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quotes from non-sufferers
This is a list of all the annoying, unsympathetic, ridiculous or just plain daft things that our non-IBS friends and acquaintances have said to us over the years, all submitted by IBS Tales visitors.
Me: 'I can't stand having this anymore dad. All I wanted was to have French fries, and then pasta, and then Chinese noodles, and then black beans, and then some chili!'
Dad: 'You can.'
Me: 'I can't, I have IBS and you know it.'
Dad: 'What you have is worms in your tummy. I'll send you some good worms medicine. You never had that before, now you do. It's worms.'
From my doc: 'Go spend some time in Disney Land!'
Myself: 'Heck doc, I can't even make it to Food Land.'
Me: 'Will these symptoms ever subside?'
Everyone else: 'No-one knows exactly...'
Me: 'So I have to go to college, get a degree, get married, have kids, raise the kids, retire, grow old, and pass away all feeling like this?'
Everyone else: 'Oh don't be silly!'
Friend: 'Are you coming for a trip to town?'
Me: 'Can't, my IBS is really bad today.'
Friend: 'Well you drive then, it'll take your mind off it (problem solved!). Come on you're always staying in.'
Me (sarcastically): 'Well I just love staying in doing nothing, it's what I want to do the rest of my life!'
Me (a 14 year-old girl): 'Yeah, I'm in pain all the time and it's really hard to keep up with my school work or even go to school at all.'
A GI: 'Oh, you'll be fine. I know a woman who has had IBS for 30 years and she's doing alright. She can even manage to go to the store by herself now and she lives a semi-normal life.'
I was 14 and that doctor shot down all my hopes of getting better. I walked out of his office and burst into tears.
Me: 'It's been four years. I get cramps and diarrhea and it's just destroying my life.'
Doctor: 'Oh, so you just have IBS.'
Me: 'Yeah, whatever. That's what idiot doctors say when they don't really know what the hell is wrong with me. I don't want to hear 'just IBS'
anymore. I want some answers!'
From a pharmacist: 'Take these IBS prescription pills for a month and IBS will go away.'
From a person online: 'Stop whining.'
From a doctor: 'Just eat more fiber.'
Me to the doctor: ''Doctor I'm thinking of going to see a dietician.'
Doctor to me: 'You know, I just don't believe in that stuff, there is no cure for IBS.'
Me to doctor: 'So do you think that I will ever get better?'
Doctor to me: 'Yes 100% I do.'
Just wanted to share what the 'specialist' at the hospital said after my colonoscopy came back clear and I was still complaining of abdominal swelling:
'Well, it's a woman's problem, just don't wear tight clothes.'
What about the pain!
'You just need a good fart!'
I say: 'I can't have chocolate, tea, etc.'
They say: 'I'd hate being like that.'
I say: 'Well duh!'
'You should just eat your meals on the toilet.'
Me to a friend: 'I can't drink water anymore. It gives me cramps and the runs.'
My friend's response: 'It's all in your mind. As for the other things you can't eat/drink you need to eat/drink them a little at a time and increase
the amounts over time and your system will get use to it.'
Me (to myself): 'I wish.'
'There's always something wrong with your stomach!' (Like I'm enjoying this...)
When Fybogel with mebeverine had made my symptoms worse, and I asked if I could try alternative treatments, my GP said: 'Eat a high fiber diet'.
Me to a GP, having previously admitted I felt depressed because my symptoms had worsened: 'Do you think I should have any hospital tests?'
Doc: 'No, I want you to get your head sorted out first.'
On telling a friend I had IBS: 'Oh I know, that's stress-related. So what are you stressed about?'
Well-meaning friend: 'Can't the doctor do something about these stomach pains of yours?'
Friends: 'Oh no, Katie's eating pizza, who fancies walking home tonight?' (rather than be in my car)
Mum: 'Can't you leave the room before you pass wind?'
Me: 'But then I'd never be in the room!'
Doctor: 'Isn't the pain and diarrhea worth it for a special night out?'
My brother: 'You poop in the woods? You're gonna kill the rabbits! Ha ha!'
Girlfriend's mother: 'Why is he in the bathroom? Is he pooping or something!?'
