I was trying to obtain some history on a problem that had grown into a debilitating disorder. We were celebrating our second anniversary, with a baby on the way; but after an accident in a public store I could only think about Wendy's health, both physical and psychological.
"It didn't happen again for several months," she continued, "so again I figured I got some spoiled meat or something. Then, when I was 22, it happened again, but lasted all morning. I couldn't possibly drive to work. If I had a problem while sitting in traffic, well, anyways, I just called in sick. I figured it was the flu. And after that I got this mysterious flu every couple of months. Everybody else took sick days for various reasons; I didn't think much about it. For the next five years I was a target for every passing flu virus and food pathogen, or so I thought. It was odd though -- when each attack was over I felt fine, hungry in fact. It really looked like mild food poisoning, over and over and over again. I could live with that, once a month or so, but now it's happening all the time, with absolutely no warning. I could be shopping in a store or driving to my doctor's appointment or anything. But it's always at the worst time -- always when I am nowhere near a bathroom. I think I get stressed out about it, and that brings it on. That's what my relatives say, and I think they're right."
Indeed, that's what her relatives told her throughout her twenties, and they continued to promote their psychosomatic theories for the next three years, until I finally found the answer. Their erroneous bias was somewhat understandable, since it received unanimous support from several specialists in two different states. They tested Wendy for various infections and parasites, and found nothing. Obviously she brought the problem on herself. Perhaps she should seek counseling.
"Let's examine your first premise." I began. "You say it happens when you're under stress. Have you ever written down the dates and times of these episodes?" She hadn't, so I did. Most of them happened at home, while we were sitting quietly in front of the tv. She never remembered these, because the bathroom was just a few steps away. She only remembered the episodes that caused her stress, so stress looked like a contributing factor. Yet a month's worth of data proved otherwise. The attacks came at random, and were not correlated with anything, except meals. They usually came just after eating.
"You are reacting to a food." I declared with certainty. She had never considered this, and was somewhat skeptical. However, I had discovered and treated a corn sensitivity in myself some two years earlier, so I was sure I could solve her problem in a couple of months. Indeed, I did solve her problem, but it took three years. I thought I knew all about food sensitivities, but I was really standing at the base of a long, steep learning curve. I hope these articles help others climb this curve in a matter of weeks, rather than years. If you are desperately searching for answers, you can't afford to wait.
After Beth was born Wendy's condition grew worse. She spent part of every day in or near the bathroom. Sometimes the attack only lasted an hour, but often it consumed an entire morning or afternoon. When she was brave enough to leave the house, Beth made everything more complicated. If Wendy had to buy groceries, she certainly couldn't leave the baby at home, so she strapped her into the car seat and off they went. Then, suddenly, another attack. Wendy had to locate the nearest public facility, get there (through heavy traffic), find a place to park, unbuckle the baby (she couldn't leave her in the car), run into the building with babe in arms, ask for the nearest bathroom, and pray it was operational and unoccupied. There certainly wasn't time to look for another. All this had to happen in about three minutes. needless to say, there were times when she didn't make it, and she was devastated.
Since we had a van, I told her to improvise. We placed a plastic-lined bucket between the two front seats and kept a supply of toilet paper on board. That was her emergency bathroom. All she had to do was find a place to pull off the road. There was no need to worry about baby Beth; sometimes she slept through the entire episode. Even with this innovation in place, Wendy still had accidents. You can't always pull off the expressway or out of creeping traffic in a timely fashion, and the episodes were getting worse.
We saw two more specialists who ran more tests and found nothing. They prescribed various antispasmotics, which were suppose to relax the colon into a regular rhythm. They helped a bit, but we were obviously treating the symptoms. The doctors had no clue.
Soon Wendy's attacks were accompanied by severe abdominal cramps. "It feels like I'm in labor." she gasped. On a bad day the morning was spent in pain, a few steps from the bathroom, and the afternoon was spent in bed, trying to recover. Meantime she had a colicky newborn to care for and a house to run. Many times I came home from work and was handed a screaming baby as my beautiful wife went into the bedroom to cry herself to sleep.
When Beth was a year old we went to my mother's house for a month. We were determined to establish Wendy's food connection once and for all, and my Mom had considerable experience in this area. She put twelve books on the table and we started reading through them. She didn't have the right book, but we didn't know that at the time. Starting from day one, we ate whole foods and cooked everything from scratch. There would be no additives or preservatives to confuse us. in addition, we avoided all the common allergens such as wheat and dairy, and we rotated our foods, hoping to see a pattern. There was none. Her attacks usually came after meals, but not always. I constantly monitored her pulse, as recommended by four of the twelve books, but it was usually over 100, even as she slept. After an entire morning in the bathroom her pulse dropped to 70, as though she had finally gotten rid of some toxins, but it soon climbed into the nineties when she ate the next meal. This reaffirmed my hypothesis. She was definitely reacting to a food, or a collection of unrelated foods, but which ones?
