I'm baaaaack

How embarrassing. The other week, my husband (yes, we're married now...and have been for over a year) mentioned that he couldn't believe I hadn't posted on here since August of 2014. I had no idea it had been that long!! It was somewhat of a planned hiatus, though, I just didn't mean for it to go on this long.

See, I had been feeling guilty each time I posted here. My daily half Imodium had me feeling so good and regular I felt like I couldn't say I had IBS anymore. And, because of that, I felt like a fake when I'd blog. Well, good news- I stopped my Imodium and definitely feel like I have the right to post again! 😩 I decided to stop it because A) there are no long-term studies to tell me whether it's safe or not, B) we are considering perhaps maybe possibly having kids and it's a pregnancy category C drug, C) my neck has been doing this weird stiff thing lately and occasionally twitches and D) I was hoping I didn't have IBS symptoms anymore.

I took my last tablet 30 days ago, and the loose stools came back immediately. I didn't even get a day to think, "Hmm maybe I'm going to stay normal!" And, let me tell ya, it is REALLY hard to hold myself back from going to get an Imodium when I have a particularly bad stool or when I'm about to go out/to work and I feel like I need to run back to the bathroom but can't. I've become so dependent on that stupid half tablet that I have no idea how I made it to the 30 day mark. Especially with the type 7 stools (Bristol stool scale) I was having day after day after day the first week or two.

However, I'm not back up to the 10+ stools a day that used to be my norm. Thank god for that. I'm still only having one stool a day, although it is definitely loose and unpleasant.  But the good thing is I'm not watching what I'm eating. Wait- that's a complete lie- I'm 100% positive I will watch what I eat for the rest of my life after the hell I've been through. What I meant to say is that I'm still having some fun foods. Like I can still eat (a slice or two) of pizza (with the grease dabbed off), the occasional cheese stick, and nuts (as long as I chew them well), among other tasty things without really paying for it. I do still get urgency after most meals, but I can usually wait it out. I feel like superwoman when I make it through that burning urge to sprint to the bathroom. I've decided I will not take Imodium again until I start to feel like I can't leave the house without getting nervous. I refuse to go back to that life. I'm still recovering from it socially and emotionally.

You're probably wondering how I went from 10+ stools a day pre-Imodium to only 1 stool a day post-Imodium, right? I sort of am too. But here's what I'm doing now: 1) fiber, 2) proper toileting techniques, and 3) exercise, yoga, and meditation.

For breakfast, I eat a bowl of Cheerios with a spoonful of wheat bran buds in it. Then I have a spoonful of applesauce. My doctor suggested these additions of fiber and also wanted me to drink a little prune juice as well, but I could not tolerate the taste. I was afraid of fiber in the past because I had tried it in the beginning and did not have a good experience with it. But this time it seems to be helping keep me regular. Hopefully, I can make some tweaks and it can help me have more formed stools.

As far as proper toileting techniques, I'm "forcing" myself to go every morning after I eat breakfast. In the past, I spent a lot of time in the bathroom. I was spending 30+ minutes in the bathroom every single time I'd go, and often times running right back in a second time if I didn't feel like I'd emptied completely. I'd have to get up painfully early just to give myself enough time to go to the bathroom. I'm down to 5 minutes, and I only give myself one try. Did you know there is a specific position you're supposed to poop in? I sure as hell didn't. Again, my doctor let me in on this secret. You're supposed to raise up your heels off the floor and lean slightly forward. Then you're supposed to do deep belly breaths to get going. Even though I have diarrhea-predominant IBS, I have always found it hard to go. I don't struggle to go now that I know how to go. As soon as I assume the position and start the belly breaths, boom- I'm going. I continue with the belly breaths until I feel like I've emptied enough and I'm good to go for the day. I do have some urgency throughout the day, especially after lunch, but I just push through it using the techniques I've learned now that I'm trying yoga/meditation out.

