My journey with IBS ( irritable bowel syndrome) and the rest of it

[russellnash]

I wrote a short list from one of the books that I linked to. Some of these things wont be a surprise to most people, but maybe it could be helpful. Is it breech of copyright? No idea.

The Diet Doctors try to cure illnesses through diet because they say there is no school medicine cure for many illnesses.

Not recommended for people with IBS are:

Wheat products e.g. bread and similar products based on wheat
Chips and other fried potatoes
Artificial sweeteners
Fructose, Glucose, Honey
Ice cream
Milk Chocolate
Apple, apricot, pear, cherries, mango, plum
Cashew nuts, Macadamia nuts, Pistachio nuts.
Beans, Peas, Onions.
Tea, coffee, hot chocolate, alcohol, soft drinks.
Fried fish, battered or with breadcrumbs.
Fatty meat
Ketchup, garlic, chilli, curry.
Boiled eggs.
High lactose milk and cheese.

In other words, a typical western diet is likely to be problematic.

[rubber_jonnie]

Just drink 500ml of regular milk. If you end up with severe stomach pains a few hours later than then you know ;)

I can do that no problem, but if I have real milk continuously over a few days then my sinuses play up. Pretty sure I don't have IBS, but confident I'm lactose intolerant.

My girlfriend's mother said exactly the same. But it does not any real difference to me :shrug:

Maybe it's omething else other than lactose that's the problem then?

When I first starting having the soy bloggers they had a really nasty chemical type of "tang". I kept on eating them ( did not really have any alternative) but after a short while I cannot seem to taste that tang any more and actually quite like them now.

Try the Asda basics one, unsweetened. Really nice to drink and also in hot drinks.

I rarely drink any pop. Tend to more in the summer when it's hot though.

But thinking back like 20 years ago now. When it was really hot in my old workshop I used to grab a can of Coke out of the vending machine because it had been chilled. Only I could never drink more than one a week because it would give me stomach upset. I thought it was really just down to the carbonated aspect but now I think about it maybe it was caffeine.. I could have been intolerant to it for a long time and just never knew it.

I have cut down a lot on fizzy drinks since we got a Sodastream. When you have to make it yourself it slows down consumption!!! Plus I drink more plain carbonated water now as well. Caffeine could be your problem for sure.

I'm going to try a larger dose of aspartame with some sports drinks I got a few weeks ago, next week. I think the problem is with all these chemical concoctions, while they have been "proven safe" what about all the other chemical concoctions and everything else in our foods we eat, in the stuff we drink, have showers in chemicals, do the washing up in chemicals, wash the car in chemicals. I really would like to know if any research has been done for all these chemicals bombard in our bodies for over 30 years what effect all that has.

I'm sure they've done the research, but they keep it to themselves in case it affects sales!!! I started on Huel a couple of years back (The drink version), and it was OK (They have more variety now) but bland. Once I tried the flavour sachets that came with it, it made me pretty ill!!

Indeed, I am still puzzling over when things say "flavouring" on boxes. It does not seem to really specify what it actually is a lot of the time. I did email Aldi a while back asking them to clarify what flavouring means. But as usual questions are met with silence. Similar when I emailed Arla because some of their milk has a pink tint to it and wanted to know why and report it. Just end up getting nowhere as usual. So I just stopped buying it and bought it from Aldi instead.

As a side note. I have been drinking the decaffeinated tea the past few days. A side note that is it seems it is decaffeinated with.. you guessed it, chemicals. I seem to have been okay with it. But I have ended up with a bit of upset past couple of days but I drank a full carton of pineapple juice an tube of Aldi crisps over the weekend as well. Which I do not generally do. So waiting for everything to settle down and I shall just try the tea on its own again next week. I have read that capacity type of things can upset people with OAB issues. So I'm basically pinning my theory on drinking a whole carton of that over the weekend. My symptoms were not anywhere near as bad as when I drank a cup of normal tea though. So seems I have a little bit more research left to do yet :roll:

Let us know how you get on, and for what it's worth I do think modern foods are poisoning us to a degree, it was better when we all got fresh back in the day and used it rather than storing it.

[exxos]

I can do that no problem, but if I have real milk continuously over a few days then my sinuses play up. Pretty sure I don't have IBS, but confident I'm lactose intolerant.

Things like milk and sugar tend to "gum up" the sinuses. But that is not lactose intolerance.

I have cut down a lot on fizzy drinks since we got a Sodastream. When you have to make it yourself it slows down consumption!!! Plus I drink more plain carbonated water now as well.