When we were first married there was no psychological component to her disorder, but that was changing fast. She became obsessed with bathrooms. She knew the location of every public facility, and some of the store managers simply waved her through when she ran into their establishments with that desperate look on her face. Her illness consumed her every waking thought, and even invaded her dreams. She was afraid to go out of the house, and I couldn't blame her. As cramps added pain to the equation, she was running out of reasons to live. Was she headed for a nervous breakdown (or worse)? Would I be raising Beth on my own? These were the questions that haunted me as we went to see yet another doctor.
"You have irritable bowel syndrome, also known as IBS." he announced confidently. "It's not unusual, especially among women your age. Just stay on a high fiber diet and you'll be fine." Now it was my turn to be skeptical. Fiber moves food through the intestines, and is an effective, natural treatment for constipation. This seemed wholly inappropriate for Wendy. But we were desperate. She ate 20 grams of fiber a day, then 30, then 40. It seemed to help, but only sporadically. She still had attacks from time to time, and we didn't know why. They weren't as frequent or severe, but she still didn't want to leave the house.
After two months I decided fiber was not the answer, or at least not the whole answer, and I returned to my food diary. We wrote down everything she ate and everything she did and how she felt. We considered so many different factors: the acid content of the meal, the salt content, the carbohydrate content, candida treatments, overcooked or undercooked foods, different cookware, sleeping in a different bed, using different hygiene products, etc. Sometimes I would see a pattern and we'd get very excited. "That's it!" I'd announce to the world. "You always seem to have attacks 18 hours after oranges or grapefruits or lemons etc. You simply need to be on a citrus-free diet." We'd try it for a while, and she'd have a severe attack, complete with cramps. So much for that theory. Our emotions were constantly riding a roller coaster, and we had no time or energy for our growing daughter.
Several weeks later I thought about the only regimen that helped, the high fiber diet. I looked back through my data and found that the fiber was often concentrated in one or two meals. She might have a high fiber breakfast and a low fiber lunch. "Try this," I suggested, as Wendy braced herself for yet another theory. "Make sure you eat at least 5 grams of fiber with every meal." Fifteen grams a day is certainly not a high fiber diet, but it was a place to start. Her symptoms almost disappeared over night. In fact, every attack, for the next three years, could be traced to a low fiber meal or snack some ten hours earlier. There was another catch; she couldn't skip meals. No breakfast was as bad as a low fiber breakfast. This was similar to our dog Remmington, who displayed different symptoms, but also had to eat on schedule. The fiber kept things moving along as nature intended, and she didn't have any trouble after that.
Today her IBS is a distant, yet horrible memory. A debilitating disorder almost destroyed my wife and shattered my family, yet it was crushed into submission by a simple fiber regimen. If only we had known three years earlier. If only she had known twelve years earlier. But there's no sense crying over spilled milk. We went on with our lives, raising our beautiful birth daughter and adopting two more children, who also have severe food sensitivities.
I never would have come up with this fiber approach on my own. I will always be grateful to the physician who suggested it. Yet I am also angry at the other seven doctors who told Wendy it was "all in her head", because that's easier than saying, "I don't know." Even the few enlightened gastroenterologists who recognize the fiber connection don't realize that it must be taken with every meal, rather than so many grams per day, and they have no idea why it works. Furthermore, they don't seem terribly interested. "I can tell you why fiber helps." I told her doctor several years later, once I had climbed this extraordinary learning curve. But he wasn't interested. In fact none of the doctors we talked to seemed at all curious about food sensitivities, even though they have many patients just like Wendy, and some do not respond to fiber therapy at all. You'd think they would want to learn more about food intolerance, for their own intellectual curiosity, and the welfare of their patients.
Today, as we approach our tenth anniversary, Wendy doesn't think about fiber very often. She avoids dairy, and she follows the Zone diet, as described in the previous article, but her IBS has disappeared. What caused it, and why did it go away? Why did the fiber regimen help, and why does this regimen prove ineffective for other IBS sufferers? These questions will be addressed in the next article.
Wendy is very lucky, but we remain vigilant. She still eats her high fiber bread, and often replaces starches with peas or green beans, just to keep the IBS monster away. This is no longer an obsession, merely a modest life-style change, like taking vitamins once in a while just to be safe. Let's hope we never experience IBS again.