I’ve had IBS for well over 30 years now and the last few years have been pretty good. Under control with diet and Laxido.
However, from September last year my anxiety disorder sky rocketed because of various really stressful events (too much to talk about here). I’m also in trauma counselling. I ended up with terrible ENT, throat and stomach pain. Got and endoscopy in April there and I have chronic, mild oesophagitis, bile reflux from the small bowel and mild gastritis. We had a long talk about my pain being way worse than the investigation and biopsies showed, because I’m so anxious all the freaking time. I was reassured however that nothing sinister was going on and set about healing my gastritis. Read that Manuka was brilliant for that. I’ve been having a spoonful of it in chamomile tea once or twice a day for three weeks. Last weekend I started having terrible abdominal pain and a flare up of a headache I’ve had for 10 years. Had a few nights of awful IBS since.
So I looked up Manuka for IBS and the general consensus is that it can make IBS much worse, thanks to its very high fructose (too high in FODMAP). The MGO (methylglyoxyal) is also an irritant to the intestine.
It can also cause headaches! I’m just so miserable about it and I feel really unwell. Has this happened to anyone else.
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weegmack
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Hi weegmack, I do remember giving Manuka honey a try about two/three years ago. Just had it in a sandwich for lunch. But I never bought a second jar, so I must have thought it was making me worse. It's so disappointing keep trying things with hope and then nothing working. I feel for you.
Thanks Maureen1958. It’s the only thing I can think of that’s made me worse - and it seems to be all over the internet that it’s often not ok for IBS. I’m so washed out trying to get this balance right between upper and lower GI! I can’t get an appointment with my GP till the 1st of July. X
Honestly I’m the same. I’m pretty sure a lot of my more recent issues are menopause related and my GP won’t hear of it. All she ever lands on is my anxiety disorder. I had to go privately to see a gastro as she refused to refer me on the NHS as “urgent”, even though I had basically stopped eating and was in loads of pain. And of course a normal referral just now is 12 months where I live. I’m so sick of my local surgery - I can’t find a GP who really wants to help me.
They don’t, do they? I’ve had to work on this myself for so many years. I’m 46 and my GP just laughed at me when I suggested perimenopause/menopause. Said I was too young. But my sister and my mother both had early menopause. And of course now it takes about 180 calls to get through to the surgery, I just don’t have the energy right now.
I’m on esomeprazole (Nexium) as omeprazole and lansoprazole gave me diarrhoea. I’ve been in esomeprazole for several years without problems and I have to stay on it to keep my stomach inflammation down and treat my oesophagitis. X
Many thanks for these! Interestingly, my therapist has been talking to me about the vagus nerve, homeostasis etc - it’s something I’m really interested in. I’ll struggle to get my GP to be interested in any of this though - but it’s maybe something I can bring up with my gastro. Xx
weegmack, study these forms of thiamine as each offers high absorption and two offer the ability to pass through the blood/brain barrier. Thiamine is critical for brain function as this link discusses. Magnesium is essential to change B1 into it's active form but pain and stress can cause magnesium loss leading to a possible deficiency.
Eivissa, magnesium glycinate is a gentle form offering good absorption. This link helps identify magnesium forms and also makes you aware of causes of magnesium loss plus calculating your magnesium requirement. It also raises awareness of the importance of magnesium too. Boron helps increase magnesium absorption. Search on "nothing boring about boron" for it's benefits. Always consult with your health care provider before using any supplement.
I tried it too! Made me have an awful flare almost immediately. I was so disappointed because there are a lot of things out there saying it’s so great. 🙄
I’m really sorry it happened to you too 😞. But I’m also relieved that it’s not just me. A lot of people just blame everything on my anxiety disorder, but I knew deep down this honey was making me feel worse!
I tried it as told good for ibs and bloating - well after three days of chronic stomach pain, gas, wind I gave it up and felt tons better - a no no for me - the people posting good results on the internet does make me wonder - never again will I use it - never been crippled so much with pain
It was all those positive things online that made me try it. But I was looking at it from an upper GI point of view - I had no idea how bad it was for lower GI. I just feel terrible and I hope I recover soon.