Girlfriends dad as a catheter bag because his bladder is "dead". He has been out of hospital and had the nurse out to unblock it pretty much daily for the past couple of years. They banned him from drinking Pepsi Max (or any pop for that matter) now it does not get any blockages in the pipes or anything now. So I think fizzy drinks and caffeine really not good for you in many ways.

Caffeine could be your problem for sure.

Yesterday I was making frequent trips to the loo again. That was after drinking a can of Pepsi Max the day before. Today I have not had any problems at all.

I'm going to start drinking the decaffeinated tea over the weekend to see what happens. But according to "the Internet" even decaffeinated tea can still cause upset.

I'm sure they've done the research, but they keep it to themselves in case it affects sales!!! I started on Huel a couple of years back (The drink version), and it was OK (They have more variety now) but bland. Once I tried the flavour sachets that came with it, it made me pretty ill!!

The problem with all this research is it is probably "Totally safe for 80% of people". I guess it's like anything though really. People can literally die from eating a peanut for example. Which reminds me I think peanuts may upset me a little bit but need to look into that again at some point.

Let us know how you get on, and for what it's worth I do think modern foods are poisoning us to a degree, it was better when we all got fresh back in the day and used it rather than storing it.

Yep. I was watching some program a few months ago where they was importing fresh fruit like bananas or something. They picked them when they are green. Then artificially ripened them up with electric lights etc.

Myself and a lot of other people pretty much gave up buying fresh fruit because after a couple of days it had all gone off anyway and it was just been chucked out all the time.

[exxos]

While my IBS is under control these days. I thought I would document better my sinus issues here rather than starting a new blog. This blog wasn't just for IBS anyway. It's a bit of a epic like everything tends to me.

When I was at school I suffered with hayfever really bad. I would get really bad nosebleeds pretty much daily. I was on all sorts of pills and potions and it was under control in the end. More in my teens and later life I didn't seem to suffer anywhere near as bad.

Around when I was 20 and in my first job full-time instarted with chronic Catarrh. I was clearing my throat all the time and this went on for years. When we was all made redundant, my problems pretty much went away. I think my old job was just a dusty environment which mixed in with all sorts of fumes...

At some point a few years back my catarrh started getting worse again. It's why I purchased a HEPA air filter for my room to remove dust and pollen etc. Though it doesn't seem to have any effect.

I've been taking all sorts of hayfever tablets and they only seem to help with my itchy eyes. Even mucas cough medicines don't really seem to help.

It's a problem sleeping again. As I can't lie down for more than 2 hours as I wake up chokeing . If it sit myself up, I wake up with backache anyway which is worse than dealing with chocking.

On the NHS site https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/catarrh/ it mentions crackling in ears. I get this in my right ear. But only for particular sounds. Odd things like the sound of a sink filling up with water really hurts. And yet I can listen to loud music without much problem.

Over the past few months it's got very bad. I've probably mentioned it before. All around my eyes start to feel sort, back of my nose / sinuses feel sore and blocked. But then I get pressure headaches which are comparable to migraines. I feel like my head is going to explode, I can't breath and my vision starts flicking.

In th past menthol crystals which are dissolved in hot water has been one of the main things which seems to have helped the most. However, more recently it seems to have less and less effect.

So over the past 4 months the only thing which seems to have helped is the nose spray which seems to breath better. That works really well. However, seemingly you are only supposed to use it for a few days and I have been using it for several months now :roll:

I have also been using for the past couple of years saying saline nasal rinse which is extremely unpleasant to say the least. This does seem to marginally help but nothing dramatic.

I have done a lot of reading and while some sites say it could be an infection , there does not seem to be any solution as it says antibiotics don't even help with this issue and the only thing does is the nose rinse stuff. I have started doing double doses of the rinse. Any other symptoms like I should be getting with a infection like burning or high temperature etc

Relating back to IBS, it is possible that is a food allergy which is causing it. What do you even join all the IBS trials I don't recall any particular food being a trigger.

Environmental laws seems logical cause but whether I'm in my own room or my girlfriend's flat, it does not seem to be any difference.

Only thing I did find was fabric conditioner seems to seriously irritate my nose. It's stuffed up my nose really bad so my sheets and clothes are mostly washed in natural cleaning solutions these days which has solve that problem at least. I am sensitive to things like perfumes because I could not use things like bubble bath in my younger years because it would seriously make me itch. Indeed I have to be careful what shower stuff I use as well. That is another epic because they seem to change the ingredients from one week to the next :roll:

Annoyingly to nose spray which is the only thing which helps vanished off all the local shops. I managed to find a box of 24 on evilbay. So grabbed that so I'm good for likely a year now.

