I've been keeping a food and symptom journal for at least 6 months now but I'm still struggling to find my triggers.
Whenever I think I've found something, another day I'll miraculously be able to handle it.
I get pains straight after eating bread so that's a bit more obvious. (I've been tested 3 times for coeliac so it's not that)
Any tips for how I can more easily spot my triggers when I don't have that immediate reaction?
Take a look at our blog about keeping a wellness diary How keeping a wellness diary can help your IBS. – theibsnetwork.org/blog/how-...
It isn’t just about food, there may be other factors that are linked to your symptoms that have nothing to do with food, ie stress, anxiety life style factors, work. Taking medications, may well not be the answer.
Taking medications and diet, lifestyle changes ect will help but once you have discovered your triggers, there may be something causing them that you are not aware of and then you can start to look at what works for you diet or medication and self-management.
A healthy diet isn’t always the solution some parts of that healthy diet may be a trigger food for you. Have a look at this factsheet here IBS (bda.uk.com) bda.uk.com/uploads/assets/5...
Have you downloaded our take control booklet? theibsnetwork.org/blog/down...
Thankyou I will definitely look into that! 
With regards to the journal, I have been tracking the level of pain I’m having, what i eat / drink, my bowel movements, exercise, and I also make notes on when I’m feeling particularly stressed or tired etc.
I just find it hard to look at it and make a connection. Like, do you always react to something that day or could it be something from a week ago? It’s all so confusing
The point you made about can you reacts to something a week ago. You may have meant food but I know my IBS is majority caused by stress/anxiety. I’ve been keeping a journal too and although some foods do trigger me, onions, lots of garlic etc, it is the stress moments that seem to have the biggest impact now. Symptoms may not kick in until a few days after a stressful time but my flare ups always seem to trace back to a stress point. I’m trying to tackle that now, get to the root cause of the imbalance there/relationships etc and I’m hoping that in time that will reduce my IBS.
Thankyou. I’m sure that stress if probably an issue for me too but I never realised it because my flares were never on the bad days. I hope you feel better soon
Interesting that you get pains straight after eating bread - I have the same but having my coeliac test redone as before the first one I was mostly avoiding gluten.
I have just started keeping a diary since I never had much luck with ad-hoc associations I'd noticed before, except for lactose. I had been in another country that coincidentally didn't really use dairy at all in their cooking and noticed that some of my symptoms (specifically the diarrhoea) did improve on a day-to-day basis but I still had flare-ups. My lactose intolerance test was positive and so now trying a lactose free diet while not avoiding gluten until my second coeliac test.
I was wondering if there is some kind of phone app for the diary? I hardly use pen and paper for anything any more...
No pen or writing?You may forget
I'm dyspraxic and have bendy fingers so it takes me ages to write things with a pen and the pressure hurts after not much time. Keyboards are easier for me (though I use swiftkey on my phone in two languages and the predictive text sometimes gets confused). Anyhow, I was thinking if there was already an app set up with all the main variables to collect it would save me reinventing the wheel... Also a phone app would be better than a spreadsheet because it could send reminders to fill it out and also be available when I'm out and about (albeit that's not much these days as I work from home).
I'v been using a spreadsheet with columns: day, what I do and how I feel, what I eat, how my night went i.e. what I took to get through it and the timings, also a day rating from 0 (total U/S) to 3 (close to fully functional). I should know something about pattern recognition but yes, it's still far from easy, but it is possible to see symptom trends. Seeing key words lining up with ratings helps a bit to see what food and meds work or not, and you can look back and say last time I eat so and so was fine or maybe not.
I understand. I have the same problem with my food journal, I write down everything religiously.
I go through times when no foods seem to bother me, but I do mainly stick to low Fodmaps (except for a few things which aren't low Fodmap but haven't bothered me all the way through this, such as gluten. I gave up gluten for 6 weeks once and it made no difference.)
So I can eat my usual foods with no problem. Then suddenly I have a flare up and can't relate it to the food at all. My choices are most often really conservative. I do have a nice list of vegetables that I can usually eat and which generally cause no issues. But a flare up makes you suspect every little thing!
I found it can't be the food, as once the flare is over I try it again and am fine.