Of all the FODMAPs, Fructose gives me the worst symptoms; bloating, abdominal pain, muscle pain and raging headache. Honey is packed with it and I now avoid all fructose containing foods.
I’m prone to headaches, but I’ve had a throbbing, awful headache for 18 days solid. What I don’t understand, is that I was taking a teaspoon of the honey in chamomile tea for about 2 weeks before this happened to me. I was up with diarrhoea until 1am this morning - after a few days of severe abdominal pain. Feel just awful this morning and I’m terrified to eat anything. X
FODMAPs can cause problems days after you have eaten them because they build up in the colon and cause gas and inflammation. Undigested FODMAPs can also draw water into the colon causing diarrhea.
Ah ok - that makes sense, thank you. I’ve had IBS for 34 years and have been avoiding foods that are on FODMAP unwittingly! I didn’t know about FODMAP until about 10 years ago and realised I was already pretty much following it. I have never particularly liked honey but I was so desperate to heal my gastritis, I tried the Manuka………without checking FODMAP 🙄
Yes, I tried it years ago and it made my IBS so much worse. I have stomach erosion and Duodenitis and was on Omeprazole. It gave me horrendous stomach cramps, worse than Labour pains. As soon as I stopped it my IBS calmed down imediately. Sometimes natural remedies like Manuka honey can be bad and so can medications. However, a few years ago I was put on a high dose of steroids for another condition for a few months and that really did improve my IBS.
Honey of any kind is a 'double whammy' for me - the high fodmap content upsets my gut and the sugar really aggravates my anxiety. I've been following a low fodmap diet for some time now but not been able to reintroduce very much and I've also made it virtually sugar free. No added sugar has reduced my anxiety, and overthinking things, a lot. I can feel it start up again as soon as I have too much refined carb or even the smallest bit of added sugar. Most I can do is a wee bit of ketchup or a handful of berries. Chocolate sends me straight back to disaster fantasies and paralyzing fear of bl**dy everything!
I’ve been taking the Manuka for just over two weeks - a teaspoon in chamomile tea. I had noticed I was more anxious than normal, terrible headache and just exhausted. But the bowel didn’t start to respond till about 6days ago. Went from severe abdominal pain with increasing urgency to some sort of nuclear fall-out last night. I feel absolutely awful today. Do you think it’s normal for it to have taken that amount of time to affect my gut?
It ferments in the gut so it probably would take a while before it caused the reaction - the anxiety would have been faster as the high blood sugar affects your brain. I'm not an expert - this is my understanding from what various health professionals have told me over the years - and from my own reading/research.
That makes sense to me! And I had a spell of terrible anxiety attacks on Sunday there that just left me feeling like a zombie. Here’s hoping I start to feel better. The headache is still awful and I’m absolutely not hungry today 😬. Very weepy too xx
If you can Try the official monash fodmap app rather than Google .. for some ingredients it shows the amount is important. monashfodmap.com/
Just want to thank you weegmack for posting. I’m on FODMAP so avoid honey and know it upsets my gut. Sorry your GP isn’t able to listen. Sounds like your anxiety is due to some terrible past experiences- I do think the disorder word is unhelpful. It’s natural to be anxious when terrible things have happened, especially in childhood which affects the brain. I found the articles ( just skimmed through and saved for proper reading later) posted Pta8 interesting and go with with info. I’ve read. I found reading GUT by Gialias Enders an interesting read too. I had a lot of childhood trauma following on from ‘neglect’. Sadly doctors often have little knowledge understanding of how much this affects physical health and are helpless other than medications it seems to me. It seems so easy to get labelled and these can be unhelpful in my experience. I found menopause very difficult too, thank fully over that. Do have a lot of bereavements loss at moment making life especially sad with current situation on top. I have two siblings with gut disorders along with other chronic life limiting illness. It’s tough. I hope you start to feel better soon and can get out and enjoy a wee bit of sunshine and early summer nature as I know that helps me when so very low as well as some understanding. Take good care of you please.