The only other thing I thought which could possibly help is the humidity of the air. Of course during lockdown I was inside a lot of the time so I wonder if my problems started around that time. Needles say on the NHS site that dry air can cause your sinuses to dry out and crack causing irritation which increases mucus as a reaction by the body.

Some likely going to buy a small humidifier unit and leave that running in my room to see if that helps. At this point I'm really out of ideas now.

Granted the last resort who's going to the doctors , but considering every single time I go is totally pointless, and pretty much all sites don't really seem to have any information on what causes it, or solutions other than what I have already tried , I don't really see it is going to help anyway. I could go and see a ENT specialist but largely they would start me off with saline rinse and drag that on for months at a premium price as well.

I probably forgotten to document half of what is going and being tried but at least this is all off the top of my head.

I do half recall reading articles that people have had to go live by the ocean for medical related reasons but I don't really remember those articles now. The option is the humidifier machine at this point unless any one has any other suggestions..

[Maeke]

Well ibs is pretty bad, i have been living with it for YEARS, so be strong.

[exxos]

Been running the humidifier for the past few days. Oddly it does seem to be actually helping a fair bit so far.

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The fan is a little noisy :roll:

In case anyone never wonders what is inside one of the things.... :lol:

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The problem is nothing is actually holding the fan in place so it vibrates against the case :roll: even though it says it is a DC brushless fan I think the ball bearings are causing a bit of a row and being amplified by the plastic case.

Not sure if Noctua make quieter ones in that style ? Or any manufacturer for that matter :shrug:

[exxos]

I think I'm maybe making progress with my sinus issues finally after years.. Hopefully I won't jinx it now..

To recap, I have always had hayfever and its pretty much my only allergy. I suffered extremely bad at school with it all. It did not seem to be much of the issue later in life though. But indeed during my old job, 20 odd years ago now, it was a rather dusty environment which always had me coughing or clearing my throat. Coincidentally when we all got made redundant those problems pretty much vanished overnight. However years later somewhere around 2018 I started to get really bad sinus problems again for no reason.

So I pretty much continuously have my HEPA filter running in my bedroom, which is where I hang out most days. I'm still running my humidifier, though this past week I have upped it to 70, from 65. I think this does help. They generally the humidity my room is normally around 60-65 anyway.

I have been taking done flu tablets (phenylephrine) at night time for the decongestion properties. I have also been taking guaifenesin liquid medicine. While I have gone through bottles of the stuff I never got the impression any of it really helped. Anything never seem to really help is the nasal rinse and menthol crystals. But really the nasal spray (oxymetazoline) is the only thing which has been alarming me to basically live for the past few years.

I have been using natural laundry detergent for my bedclothes. Basically because the scent of the stuff just made it hard to breathe. I could literally not going to bed without suffocating. The effect is even worse when the's come out of the washing machine and hung up in the conservatory. I just cannot go in there without huge ventilation.

So pretty much when I go to bed, I have to dose myself up with stuff and the spray. By progressively get more stuffy as the night goes on and generally wake up choking and with a migraine level headache and the backs of my eyes are itchy and I cannot focus at all because I feel like my head is going to explode! Wake up around 8am, spray, mid-day, spray,3pm spray. Basically I have to use the spray every few hours. It is pretty much religious that by 3pm I'm just stuffed up and end up using the spray. Not supposed to use it for more than a week, I have been using it like two years now!

I have tried multiple times in not using the spray. Use it at night time only. By dinnertime I'm really starting to feel it. Then by mid-afternoon starting to get into the point of not being tolerable. Then generally early evening I just have to cave in and use the spray before my head explodes. I've pretty much been going around in circles with all this for the past few years now.

However, Friday night the thought popped into my head. Because they keep changing shower gel ingredients, and indeed shampoo ingredients which is why I finally gave up unused natural shampoo because I was sick of my head itching, I found that moisturising shower gel seem to agree with me without making my skin feel really dry afterwards. However the past couple of bottles ironically, even though have moisturising agents in them, leaving my skin feeling really dry. So end up using moisturising cream on my hands and feet because I feel like they are going to burst into flames.

Now when having a shower steamy air of course helps open up the sinuses and it sure clears a lot of grunge out! However it is always been the case that a few hours later, as pretty much normal, I end up using the spray because I cannot breathe and I am choking to death again. However I now believe the hot steamy air isn't loosening the grunge in my sinuses, I believe the fumes of the shower gel is actually aggravating my sinuses causing more gunge. This would seem to fit as it generally seems worse after I have had a shower.

