IBS after Food Poisoning

[Yasai]

2 weeks ago I ended up getting food poisoning from what I believe was reheated chicken (it was a Deliveroo order from a place that I've eaten food from before).

I'm feeling a lot better now and am back at work but I noticed that my IBS has changed somewhat since I was ill in that it's reset my bowel in a way Macrogol has never done. Regular, once a day BMs, significantly less diarrhoea etc. The only downside is that I still have some stomach pain when going to the bathroom which I've rationalized as my body freaking out a bit at tolerating a properly portioned meal which is something I'll have to keep an eye on and manage.

The only thing I could tolerate without throwing up was yoghurt, so while I was ill I ate lots of yoghurt with gut friendly bacteria in it (purely coincidentally - it was the only type that didn't make me feel nauseous) and I started wondering afterwards if it helped at all. I haven't taken macrogol since before I got sick and I'm kind of happy with how my IBS is now, so for the meantime I don't really intend to start using it again.

Just wanted to ask here if anyone has any suggestions as to why my IBS has changed to what it's like now!

I also wanted to check if being overly cautious with food after something like food poisoning is normal - I panic at the thought of eating chocolate or anything sweet and anything like pizza, a phobia I didn't have before this. I would rather be hungry than eat any food I felt uncomfortable with or felt was going to make me sick again.

[Maureen1958]

No idea why your body changed but don't worry about it, just enjoy it and get on with your life and hope it doesn't come back.

The friendly bacteria may have reset something but I (personally) very much doubt it.

Regards being overly cautious with food after such problems is perfectly normal, we are human after all.

[Yasai in reply to Maureen1958]

I wasn't sure about the gut friendly yoghurts myself, if I remember correctly you usually wait a month to see any results from probiotics. I figured I would mention it in my post regardless!

In the end the change was very much temporary, and the IBS has come back a lot stronger than it was before I got sick. At the very least I got to enjoy a week of being symptom free.

I was overthinking my approach to food, purely because I had Anorexia in my teenage years and the reluctance to eat certain things was raising false alarms with restrictive eating patterns I had in my eating disorder. It's a relief that it's just normal human behaviour!

Thank you very much for replying 😁