I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through and are going through just now. I was also a victim of childhood neglect, but I didn’t realise until recently how much that has affected me. I’ve been having therapy for a few months and it’s been like peeling an onion - we recently got to the core and it’s been exhausting and terribly sad. I’ve definitely been labelled by my local surgery - I feel like I have nowhere to turn to just now. And I do think I’m having menopause symptoms, but my GP refuses to prescribe me anything,
I ended up having to go privately and I’m getting an abdominal ultrasound to check my gallbladder and pancreas - I’m so worried that’s what’s caused this awful flare-up. But it could also be the honey. I’m very low this morning and I just want to give up 😞
When I joined the IBS Network I was sent a month’s supply of Zenflore and I cannot recommend it highly enough because it really settles IBS symptoms AND helps with stress and anxiety. You can read about it here:
Also, if you’re looking to sort past trauma it’s worth looking at the work of Dr Gabor Mate - he has loads of videos on YouTube and has written several books, one of which is “When the body says no” which you can get on Amazon etc
Thanks so much - I’ll check this out. I have a really good therapist who is working through my trauma and is a great believer in the gut/brain connection. Xx
He/she sounds really good and modern in their approach. They’re also probably aware of Gabor Mate’s work…he’s a genius and very ahead of the curve. Good luck, sounds like you’re in good hands 💐
Manuka honey is good for healing in general but you are so right the sugar feeds any nasty bacteria and can make things worse. Camomile tea can help relieve nerve pain and calm your mind but it can also slow down the gut so again also cause ibs flares.
If you are going to take manuka honey then you need to take it on its own, in other words not in a hot drink as the heat cancels out the benefits.
The best thing for gastritis is a cup a decaffeinated green tea (decaffeinated) as this helps heal the stomach and the gut and balance out the biome good and bad bacteria.
Dont however drink it too often as too much can cause your ibs to play up.
I recommend 2 or 3 cups a week. Yes you read that right 2 or 3 cups a week.
Also try to only eat cooked fruit and vegetables rather than raw and try to avoid milk as much as possible no no bowls of cereals or too many cups of tea or coffee and especially no milk or dairy or even bars of chocolate except high cocoa dark chocolate after say 8pm or before 11am as this gives your gut a chance to heal and recover.
Ibs/fibromyalgia, pain and anxiety go hand in hand so its like a vicious circle but dont despair you can and will recover from this but it just takes a lot of willpower.
Once you dent into one or more areas like anxiety or gut healing it breaks the cycle and other areas start falling into place.
I know its hard but when you feel the pain you really need to try and distract yourself from it. Do something that you really dont feel like doing because you just want to lie down instead. Something like go and clean the shed out or wash the car and each time you feel the pain just say to yourself well I had this hours ago or yesterday or all day everyday for the last 3 weeks and I'm still here so I have managed with it and can do it again.
But the pain is also there because things are not right in the gut so keep off the tea or coffee even decaffeinated tea or coffee because they play havoc with ibs and gastritis and expecially citrus fruits.
I know its hard in this weather but your gut will thank you if you just drink water all day long and if you feel like a hot drink I'm afraid its just hot water for a while.
The same goes with alcohol, dont have any!! Once your ibs has calmed right down as well as your anxiety and gastritis then you can get back to the weak cups of tea and an occasional drink.
Its all on you but if your not prepared to cut out these irritants then you're going to suffer I'm afraid until you decide to try.
Sorry to be so brutal but I am only being honest believe me I've been there.
Finally gut directed hypnotherapy is absolutely fantastic. It doesnt work over night but over a few months it can be so effective it can feel like you're cured of ibs.
Search for Professor Peter Whorewell in Manchester hospitals and maybe buy his book. He also has a few articles online in newspapers like the daily mail or Mirror as well as you tube videos.