I was also making correlation that when I am at my girlfriends my sinuses always seem worse. While she of course has a cat, and I could may well have some slight cat allergies, I don't believe it to be anything significant. I was just trying to make some sort of correlation as to why I can be at home and be "reasonable" and then be much worse at my girlfriends flat. If you take the cat out of the equation, I could not really think of anything else which would be different between the two premises. So I started thinking of what I was doing the day before, or literally what I was doing the night before going to my girlfriends...

So considering the smell of laundry detergent and me been sensitive to shower gel and perfumes and god knows what else. I then made the realisation that what if the "fumes" off the shower gel itself is aggravating my sinuses with the steamy air. While I was always assuming that the steamy air was unblocking my sinuses, and while that is likely true, the "unblocking" wasn't actually happening, it was my sinuses making more mucus .

So on Friday night I had a shower before going to my girlfriends Saturday morning, but I used the natural shampoo as I did not have any natural shower gel (yet). All day Saturday there did not seem to be any difference. Though Sunday afternoon I did feel my sinuses starting to bung up as normal.. But after some funny clicking sounds that I could breathe again.. But there was only short lived for about 10 minutes and I started to bung up again.. This sort of happened for a couple of hours until ultimately I gave up and had to resort to the spray again. But that was unusual because once my sinuses start to block up it just progressively gets worse and worse. So out of the blue sort of going better marginally was rather interesting.

So I have just come out of the shower and again use the natural shampoo. I am not coughing my guts up like I have been previously. My sinuses don't really feel any better or any worse. Which is again unusual. But the thing is, I have religiously been taking the spray at like midday and 3pm, and today is Tuesday and I have not had to take any spray at 3pm. In fact the last time was midday. There would be absolutely no way I could ordinarily make it to 9pm (time now) before. Even by 3pm I would be struggling enough that I would have to resort to the spray. A few hours later would be mortal torment. But currently I can still breathe reasonably well.

My sinuses are still feeling painful and it is difficult for voice recognition to get my words correctly because I am sounding bunged up still. But overall this has been incredibly interesting and a massive accomplishment! I really hope over the next few days or even weeks that things will continue to improve. Indeed I am rather excited because I actually have a glimmer of hope rather than things progressively getting worse as the months go on. Things actually seem to be improving for the first time in years!

I don't know how long my sinuses will actually take to heal up as they are basically been subjected to years of chemical abuse. It could be several weeks or even several months. But as long as I'm heading in the right direction.. Then at least that is something. Hopefully I won't jinx it but considering how "well" I have been today, I am really shocked. Whether this will ultimately be the "cure" I don't know. But even a 50% improvement is still considerable. So I will take that any day.

So of course as before, I am posting this information in case it is helpful to anyone else on the Internet reading about such problems. I think there is pretty much no way I will be going back to any general shower gel or shampoos now. It is one thing to be sensitive to things "on skin". But I never really thought about inside my nose and sinuses where I'm also breathing in all that stuff.

[IngoQ]

But really the nasal spray (oxymetazoline) is the only thing which has been alarming me to basically live for the past few years.

Oxymetazoline is known to cause swelling of the mucous membrane when overused (typically longer than 7 days). I have some experience with this in the family. Ironically it causes the exact same symptoms that it is meant to counteract.

Maybe this is some part of your problem.

[exxos]

Oxymetazoline is known to cause swelling of the mucous membrane when overused (typically longer than 7 days). I have some experience with this in the family. Ironically it causes the exact same symptoms that it is meant to counteract.

Maybe this is some part of your problem.

Possibly yes, but I had blocked sinuses for a while and only the spray helped. So while it may well be aggravating , i can't live without it now. I am trying to use it little as possible though.

[rubber_jonnie]

Oxymetazoline is known to cause swelling of the mucous membrane when overused (typically longer than 7 days). I have some experience with this in the family. Ironically it causes the exact same symptoms that it is meant to counteract.

Maybe this is some part of your problem.

Possibly yes, but I had blocked sinuses for a while and only the spray helped. So while it may well be aggravating , i can't live without it now. I am trying to use it little as possible though.

I have had terrible problems with my sinuses most of y life, to the extent that I had my nasal cavities 'bored out' some time ago, probably something about 30+ years ago. Didn't really work and I suffer sinusitis daily and find that citirazine works best for me, though I have to be careful when I take it as it can cause drowsiness. I'm trying to take it before bed and when I do I do sleep easier.

Our main issue is that where we live is still effectively a building site, and probably will be for another couple of years. Though the place they are building is quite a way from our house now, there is still a mass of dust in the air and that gives me a lot of trouble.

Flushing my nose out with Sterimar Breathe Easy (A saltwater solution) does help, and sometimes I use Beconase, which is Beclometasone Dipropionate, is also helpful.