In addition to the weight training and elliptical running I'm doing, I also added yoga and meditation into my routine. I try to do the meditation every night before bed and a time or two during work. I find that I'm super tense all.the.time. I'll come home from work, go into the bathroom to wash my hands, look in the mirror and see how high my shoulders are. I lower them literally 3 inches when I force myself to relax. I'm just naturally wound super tight, which means I can get pretty worked up when I start to feel the urgent need to run to the bathroom. If this happens at work, I close my eyes and go to my happy place while taking deep belly breaths. If you've been reading my blog very long, you probably know (but have maybe forgotten since I've been MIA) that I'm a pretty bad germaphobe. Not wanting to use public bathrooms is also a huge motivator, but I often find that after that brief moment of meditation I don't feel the need to go anymore. A side note: I tried this in the past as a relaxation technique and found it hardly ever worked for me. I understand why now- meditation is pretty difficult and takes a lot of practice. If it doesn't work for you right away, don't give up. Make it a habit and keep working at it. I took me a good two weeks before I could do it well. If you need a hand to hold like I did in the beginning, try the "Stop, Breathe & Think" app. It rocks.

Ok, I don't wanna pull something by going too hard now that I'm trying to make a come back, so I'll stop here. I'm happy people are still finding my (very old) posts day after day and hope they're finding them helpful, but I will try to start posting regularly again. Hopefully there are still some of you out there reading this regularly that can help me stick to this goal because I really miss blogging!

Weight Loss: My Experience

valeracities commented on my last blog post about weight loss. She said that she thought weight loss was always a symptom of something more serious, so I wanted to comment on that in a post.

While weight loss does often tell you that something more serious is going on, I don't think that's always the case. Take me, for example. The reason why I'm losing weight is very, very apparent. I know why without even keeping track of anything, but my food log on caloriecount.about.com backs me up. I'm simply not able to find enough food I can eat without causing me problems to get the amount of calories I need every day to even maintain my weight. In fact, I get 500-1000 calories less than I need each day which is making me lose weight. Not to mention the diarrhea that causes weight loss from water weight being purged.

Now, if you're having weight loss, but you're still getting plenty to eat every day and, unlike me, you drink enough water every day to make up for water loss from diarrhea, you will want to go get that checked out with your doctor right away. I'm only saying that while weight loss can be associated with something more grave, it isn't always.

With that said, I feel like I've entered a new stage in this IBS mess. My pharmacy rotation I just completed was at a grocery store pharmacy. The grocery store also has a dietician on board, and I got to work very closely with her this month. Naturally, my IBS woes came up and she was very eager to help me find things I can eat to start feeling better and getting back up to my ideal weight. She gave me a lot of good ideas, but I think the best thing to come out of it was that I felt motivated to make a meal options list after meeting with her.

On this list, I listed out all of the different things I could eat at each meal that usually don't cause me any problems. I'm a very picky eater...probably worse than most kids. Growing up I only ate things like PB&J, Spaghettios, or Mac 'N Cheese and my tastes really haven't changed. So when I open up my fridge or pantry and don't see anything I can just grab and whip up quickly, I grab cereal or a bagel instead. It doesn't help that a lot of things in my pantry send my insides for a loop.

So having this list plastered on my pantry door really helps me see that cereal and bagels aren't my only options. She also really stressed building a plate. If you all didn't know (I didn't!), the new thing nowadays is called My Plate. It's really simple. It takes your plate and divides it into different food groups. Your plate should look like this at every meal. What I was doing before My Plate was taking one thing- a bagel, spaghetti or cereal- and eating just that. Sure, I like yogurt or could stand a little cheese, but I was only focusing on one part of the My Plate structure. Now that I keep My Plate in mind, I'm enjoying eating now. I feel like I have options again and that eating isn't just to maintain my energy and weight.

Not every one has plain tastes and is lazy when it comes to putting together a meal like I am, but I think everyone could benefit from trying to organize their plate like My Plate suggests. I know it has helped me a lot.

Need some ideas for meals? Obviously, everyone is different but here is my meal list so far:

Back rubs & bloating

I don't know about you guys, but GasX works for me...most of the time. Then there are times like tonight when I'm a complete idiot and decide that I'm craving a cheese quesadilla...a WHOLE cheese quesadilla...and eat one. Then GasX does absolutely nothing.