If you like in the uk consider asking for a referral from your GP as he is the Head of the only bowel research and hypnotherapy unit available on the NHS in the UK. He is based in Manchester but his clinical hypnotherapists team also do hypnotherapy over Skype as as you can appreciate some people can barely leave their homes without needing the toilet or suffer the most horrendous anxiety or things like agoraphobia. The clinical hypnotherapists try to also deal with the anxiety etc leading up to the gut directed hypnotherapy and the treatment course lasts for twelve weeks that's one hour a week for twelve weeks and they give you recordings to use as many times as possible for the days in between your one hour sessions.
It doesnt end there either as after you have had a follow up appointment with the professor you are then given a nurse practitioner who specialises in gut health who will give you prescriptions to help you with any gut problems that you are still having problems with.
The professor is the only consultant I have ever known to spend as much time with on your consultation with as you want. My first consultation went on for one and a half hours (just a consultation not treatment or hypnotherapy) explaining my problems to him for him to decide if it was ibs or something else or both. When I apologised for taking so much of his time and seen the other patients waiting in the waiting area to see him he told me that in my appointment letter it states expect me to be in the hospital for anything around four hours. The professor told me whats the point of me seeing a patient and them not asking every question they can think of without feeling rushed and then going home worried they had not asked something. Generally new patients take longer whereas existing patients may only need 15 minutes.
I dont know if the professor is seeing patients at the moment with this pandemic and maybe he now has a huge backlog but its worth asking for the referral anyway as maybe they can still do it by video chat.
I was told there was an 8 month wait but I seen the professor about 3 weeks after my referral and then was fitted in with one of his clinical hypnotherapists about 6 weeks later and I actually had 13x1 hour hypnotherapy sessions and then had another 3x1 hour sessions extra after 6 months of finishing the first 13 weeks and that was just for help with anxiety as my ibs had almost disappeared.
Good luck I really do hope you're feeling much better soon as I understand what you're going through but there really is hope and light at the end of the tunnel and despite the cloudy days its never cloudy all the time but the blue skies are always there behind them just waiting to shine through
Thanks so much for all this. So I’ve had IBS for most of my life and upper GI for the past 3 years really. I’ve already cut out the following:
Caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, red meat, citrus fruit, tomato and tomato based products, wheat, lactose (I’m not cutting out dairy because I don’t want to encourage osteoporosis as I get older and I’ve been tested for that allergy and was negative), spicy food, fried food, processed foods, takeaway, any type of juice, carbonated anything. I also follow a strict low sat fats diet. I only drink water. I keep my diet as alkaline as possible. Green tea makes me vomit instantly, so I don’t drink that. So, believe me, I have worked my whole life to keep on top of my diet and I am very serious about what I do and do not eat.
Unfortunately, my life has been difficult and I have suffered several traumas that have made it difficult to maintain a good brain/gut connection. I’m working on it with a really wonderful therapist. Sadly, I’m still living with one of those traumas as it is very recent.
I’m in Scotland, but the hypnotherapy sounds good. I’m due to see my GP on July 1st, so I will certainly ask her. Many thanks! Xx
Wow you really are doing a lot and also doing without a lot.
I know what you are saying about osteoporosis and if you say you have checked for dairy intolerance etc then fair enough but bear in mind your gut does suffer from dairy no matter what but by avoiding dairy for a good 12 to 14 hours from about 8pm will give your gut a chance to heal and even more so if you cut it altogether for a few weeks.
Taking vitamin D supplements is excellent for dairy withdrawal and at the moment everyone should be taking vit D supplements as its extra protection against covid illness or helps your immune system if you did get covid to stop serious illness although now we have the vaccine as long as we don't get mutant strains.
Dont forget we can get calcium and vitamin D for bones from lots of other vegetables and not just dairy. Spinach chard pakchoy etc are all great for calcium and therefore to ward off osteoporosis.
One thing I meant to mention earlier is about gastritis and esophagitis and the effect the medicines used to treat them have on the body.
