Hi! I'm new. Looking for help, advice and answers.

Hi. I am 31 years old. I live at home with parents and work two jobs with seniors and caregiving and working in retirement communities. I work in LA and Ventura counties. I'm a dancer in college and study ASL as well and hope to combine dance and ASL together to do Sign Dance and teach to deaf and hard of hearing and hearing people. For everyone to communicate as one. I have anxiety, bipolar type 1(no medication currently), paranoia, anorexic(afraid to eat in public and with people I don't know, its weird I know) chronic insomnia and IBS(all my life pretty much and its with constipation and the diharea). Came on this group looking for answers and for help and to see if theres anyone like me who GETS IT and UNDERSTANDS.

[Activity2004 Administrator]

Welcome to the group. Feel free to continue posting and commenting, asking questions, read and reply to the other member’s postings and comments, go through the Topics/Events/Polls sections for ideas and information on the topics you are interested in and of course, meet the other members of the group. Everyone is very helpful and friendly.😀

Have you talked with your doctor about going on a gluten free diet?

[Hidden in reply to Activity2004]

Hi. Nice to meet you. Thank you for not judging me. I feel welcomed. I tend to feel judged and criticized a lot lately or this year and last year..

No gluten free. They recommended FODMAP and BRAT. Heard of those? and to cut out dairy and sugar.

[grace111 in reply to Hidden]

were you criticised a lot as a child? I was and i did have funny ways of eating and drinking which my mother thought were weird. i would drink my drink on the left side of my lips then the middle then the right side as i didnt want to wear out my lips and i was always trying to keep the balance. i spilled a lot of my drinks doing this. i know its crazy but i was just a child. I still cant eat in front of people and feel comfortable. if i was in a relationship it took me many months to eat in front of my partner. i also associate eating with something else. i feel eating is a very personal thing. also teeth i have a thing about. it can be so upsetting and cause so much distress. seemingly there are many people with this disorder as there have been studies for people with social eating problems although i'v not gone on any of them. wishing you well. love grace xoxo

[Zest]

Hi Hidden

Welcome to the Healthy eating forum, and I hope you'll enjoy participating here.

Zest

[Cooper27 Administrator]

Hi Dancer,welcome to the forum

I wonder if you've ever been tested for coeliac disease? It's a reaction to gluten, and is something you should be tested for if you've had IBS for an extended period of time.

You're definitely not the only person who struggles to eat in front of others - it's really more common than you'd think, so no judgement here

[Penel]

Hi Dancer

The low FODMAP diet has some good research behind it (The Monash University) but the BRAT diet doesn’t have the same level of scientific scrutiny.

I’ve used the Low Fodmaps diet to sort out some digestive problems. It’s the kind of thing you do for a few months to find out which foods you are ok with and which foods to avoid or cut down. I bought myself a cookery book to help with meals but you can get recipes on line.

The combination of dance and ASL sounds like a wonderful thing to do. Good luck with sorting out your health problems.