Hello everyone. Advice needed please

[robinh]

Hello everyone. After several years of problems I have been to my GP and been diagnosed with I.B.S.

I have been prescribed Mebeverine which actually seems to help. There is a great deal of information on the internet and it's hard to sort out what's useful. Can anyone point me in the direction of some good websites with diet suggestions? Finally, I have the diarrhoea related type of I.B.S. I love Weetabix and have eaten them every day for many years, should I avoid them?

Any tips or advice are much appreciated and I will of course try and be as helpful as I can myself to anyone.

Many Thanks

[Hidden]

Hi robinh,

One of the most successful food regimes for IBS-D seems to be the low-FODMAP diet, so following, is my standard response to anybody who wants to give it a go. Sorry it's a bit lengthy, but there's so much bad and outdated info out there on the web about it and, if you get it wrong, it won't work, so take a deep breath and read on:

The diet was (and is still being) developed at Monash University in Australia, so its website is the best place to start at monash.edu.au – just put FODMAP into the search box on its homepage and you'll get there. If you have an iPhone there’s an app you can download from there, which will also be available for android in September, and a booklet you can send for.

An American dietitian called Patsy Catsos has written an excellent book about FODMAPs called 'IBS - Free At Last' (available from Amazon) which follows the Australian model very closely and contains all the info you need to get going. She also has advice on which food additives to avoid which is really useful.

I didn't find the NHS guidelines for the diet either as strict or as good as Monash's so stuck with what Monash said along with Patsy's book which became my bible.

When you first read about FODMAPs, you'll wonder what on earth you're actually left with to eat, but you do get used to it. The diet isn't meant to be a life sentence; what it does is to cut out all the food groups which contain the most likely suspects, making it easier to work out what suits you and what doesn't. I found that there were several 'safe' FODMAP foods which weren't safe for me at all, but these were easily identifiable as my menu was so small.

Once you get a real improvement in your symptoms, you then start to reintroduce the different food groups back into your diet one at a time to see which affects you and in which way. After 8 months, I can now eat from all the food groups with very few problems and have identified all my triggers.

I was amazed when I got a result from FODMAPs within 4 days of starting it although it can take several weeks for other people, so don't give up if you don't have an immediate result.

Hope this helps.

Pagan

[robinh in reply to Hidden]

Thanks Pagan. I'll give it a go. Other than milk (which I love) most things I like seem to be ok. I'm glad to see tomatoes are ok as I love them

[emmaf]

Hi there,

If you want to find out what YOU are intolerant (since we are probably all intolerant to different foods) and want to avoid just trying things on an ad-hoc way, I would highly recommend the book by Dr Gail Dardlington and Linda Gamlin called 'Diet and Arthritis.' In it, she describes a step by step method finding out what foods you are intolerance to. Takes up to 3 months but worth it. Firstly, you reduce your diet to about 6 foods for about a week to ten days and then you introduce foods individually on a daily basis. Worth a read at least as she gives her opinion on the different diets out there. Helped me a lot this book. all the best Emma

[robinh]

Thanks very much Emma. I'll get a copy of the book and give it a go.