Omeprazole lansoprazole pantoprazole are all called proton pump inhibitors (ppi's) and ranitidine (now banned for cancer risks) and famotidine cemetidine etc are called H2 blockers. They all work by reducing or blocking acid in the gut but they all have some quite nasty side effects when taken often including joint fractures liver damage hair loss and IBS because you are playing with the gut biome and altering the good and bad bacteria. If you haven't got enough acid in your gut then you won't be able to process foods properly and get the vitamins and nutrients you need from your food or break down and absorb any medications you need properly. You can also end up with helicobacter Pylori infection which gnaws away at your stomach lining causing nasty gastritis and possibly ulcers and can lead to cancer. While treatment for helicobacter pylori is actually a ppi like omeprazole along with two different antibiotics this is because reducing acid allows the helicobacter pylori likes a low acid environment to come out of deep in the stomach lining and multiply but when it does the antibiotics attack it. If there is no antibiotics then it multiples and irritates the stomach even more and any acid will make the irritation worse and the helicobacter Pylori will then destroy the stomach lining causing erosive gastritis.
About the anxiety and traumas you have had or are going through then please also know this your gut is like a second brain. It can cause all kinds of physical and mental problems so its not always the brain that causes problems. Ever heard of the saying I have a gut feeling about this or wonder why when people get nervous they can lose control of the bowels or bladder. A child that experiences fear could wet themselves or an adult going through emotional distress could have stomach pains and never ending diarrhea.
A Swedish scientist used to feed his three dogs but he had trained them to come for their dinner when he rang a bell. The dogs would come running and sit patiently in front of their bowls but they were not allowed to eat until the bell rang again.
The dogs used to sit there drooling waiting for the bell to ring but one day the scientist had not put the food in their bowls and had rang the bell. The dogs came and sat in front of their empty bowls and drooled and the scientist realised that the dogs didn't know they were drooling and that it was an automatic reaction. A dogs gut produces drool to help digest food by coating the food.
So the scientist realised that by ringing the bell it told the guts of the dogs to produce drool because food was available and he realised at that point that you could train the gut to act the way you want it to so gut directed hypnotherapy could actually work in the same way as hypnotherapy works on the brain
Yes, I am going through a particularly hard time just now and have had to give up a lot!
I’m married to a microbiologist so you really don’t need to tell me all that about PPI usage. I’m well aware what it can do to your gut biome, but I would rather take them in sensible doses than develop erosive conditions.
I’m afraid to tell you also, that H Pylori exists in everyone’s stomach and it’s an imbalance in there that causes the overgrowth of it. The imbalance can be caused by many variables: your diet, stress, certain medications, trauma, local water supply. I know several people who developed H Pylori having never even chewed a Rennie, let alone taken a PPI or H2. And it’s an H2 antagonist, not an H2 blocker. It’s the same way that we all have C-Diff. There is no medical evidence that PPIs cause any damage to your liver. My stepdad, who passed away a few years ago at the age of 83, took PPIs twice a day for at least 20 years and it did not damage his gut biome at all. He unfortunately died of vascular dementia.
As for the Vitamin D and covid - again, this is all speculation at this stage. No clinical trials are ongoing with this and, where there is no harm in taking vitamin D, there is no clear evidence about it reducing covid effects.
I would be wary of using the term “mutant strain” when referring to covid, particularly as so many of us on here suffer with severe anxiety. The correct term is “variant strain” and all the vaccines are designed to tackle them. This is why they are not “live vaccines”. A mutant strain is alarmist and actually would mean that it was no longer covid-19, but an entirely different virus altogether.
I also think I have mentioned already that I am in trauma counselling and a great believer in brain/gut connection and dysfunction.
I appreciate you’re trying to help, but a lot of what you say is a bit misinformed and alarmist. X
Hi. I have a half used jar of Manuka honey in my fridge. I also tried it for various complaints and as with those replying here, it just made things worse. It is probably good for some people but not for a lot of us. Regular honey also gives me diarrhea, so I guess I should have known. I hope you get the help you need.
I don’t blame you for trying it, because the hype would lead us to believe it’s a healer of all things. IBS is so particular to each person too. I’m getting help from a therapist and a gastro, thanks. But everything is taking ages (waiting lists!). I’m trying to climb out of a very difficult time and manage my health - it’s just been such a setback to have the honey make such a mess of my guts! It cost so much too 😞
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