The only times I think it really was the food was when I ate too many peanuts once. I found out a certain amount were low Fodmap, and tried that amount and was fine. And tomatoes upset me it seems.
But flare ups just seem to come to me out of the blue for no apparent reason. Not even stress involved.
Same with me, flare ups come out of the blue, when Im not even stressed or had trigger foods. Although sometimes it can be one rushed meal... I have to take time to eat slowly and chew thoroughly.
Yes, eating nicely, and slowly is always a good idea for digestion. But I ate like that as far back as I can remember. I was always the last to finish and made no apologies, as that's what my body needed to do. But IBS came, and flares still happen even eating like that for me. I hope that mindful eating will make a big difference to you.
Perhaps not celiac but sensitive to Gluten, also garlic and onions
I kept a detailed food diary for over a year and came to no conclusions. A dietician is helping me with the fodmap diet which has helped. I was also under a lot of stress at the time, and this condition is bound to cause anxiety. I am trying to reintroduce various foods with her help, but I'm scared to try anything different and why spoil a good thing. I tested positive for BAM (bile acid malabsorbtion) more common than you think among IBS sufferers. I can only eat 2 veg, iceberg lettice, tomato and 2 fruits. I was already used to gluten free and there are lots of dairy free alternatives out there. My blood tests are OK. So why introduce any more. Only eating out is a problem.
The difficult thing is to know how fast/slow your colon transit is. You may think that a certain food is causing problems but it depends how long it takes ti digest and get to the colon.
Is there any way to find out?
You could have a transit test to see if you have slow/fast transit. Proteins and diary usually take longer to digest than plant foods as there is no fibre in them. You could eat some sweetcorn and see how long it takes to appear in your poop. I don't really know how else you would tell, everybody's different
It will take a lot longer than 6 months. It's an everyday challenge. I stopped writing a journal 2 years ago. I've figured out what are definite no no's and what I can get away with occasionally. It works for me. Everyone is different but keep going you will get there
Tinkypete, here is a link about celiac disease and test methods used. Avoiding gluten can possibly nullify a test. Were your tests different methods?
beyondceliac.org/celiac-dis...
Thanks I’ll give it a read. The first test I had only reintroduced wheat for a few weeks. The second I had been eating it a few months
Tinkypete, your on again off again experience may be from inbalances of two critical items for proper function of your digestive system, thiamine and magnesium. Anti thiamine factors diminish thiamine. The stuttersence link offers a comprehensive list. However, to become bioactive thiamine needs adequate magnesium which is also subject to loss thru stress, loud noises, caffeine and more. Search on "krispin magnesium" for a continuation of "more". I hope this information encourages further research along this path for the answer you seek. Always consult your health care professional before using any supplement.
stuttersense.blogspot.com/2...
I tried the diary thing too, it didn't work for me. Then I tried the Few Foods approach, that helped me figure out a modest number of foods that were more digestible for me than others, but there didn't seem to be any diet that would completely relieve my symptoms. Eventually I managed to get rid of the IBS through non-dietary methods, and concluded that the whole food diary thing had been a pretty pointless exercise for me, the reason I couldn't identify triggers was because there weren't food triggers for me.
What I found most frustrating about the diary was that the instructions said reaction time could be anywhere from very quick to a couple of days, so it wasn't just a question of checking all the ingredients of the previous meal but every meal for the last couple of days. It's just too many variables to be an easy problem to solve.
What were your non dietary methods?
It's probably not relevant unless your IBS is caused by TMJD, as mine was, so I'll answer fairly briefly. I did two things - one is I tried taking Atrantil, which caused a small but noticeable improvement over the period I took it - around 6 weeks I think? and I can't rule out that that could have had knock-on effects resulting in a gradual improvement over the next year or so. The other thing I was doing during that year, which I think was more likely the cause of the improvement, was spending time lying down focusing my awareness on the areas of my body where there was discomfort, and learning to use my muscles to unwind my messed-up connective tissue and move it towards its correct configuration. It seems to be a long-term project, and there have been some health benefits like the IBS clearing up, but the jury is still out on the final result and I still have chronic fatigue and discomfort that's quite debilitating at the present time.
Is this actually IBS flare up?
how can I reduce my symptoms? 
what are common ibs food triggers?
Been using the Nerva app - great results!
