Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) - AKA, It’s Bull Shit

After my IBS diagnosis, my stomach doctor recommended two different prescriptions to try. One of them wasn’t approved by the FDA yet and the other one had the same side effects as the symptoms I was experiencing. I told her I would think about my options and get back to her. I then decided to do my own research and learned quickly that IBS is bull shit. The doctor's diagnosis of IBS is basically their way of saying “there’s something wrong with you, but we don’t know what it is.”

When I was diagnosed with IBS over 12 years ago, they had limited resources to treat it. Because of this, I wasn’t comfortable with the prescriptions they recommended so I decided to just live with my symptoms. Over the next couple of years, the pains were so bad I had to miss days from work, miss out on funstuff, and make a couple of trips to the ER. Eachtime they didn’t find anything wrong with me. The ER doctors recommended that I talk with my primary physician about possible solutions for my stomach pains. My regular doctor recommended a muscle relaxer to help with the pain. They definitely helped with stomach pains, but I didn’t feel comfortable driving or working while I was taking them and this felt more like a band-aid and not a permanent solution to the problem. 

One of the times I went to the ER, the pain was close to my gallbladder and they recommended a gallbladder test. That test showed that my gallbladder was only performing at 17%. The doctors said normally gallbladders only perform at about 40%, which I thought was very interesting. Since my gallbladder wasn’t performing that well, they recommended removing it. I was relieved that a test finally showed some sort of an answer to my stomach problems. After my gallbladder was removed, the pains were better for about six months, after that the pains came back.