Hello, It is the second time I come here. First time I was trying to find something to control my symptoms. So I am using probiotics, CBD, anxiolytics and following a low FODMAP diet. It is not too bad, after a few months, I experience much less symptoms but there are some complicated days and I cannot continue the diet for long, as I noticed* I have lost 7 kg after starting it*, while I am not trying to lose weight and I am eating three times a day (sometimes even too much as I notice it triggers the IBS). I am not a great cook and do not even have an oven, so I do only simple things with not too many ingredients, although I added more and more slowly. I think I have tried almost everything to relieve the possible symptoms due to eating and stress. Now I would like to ask if anyone here has tried the **Fecal Microbiota Transplantation to cure IBS**? It is rather new but it has proven very efficient against other diseases (and promising against many in the future); however it is on the experimental stage as far as I understood. This could be a nice solution to the problem, as it works in less than one day usually (and when it did not work, there was no negative side effect, only positive ones). And in this case, we can stop all other treatments. So, what do you think about this? I found it by myself, no doctors talked to me about it. Best regards!
I would be very cautious about experimental IBS treatments. I would stick to what you are doing already since it works for you. There is no known cure for IBS.
Yes, I am talking about something totally new. It is very serious as it is planned to use that against depression, anxiety, Alzheimer, … And it worked for a gut disorder called Clostridium in 90% of the trials. IBS is a bit complicated but there is some hope that it could be efficient as well. I will wait to know if anybody here has heard about it or has tried it.
My problem now is that I do not think I will be able to continue the diet too long, because it is time consuming and I am losing weight without knowing if it will stop when I have reintroduced more ingredients. And even with the diet, the probiotics, the CBD, the anxiolytics… I consider I do not have a normal life yet. It is still a bit complicated, even on good days it can be a bit hard psychologically as well because I cannot believe I am feeling good!
So if there was an option like this transplantation that works, I would try it. Because now I can only add a new probiotic for instance, but I cannot do much more.
Sometimes it’s best to try and accept that your life may not be as normal as you would like. That’s the way it can be with IBS. Just take each day as it comes and try to enjoy the days you feel well. My IBS is in remission but I know it still could flare up at any time. However, this doesn’t bother me.
Well I consider my life has never been really normal as I got other troubles before. But how can you ignore the IBS like that?
For me it was impossible to work during months. And it is very hard to get back to it even with some improvement. Even going in holidays seem complicated. Because of the symptoms that can flare up but also the diet… I need to find adequate food, take it with me if I want to eat for lunch, etc. So I have not been in holidays in months while it is not yet going so well at work.
My IBS started because of stress and anxiety, so I try to avoid stressful situations. As long as I stay calm, I have no IBS. If I do have a flare up, I have antispasmodics, painkillers and Imodium to hand which I know will work. The fact that I have these remedies, keeps everything under control. Food doesn’t trigger my IBS.
Ah I see, I could not find what was the main cause, so I tried everything at once. And now I do not want to stop anything because I am not sure what has the biggest effect…
I have Imodium as well but it seems less efficient and sometimes I need to take several pills before it acts. How do the antispasmodics work? This is something I have not tried. And I have to face stressful situations also, so if stress is a big part of the disease, it can help me to know what is the most useful for you.
My final doctor identified stress as my trigger when none of the others could help me. I was tried on an antispasmodic called Mebeverine to try and diagnose me. It was supposed to reduce my pain but instead it made me so much worse that I stopped it within four days. I tried Buscopan as an alternative which is much milder and it got rid of the pain with no side effects. It’s better to try different things one at a time to see what works for you. If you try lots of things at once, it will be difficult to pinpoint what helps and what doesn’t.I find simply avoiding stressful situations the best solution for me. Imodium has helped me within the first dose.
Thank you for sharing this. I would like to do one at a time but if I start feeling better, I do not want to remove everything and start again. However I assume I can stop the probiotics after a few months because their effects should be already there and will not appear beyond 6 months if they did not appear before.
It is nice to avoid stressful situations, but we cannot do that all the time. What do you do when you have to face one?
All I can do is hope that unexpected stress doesn’t affect my stomach if I do have to face it. I ended up with dIarrhoea for three days when I got unexpected stress two years ago and I had to go to the chemist for Imodium because I had none in the house since I was unprepared for it. Imodium was the only thing that stopped it. However, being autistic, makes avoiding stressful situations a practiced art, so usually I don’t concern myself about these things. The best thing I can do is to have antispasmodics/painkillers and Imodium to hand in case I am caught out.
I don’t know much about probiotics to be honest so I can’t say what would happen if you stopped them. The best way of finding out is to try coming off them for a short time if you start to feel better. Initially, I was too frightened to come off Buscopan even when my symptoms started to settle down because I wasn’t sure if I would have a flare up again. I just had to experiment with coming off them to see what happened. Luckily, my symptoms didn’t come back for a long time. They only reappeared when I got unexpected stress.