The gas gets so bad that it causes stomach cramps that take my breath away when it shifts. I can't sit up straight, I can hardly breathe, and I sure as heck can't talk. It just lodges itself in massive pockets along my GI tract and moves along when it feels like it. It feels like a baseball sitting in my stomach, trying to get through.

That's where my boyfriend's amazing back rubs come in. He's gotten really good at tailoring the massages to disperse the pockets of built up gas so I can feel somewhat normal again. I've found that it helps the most when he sticks to the area below my ribs on the outside of my back and kind of wrapping around to the sides of my stomach. It definitely is a little uncomfortable when it starts shifting the gas all around, but it's 10 times more effective than GasX.

With that said, the bloating has obviously come back, but it's only bad when I do stupid things like I did tonight. It still isn't as big of a problem as before the manipulation, but it's not as good as it was right after I had that done. Stools are still awesome though lol

"Soft tissue manipulation"

If you EVER hear these words, RUN FOR THE HILLS!

Last night I was at the chiropractor, and we were talking after he had adjusted by neck and back. I was describing to him the gas pains and tightness I feel in my stomach, and he had me get back on the table. He examined my intestines all while going, "Oh my...OH my goodness!" Apparently what he felt was bad.

He told me that there's something called a soft tissue manipulation that kind of "jump starts" or "reboots" the system that is manipulated. He explained that it was like my intestines had short circuited like a computer and that it just needed to be jump started to start working correctly again. He's hoping that this is the thing that finally works.

What he did is push down really, really far into my abdominal area with the fingers of one hand and, with his other hand, he did a like twisting or snapping motion with the other. The pushing down part was incredibly painful...he was going down probably a full 4 inches into my intestines and it not only hurt but also created a lot of upward pressure. Awesome for emetophobes, let me tell ya ;) The snapping motion felt like he had one of my nerves and was blocking the conductance for a second. After the snap, it felt like the shock you get after shuffling your feet and touching something in the winter- just in my intestinal area...

Right after he did it, it felt like the feeling you get when you're incredibly hungry and it feels like your stomach is going to collapse in on itself. When I got home and was showering about 20 minutes later, the feeling turned to more of an abdominal muscle pain that you get after doing 2000 situps or so. After dinner, so about an hour after, and up until now the pain is the weirdest thing I've ever felt down there. It's behind my ab muscles, similar to hunger pains, but also similar to gas pains, but all of that times 100 plus the feeling of having been sucker-punched about 30 times. Also I'd describe it as what I would think someone removing your guts and stuffing them back in haphazardly would feel like.

It hurts mostly when I move, but occasionally hurts when I'm just sitting still. I took the half tablet of Imodium last night like I always do, but I also took a GasX because he said one lady that he did it on had said that the problem she had with it is that it gave her really bad gas pains.

As far as the benefits, I'm having a little trouble seeing past the pain right now. It doesn't rate very high on the pain scale- I'd say like a 6 or a 7- but it's just constant and makes for a very uncomfortable me. As with all muscle pain, I'm sure it'll be gone by tomorrow and I'll hopefully see some benefits. As for now, I've noticed that my gas distribution is a lot better. My gas tends to get caught in one little pocket of my intestines and cause me a ton of pain. It's in a spot that I can't burp or toot it out, but immediately after the manipulation, I noticed that I was able to move my gas through me and get it out finally.

He told me that he'd like to do this soft tissue manipulation at least once more, but I'm not sure I really want that. We'll see if this pain turns out to be worth it enough to suffer through it again.

About my coccyx...

Intriguing title, huh? Well, I thought so anyway.

Today I was blessed with a major migraine. You know the kind- lights hurt, sound hurts, lovely sloshy feeling in your head, want to take an ice pick and a hammer to your head migraine. This month I'm on my 3rd (!) pharmacy rotation at a small independent pharmacy, and the people there are just wonderful. The pharmacist I was working with today noticed how much pain I was in and told me I could go home.

