IBS and Me

Since this is the first post I thought all of you would like to know a little bit about my story and how I came to be where I am today. I am 21 and have suffered with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) for a little more than 2 years now. I was diagnosed with IBS late August of 2006 after I started having strange stomach aches and cramping that was not from PMS. I believe that my symptoms actually were triggered much earlier than that and it was just a build up to my pain threshold.
In July of 2004 I traveled to the Girl Scout World Center in Cuernavaca, Mexico called Our Cabaña. On the return trip me and my travel mates had a long lay-over at Chicago International Airport so, we decided to get some ice cream at a McDonalds in the terminal. All of us that had ice cream had some gastrointestinal upsets with Katie* being the worst as she had the most of the ice cream. Me and another girl, Jane*, both had some upset. Since Jane ate the least of the ice cream she had some minor diarrhea and I was in between Katie, who ended up having a colonoscopy one week after we returned and Jane who managed to get over it without visiting the doctor. I ended up getting a prescription for something the doctor called "cipro", he said that it would kill off bacteria in my digestive tract and that we would test and make sure that I didn't have a parasite since I was in Mexico. I had no parasite so, I took the prescription and quit having problems with constipation after a few days. However, after some time had passed I learned that I could no longer drink pop/soda because I would get horrible cramps and diarrhea. I thought whoop-dee-do who cares? Its better for my body to not drink it anyways.
My last year of high school there was nothing to speak of really, but near the end of my first year of college, April/May 2006 I started to have issues with stomach aches and heartburn, I attributed it to stress since it was a really difficult semester as such, I ignored the symptoms and tried to eat better (at college with on-campus food good luck!).
In June I left home to go to training to be a camp counselor for the summer, but when I was there I was always exhausted and realized that it was not for me and went home. About late June I began to wake up at night feeling these odd cramps and have a stomach ache I would sit up for an hour or so and drink a little water then I would feel better so I would go back to bed.
After about two weeks of this I had had enough and told my mom that I needed to go visit a doctor because the sleep interruptions would not be acceptable when I go back to the university. During my appointment I visited a little with the doctor and told him all of my symptoms. He prescribed Prevacid thinking that I may just be secreting too much acid and it was irritating my stomach and lower gastrointestinal tract. I took the Prevacid and it worked well for awhile, maybe because I wanted it to, but then the symptoms started to return slowly and then came back with a vengeance during that time of the month I felt like I was about ready to puke and was hot and just felt all around awful. My parents took me to urgent care on a Sunday in late July, there they gave me Dicyclomine to get me through until I had my other appointment scheduled for Wednesday of that week since I did not have appendicitis. At my appointment the doctor said that we could try different medication or else he can refer me to a Gastroenterologist. At this point I wanted to know if I really had something wrong with me so, I made the appointment with the Gastroenterologist and went a week later and we talked about doing an endoscopy and colonoscopy to see if there is anything structurally wrong or else since the symptoms come and go and I have an appetite he said that we could just try other drugs. I opted for the procedures because It would be August in a week and I had to go back to the university in a month. We scheduled the procedures for the next week, but when I was trying to do the preparation for the procedure (drinking fleets phosphosoda) I could not get past the taste. I managed to reschedule the procedures for the last week of August and was told to get Magnesium Citrate (tastes sooo much better and easier to get down). After the procedure the Gastroenterologist told me that there was nothing structurally abnormal and that they took some biopsies to test, all came back normal. He then told me that he was going to put me on Levsin, the generic is Hyocyamine. I have been on these drugs since August of 2006 and they continue to work as I continue to search for a way to not be dependent upon them.


*name has been changed to retain confidentiality