Teacher: 'It doesn't take that long to down to the nurse's office and take a pill!'
Thinking to myself: 'Because I take a pill and then I have to poop!'
Teacher: 'It should only take you two minutes and you shouldn't have to do that during class.'
Me: 'I'm sorry guys I really don't feel good, I don't think I should go out.'
My so-called 'friends': 'Whatever, you never go out anymore. Get over it and move on...IBS is just a minor bowel problem.'
What great friends eh?
My boyfriend: 'Why haven't you gone the whole time you've been visiting me? So that's what, a month? Suck it up. Change what you eat.'
Sister: 'You only cry about it to get attention from Mom. You're making it up.'
Mom: 'Buckle up. I can't come get you at school. You'll just have to deal with it, it's only because you have two tests today.'
Me: 'I don't feel good.'
Friend: 'Yes you do.'
Friend: 'I don't understand what it is in pizza, salads, and pop that all make you feel sick?'
Me: 'I wish I could eat McDonald's on a school night.'
Sister: 'You can, it's your choice not to.'
Me: 'No it's not! It's my body's choice.'
Sister: (rolls eyes) 'Whatever' (walks away).
Mom: 'Everybody's stomach makes sounds.'
Teacher: 'You can't miss class all the time like this.'
'Gross, what's that smell?'
The family likes to say: 'It's all in your head' or 'Not again'.
'I would love to take you out for dinner but you always get sick.'
'What did you eat? Maybe you shouldn't eat that anymore.'
A manager who thought IBS didn't exist: 'Because of the amount of time you have taken off work you are being dismissed.'
A so-called friend: 'It's just food poisoning.'
My Mum: 'Stop thinking about it and it will go away. It's all in your head. We all have days when our bowels aren't quite right.'
Me: 'Yeah, well not every day.'
Hospital consultant said to me: 'You're just going to have to live with it and learn to control it'.
Me: 'I have a stomach ache, I need a lie down to take the pain off.'
My friend: 'You're such a hypochondriac Jones you just have indigestion.'
Me: Unprintable due to ill language...
My Mum (about once every few weeks) : 'So how long does this last then?'
Me: 'The doctor said you can have good and bad years - so he pretty much thinks you have it for life.'
Mum: 'Are you sure?'
My housemate: 'Gosh. So you take six tablets a day. I never knew.'
My best friends: 'Sick again? Never mind. Come round and have a cup of hot water!'
(Can't drink tea!)
Non-sufferer: 'Oooh, I had that last weekend.'
Non-sufferer: 'You're just going to have to snap out of it.'
'You can hold it until we can make it to a bathroom!' Yeah right!
'Gosh, if I ever messed my pants, I'd just die.'
'It's all in your head.'
'Just don't eat till we get home and you'll be fine!'
Daddy: 'Go to the bathroom before we leave the house, so we do not have to stop on the way.' (What makes him think it is my choice to stop?)
'It's mind over matter.'
Co-workers: 'There is no such thing, you're just trying to get attention.'
'You're not going again are you? We'll never get out to the shops at this rate...!'
'I know the cure for that drink Buttermilk three times a day.'
'I know how to cure that, drink lemon juice first thing in the morning.'
'I know how to cure that, GNC has this new powder that you take.'
My old doctor: 'You have a problem with food; you feel OK if you don't eat, so don't eat.'
With advice like this I feel like staying in bed.
'Just don't think about it and it will go away.'
'There is nothing physically wrong with you. You only have symptoms. This is a psychosomatic problem. It's all in your mind. Your mind controls your body. You must learn to re-train your bowel.' (The doctor did not say how!)
From a doctor at the hospital: 'You come here a lot. Do you like coming to the hospital?'
Mom: 'Take a multivitamin. You won't get better without your vitamins!'
'Please tell me the next time you get this IBS thing'...and I asked 'why?'....and he said, 'because I don't want to be around!'
Me (at a party): 'I don't think I can eat that, thank you!'
'Friend': 'Party pooper!'
Me to my working colleague: 'I was diagnosed with IBS.'
Him: 'I knew that you were full of crap! Ha ha!'