(no subject)

[hathycol]

I do so hate changing my diet. I was just settling into it at home, and now, rather typically, it's switched around and Y HELO THAR IBS.

(For those a little confused about what I'm talking about, because I did rather massively flock this out of shame and fear but now I'm sort of okay with it, I got diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome this summer. It's not the most fun thing in the world.) Anyway, I discovered that, as suspected, alcohol is a massive prime target to set it off. And I already knew that my period, and not sleeping properly, both start a sort of psychological aspect to it and make it seem worse.

Given that I've done nothing but drink pretty much every night this week, whilst not exactly doing as much sleeping as I should, combined with the period of death, as well as changing my diet and rather suddenly included more carbs than I've adapted back to, and suddenly I am in a lot of pain. I spent all morning at work actually breathing through the hideous stomach cramps, and, well, all of the other aspects of it and also not very good. It's so bad now - today especially dreadful - that I'm thinking, vaguely, I could have picked up a stomach virus or something.

So, I think. Maybe I should starve it out, which is what I've always known to do, and will make it disappear and tomorrow will be fine. Unfortunately, the worst thing I can do for IBS is to starve it - I've tried it, and all that happens is that when food is re-introduced it's worse than before for a day.

This is not exactly fun. Today also represents the first day of lectures, and thus far I have been to European Lit and Modern History, and bought all but one of the requisite books on Amazon - for £20 total! Brilliant! I got Madame Bovery and Crime and Punishment for 0.01p, which I'm sure can't be right. But still! They should theoretically turn up on Wednesday or Thursday. Although my student loan should have been here today, so, well.

More importantly, we have heating HEATING HEATING HEATING OH MY GOD HEATING. Finally! It's taken them over a week, but now we might not freeze to death this winter! Which means I can at least curl up in a small ball to try and ignore the stabbing cramps I'm occasionally getting.

It is wrong how much I'm looking forward to an early night tonight. That's if I can sleep, of course; I was shattered last night and ended up not dropping off until midnight after being briefly asleep for ten minutes. I hope I sleep, as I know I'll feel so much better for it.

Anyway. Medieval history in an hour, or at least the walk starts in an hour...

~Hathy_Col~

Comments

[shoe--gal.livejournal.com]

It's surprising just how many people have IBS. My little sister has it quite severely, and Scott has - relatively speaking - a milder form. My sister has pretty much stopped drinking, as she finds that sets it off, and has also given up caffeine. Apparently peppermint oil, or peppermint tea can help ease the cramps a bit, according to a friend of mine, but neither of them will try that, although I think peppermint tea is yummy! Hope you soon feel a bit better anyway, Scott finds his flares up when he's stressed, even if he doesn't actually realise he's stressed, if that makes sense.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

See, the first day of drinking was okay, but after that... holy hell, this week hasn't been the most fun. And yet I still drink, odd.

Caffeine is the one thing I'm still afraid to check for, because I do so love my tea. But not peppermint tea! It's not my sort of thing...

I also hope I feel better soon! Thank you.

[shoe--gal.livejournal.com]

Tesco actually do a regular decaff tea, which is really nice - just as good as the normal kind. And the Yorkshire decaf tea which I've found in the larger Dundee tesco is pretty good too. So even if you do end up cutting back on caffeine, there are still good teas around!

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I had a prof who had IBS. We had a lecture with just three students in it, and she was always very conscientious about being perfectly on time and such, and one day she was late and looking a little grey, and since she'd known us for years she explained, somewhat mortified, that she had this terrible disease that none of us had ever heard of before but her explanation sounded like just the most horrible thing in the world.

So my condolences and I hope you feel better soon.

The messier, plumbing sort of aspects of humans are so very, very bad when they go wrong. Eeegh.

But sleep is good. Good luck with that. And classes and stuff.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

It is the most horrible thing in the world. I have a very mild version but oh, god, it hurts right now.

[elyim.livejournal.com]

Ah, IBS, my familiar foe...

[emmysuze.livejournal.com]

Sorry about the booze news, that sucks. I can kind of sympathise as drinking too much wine sometimes triggers migraines (no not just a bad hangover). You'll just have to drink full-fat coke and get hyper instead of drunk. Take care hun

[sevenhelz.livejournal.com]

Eat properly, sweetie. If you're feeling incredibly ill the not eating helps, if you're in pain you need better food. Have you tried Yeo Valley Natural Yoghurt? It's not cheap but it is incredibly good for your stomach.
If caffeine does turn out to be a trigger for you (and if it's stress related the caffeine will almost certainly not help), my brother and his gf can recommend some excellent de-caf teas. I'll go poke them if you want.
Also, have you tried drinking different kinds of alcohol? Limiting yourself to one kind per night, perhaps? I can understand wanting to get drunk, believe me, but you know (or maybe you don't) that I stay off vodka, beer etc because of the gluten. Schnapps seems to be much less evil for the stomach, whether you like peach, apple or the various chocolate and toffee things that appear to be around in places larger than St Helens (so, new stuff for me :)). I thoroughly recommend raspberry Mickey Finns and orange juice for a night in, tastes like sherbet.
I also had the period pains from hell this morning - my period related back pain that is. The pills didn't fix it for nearly an hour. God.
Hope you're feeling better anyway hun.
xxx

[hyrnetanga.livejournal.com]

*hugs and sends bucket of virtual ginger tea*

I find not really eating for a day helps if I'm feeling all bloated and ugh, but with stomach cramps it just makes them worse, and then when I eat again they get even worse. Taking some painkillers and curling up in a ball with a hot drink or hot water bottle until they think about kicking in is what I usually do.