Pretty much everyone who knows me has come to realize that I am special — or at least I have a special condition: gastrointestinal distress, irritable bowel syndrome, plain ol' piss 'n' vinegar (gas & flatulence and gut-busting pain) if you will.
For those of you who don't admit to watching the Lifetime TV Channel for Women, IBS stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome and is said to affect the gals most.
What you probably don't know is that it realllllly sucks in small, insidious ways. Heck, even I didn't realize how much it sucked until the recent visit by our exchange student to Golden, Colorado from Paris for a few weeks in July.
It sucks to the point that I learned a new word in French: deprimes. It means "depression." And our student had an upset stomach when he arrived, then got better, then (on the day he left) got it again. Clearly it was primarily stress-related (along with being 5,000 miles away from home, alone without his parents, eating and drinking different food & water, etc...). So, it has been at the forefront of my mind recently due to his distress.
So, I'm thinking to myself, "people do not simply live with this every day of their lives?" This is actually something that...
Okay, I'm being a touch melodramatic about it, admittedly.
However, something else people may not know: I actually signed up for a clinical trial of a new drug a few years back.
My internist suggested it, I think. Can't remember. Of course his theory is, "If you're alive, you have gas."
I tend to think it's a touch more complicated than that. Anyway, the drug didn't work, but I did sprout some beautiful green peacock plumage from my ass. Kidding.
So, last summer I spent about 2 1/2 weeks on the Atkins' no-carbohydrate diet before heading to France for a good friend's wedding; lost 16 pounds in 19 days. So, not only was it a great diet, but I lost something else: my gastrointestinal lack-of-fortitude.
Yup. Suddenly I felt what other people must occasionally feel: nothing. No pain, no gas, no bloating, no inability to sleep, no embarrassment, no need to know where all bathroom are in a 20-mile radius. Just nothing.
And it was the sweetest nothing at all!
Why in hell would I feel the need to share all this? Cuz.
Sunday I started up Mr. Low Carb's Diet again. Sure I want to lose a few pounds, but that's not the point. My plan is to test whether my IBS symptoms are caused by a food allergy or some direct food interaction.
Seems reasonable given that when I am on the diet I am restricted from all carbs: breads, beers, and beets (sugars). And as we all know, there are two factors in breads & beers that could be an issue: gluten and yeast.
Now, I've tried to stop drinking beer on it's own with absolutely no affect on my gut. So, it's not beer, hopefully — or at least not beer alone.
My simple plan is to diet a few weeks, clear out the ol' system, and then reintroduce foods —slowly— until stomach upset returns, and hopefully figure out what's causing the problem.
I'll let you know how it turns out. I can already tell you 3 days into it that gas pressure completely vanished like singles in a g-string at a strip bar after only 48 hours. Amazing. I had to work to even squeak out a little bubble.
BTW — Atkins, in his book I skimmed through back in 1997, said that yeast-gone-wild in the stomach and intestines, fed by ever-present simple sugars from our crappy diets, was often the cause of such problems. So, we'll see. I'm hoping to figure something out.
My Atkins' Tip Series
Atkins Diary I: why
Atkins Diary II: the menu
Atkins Diary III: Diet Secrets
Atkins Diary IV: More Secrets!
Atkins Diary V: Cartoon
Atkins Diary VI: Mental Game
Atkins Diary VII: The Lighter side (humor)
Vitamin Supplements
Atkins Diary VIII: Final Tips
Atkins: Followup
By the way, it's now March 2005... and I've kept off the weight, so that's good. As I've said, I usually just need a jumpstart back into better eating and exercise habits and Atkins did exactly what I'd hoped.
Posted by BilFish at August 4, 2004 07:27 AM