of tests, drugs etc they tell me that I have this condition. The problems that this caused in my personal life (marriage) were substantial. I was not the best patient during this time and my wife got tired of listening to me complain. My doctor thought that my condition was causing me to be depressed (who wouldn't be after all this) and I agreed to speak with a therapist. This turned out to be a waste of time since I acknowledged that I was depressed but that I would get undepressed if I felt I was getting better, to which he did not have a response.
It has now been approximately 10 years since the outset of my condition. And while I am better now than when the two conditions above were present, I still have many of the symptoms (diarrhea, bloating, etc). I have learned to just deal with the condition and not let it control my life. Luckily it is not as bad as some of the stories I have read and can be largely controlled with common sense.
I normally get a little bit of a warning as to when it will flare-up and I ensure that a bathroom is near. I never discuss it with my wife because I know she does not want to hear it and there would not be much point to it (no sympathy there). Sometimes weeks go by and I feel great and almost forget that I have this issue. Then I eat a meal or for whatever reason it flares up and I spend some time in the bathroom.
I just try and live my life and enjoy it as best I can. If I eat a nice meal and some wine and it results in a bathroom break so be it. I am not going to eat some benign diet my whole life. That is no way to live. I carry Imodium with me at all times and use it when I need for the symptoms to stop (not near a bathroom). Otherwise I let it rip so to speak.
I am not sure this story will help anyone or not but here it is. If I had one message it would be to seek out as much medical diagnosis as you can stand or afford. You may find out you have something else and then can deal with that. Once you have done that you can try and learn to live with it as best as you can, enjoy the good times that life offers and manage the down times as best as possible.
E-mail John: jennfam4[at]aol.com
The tale of...Rick
I've been suffering with IBS for nearly 10 years and it completely controls my life. I live in fear of it. It dominates me and consequently it dominates my family's life. I have the 'Toilet Police' version. I don't know whether the panic triggers an episode or the episode triggers the panic.
I adopt the avoidance method - I always carry some tissues. I check every available traffic system to reduce the possibility of becoming stuck in traffic. I've had my car windows blacked out just in case. I've turned down employment because of possible traffic problems. I check every venue for the number of cubicles. I note every alley, bush, wall, store and bar.
I refuse to take my wife to her favorite restaurant because it is a very busy place and only has one cubicle. I won't take my family anywhere where there’s a chance of no toilet facilities close by and available. I find myself frustrated and becoming aggressively defensive of my decisions not to do things. I'm beginning to think that living within my own four walls is the 'perfect' existence and I have pondered the relief that The Big Sleep may bring. I think everyone at some point mutters the words "I wish I was dead" but then the gloom lifts and we all carry on.
For all my bravado I feel like I'm carrying a heavy burden of guilt. I've read some of the stories on this site and am humbled. I don't know how our partners can cope with our paranoia (particularly mine). I'm sure there are worse things in the world but I find my condition self-absorbing. I've tried the complementary medicine and have been on medication for years to assist my day to day life. I'm sure you've heard this type of tale a thousand times before but it’s nice to just put it all down.
E-mail Rick: beano1967[at]hotmail.com
The tale of...Imad
I am now 24, and I've had IBS forever. I used to go to lots of doctors and have lots of examinations and everybody used to tell my parents that it's all in my mind! At some point I almost believed them, and started doubting myself and my pain.
At last, a couple of years ago I found a doctor who told me I have IBS and gave me some long-term medications which I stopped later because most of them made me lose concentration, especially when I was driving. I lost most of my friends because no-one understands that it's not a normal bowel pain that they have a couple of times per year, while I have it continuously. IBS has changed my life for the worse, but the people around me have made it much worse!
E-mail Imad: madhaddad[at]hotmail.com