Instead of going home, I decided to move my chiropractor appointment up to today instead of waiting until Wednesday. I hadn't been in about a month and figured that was part of the reason for my migraine today.

Now, I know what you're thinking- "This girl goes to the chiropractor? What a looney bin!" and I'm right there with you. Up until a few months ago, I thought chiropractors were sleazy old men trying to make a buck off of unsuspecting looney bins. Until I tried it out. I had been having migraines every.single.day for a few months and nothing else was working. I also couldn't find a doctor who cared enough to really try to get to the bottom of it.

One day, I read something on Twitter or someone on Twitter told me I really needed to see a chiropractor, so I decided I'd try it. What could it hurt? Well, I was pretty sure it could hurt a lot. I even thought I'd end up either addicted to it like I'd heard or paralyzed. Seriously.

Long story short, I went, I got adjusted, I didn't get paralyzed, and my migraines AND headaches went away. I also lost that annoying as hell stiffness that was everpresent in my upper back and shoulders.

It was until today that I mentioned to my chiropractor what a shitty month I've been having- I've been having diarrhea multiple times a day again, major MAJOR, painful bloating, stomach cramps, nausea, urgency, pain, etc etc etc. He said, "Have we talked about this before?!" I told him that I mentioned it when I first came in, but that my main concern then was my migraines. He told me about some other cases of IBS that he had seen and how all of the people (all girls) had seen major relief once he adjusted their coccyx.

He asked if I'd ever fallen down and hit my tailbone, and I told him I had played basketball since 1st grade and had a bully in grade school always pulling my chair out from underneath me...so, uh, yeah I'd fallen on my tailbone a time or five hundred. He felt for my tailbone and found that it had been pushed up at almost a 90º angle to my spine. He explained to me all of the nerve plexus that attach to the coccyx and how if it isn't positioned correctly, the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems get all out of whack and can cause some major problems with your GI system.

While all of this sounds absolutely lovely, and I really hope it helps, I'm not exactly won over with his argument. I've had these problems since I was 7 years old, and I don't expect anything to be this easy. With that said, I'm seriously hoping he's right and that I'll have some major relief after a few more adjustments. For now, I'm just happy he's fixed my migraine situation.

I'll keep you all updated on the coccyx situation.

Worry

I tweeted last week about a book I bought that is all about controlling your worry. It might be the best damn purchase I've ever made.


I'm about halfway through it right now, and I've already cut my worrying in half. If you're a chronic worrier, you know how bothersome it can get. It seemed like I was always amped up and so tense. I'd constantly have thoughts going through my head that would make me anxious. Don't get turned off by that word- anxious.

When I first went to see this therapist, she called what I was feeling "anxiety." Everyone knows that there's a stigma attached to anxiety, so I kind of pushed it away and ignored her. I kept calling it stressed instead of anxious. She must have noticed this and pulled out her DSM IV. Welp- it's definitely anxiety. Whatever it's called doesn't matter. I feel how I feel and that's that.

Anyway, since she suggested these books (there's a stress one too), I decided to order them. I started the one about worry the first day I got it. It has a lot of exercises to help you implement what you're learning. One of the first things it has you do is start a worry journal. I started keeping mine on Google Calendar so I could track it more easily and not have to dig out a notebook every time I worried.

I was SHOCKED after the first day. I worry so much more than I had realized! The first step to decreasing my worry and eventually my stress level was just being aware of how much it happens. The next step was actively thinking about what I was worrying about- was it productive or unproductive? Almost all of my worry was unproductive and completely worthless.

I'm now getting to the part where it starts telling me how to control my worry, and I'm really excited. I can't believe how calm I feel compared to this time last week. The best thing about it is that you don't even need to see a therapist to stop worrying. This book, as long as you really do the exercises, can help you decrease your worrying.

If you ever wish you could just shut your brain off for a second or that you could worry less, this book is definitely something to think about. It's cheap- about $11 and about 140 pages long. Here's a link, or just ask me if you can borrow it when I'm done.