Mind and Body: Unraveling Donna’s IBS Saga – NaPodPoMo

Barbara: Welcome to Self Powered Healing. I’m Barbara McNeely, your host and the creator of Self Powered Healing, where we’re talking about how you can unleash your innate healing ability.

This is the final week of National Podcast Post Month, or as we like to call it, NaPodPoMo. Coming up this week, just before the end of the month, I have a healing story for you. You do not want to miss it.

In today’s episode of Self Powered Healing, I am talking with my friend Donna about her healing journey. I actually met Donna through a Facebook group about a shared love for sewing and creating.

Welcome Donna.

Donna: Hello Barbara.

Barbara: Nice to have you here.

Donna: Thank you for inviting me.

Barbara: So tell me about your story.

Donna: I’ve been diagnosed with IBS. And the way this all started was I had an episode in March of 2021. At first I thought it was food poisoning. I woke up in the middle of the night and I was in severe pain. Abdominal pain. There was bloating, nausea. I was dizzy. It was horrible.

And I pretty much spent the night on the bathroom floor because I was vomiting and, you know, having other issues. And in the morning, I asked my husband to take me to the emergency room, because the pain was just so severe. So when I got to the emergency room, they did all sorts of tests and decided it was colitis. And they treated it with antibiotics and pain pills and I was sent home.

But then a week later, I had the same thing. So at that point, I had made an appointment with the doctor who sent me to a gastroenterologist. And that appointment was like three weeks out. Every week, sometimes twice a week, I would have another one of these episodes. It was the most horrible thing.

So this came out of the blue, just completely out of the blue. I have no idea what caused it initially. So when I was at the gastro, he said, “Well, this is IBS. We don’t have a cure for it.” He prescribed, believe it or not, antidepressants, pain pills, and anti nauseal drugs. That’s it.

Well, I wasn’t happy with that, so I decided to, with the help of my sister in law, who is a biologist, I worked with her to try and find out, what could be causing this and other things that could be done.

And that’s when we stumbled across the Monash University FODMAP program. FODMAP is both a Elimination program and a diet. Monash is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. And basically the term FODMAP stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharide, Monosaccharides, the word “And”, and Polyols.

And what these are is they’re short chain carbohydrates that are poorly digested and they ferment in the lower part of the intestine and that’s what happens. It draws in water. from your body and the water produces carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane gas. And it makes the abdomen swell. And that’s where all that pain comes from.

It’s, it’s horrible. You feel like you’re, you’re going to explode. And what’s so interesting about this? I wondered why the gastroenterologist, even recommended anti anxiety drugs. There is a link. It’s not been proven, but there seems to be a link between stress, anxiety, and IBS. It’s not all food related, apparently.

So, I started to look back, and I saw that my first episode was in March 2021. Well, that December, December of 2020, my best friend was having some issues. Her husband was in the hospital having a kidney transplant. And during his recovery time in the hospital, she called me and said, Donna, you have to take me to, you know, the oncology. hospital in Austin right away. They have found brain cancer.

Barbara: In your, in her husband?

Donna: In her.

Barbara: In her. Oh.

Donna: Yes, her husband was still in recovery, so he couldn’t drive her and she has no family in town. So she called me and I took her and the good news is she is still with us, but at that time, they told me that she had three months to live and that was even after, you know, she’d had surgery and everything. So of course that happened.

And then in February of 2021, her husband passed away complications from the kidney transplant.

Additionally, I have another very, very dear friend. Her husband passed away at the end of February, that same year. And both my best friends moved out of town where I am and moved closer to their families. So I lost my two best friends and their husbands.

Barbara: Wow.

Donna: And I didn’t realize this until I started to check further, my dear Beloved most amazing cat in the entire world, died March 1st.
So even though I would’ve never connected those things, apparently. Because I always wondered what triggered this, how did I suddenly go from being extremely healthy to having this horrible, horrible thing?

Barbara: It’s, yeah, it’s something that we’re finding more and more of that there’s this connection that modern medicine hasn’t made. Some doctors are, so yeah,

Donna: Yeah,

Barbara: but it is a thing for sure.

Donna: Yeah, the more I have. I’ve been so focused on foods and eliminating different foods that I never thought to make that, they call it, I guess, the brain gut connection.
It has to do with the vagus nerve.

Barbara: Probably.

Donna: From what I’ve read, the vagus nerve runs from the brain all the way down the center of the body. You know, I mean, I’m not a doctor. It’s just, you know, what I’ve read.
But really what helped, helped me was the FODMAP diet. And basically what that is, is you go through phase one, which is an elimination process.

You start out with, they have an app, you download it on your phone, you can shop with it. It is amazing. Seriously, it saved me. I followed the protocol for the elimination of certain foods. Then you do that for three weeks and then you slowly start introducing one food at a time. It is painstaking. It is time consuming. But when you’re having those episodes, you’ll, you seriously, you’ll do anything. I was willing to do anything to get them to stop.

So in my case, I found out my trigger foods and lactose intolerant found that out right away. And my trigger food are foods that contain fructans, not to be confused with fructose, but fructan. And so by eliminating foods, fruits and vegetables and things that are high in fructan or having just small amounts of them, I’ve been able to control my IBS symptoms without medication, which is really good. So I’ve been able to control my IBS symptoms without medication. without anti anxiety drugs. I’ve always done yoga.

And so I added some breathing exercises in with my yoga routine,
breathing exercise. I follow Dr. Weil, Dr. Andrew Weil, and he’s got a really good breath work link on his website. So I practice that whenever I’m feeling anxious or, and there seems to be, you know, the combination of watching what I eat and keeping my anxiety and stress levels, you know, low, I’ve been symptom free for, let’s see, probably about three months now.

Barbara: But it took you that long to get there?

Donna: Yes. Yes.

Barbara: That was over three, over three years.

Donna: Because what would happen is. I would have a lot of that was in the reintroduction phase of the FODMAP diet, and I would have something and, you know, it may have been only An episode a month or an episode every six weeks.

But if I had something that was a trigger, I would have an episode never as bad as the first few were. These were much less painful. The duration was not as long. It would be maybe an hour and then I would feel better. But, yeah, it takes, it took me that long. It did.

Barbara: Have you ever gone back to the doctor and talked to him about it?

Donna: No. They were so dismissive and really what, he, he was pretty honest, he, he just told me that they don’t understand anything about this and they don’t really know how to help except pain pills, anti anxiety med and anti nauseal.

Barbara: Which is really just treating your symptoms.

Donna: Yes. Yes. He, he as much as said, that’s all we can do is treat your symptoms because we don’t know what causes this. So I mean, I do appreciate his honesty, but I, you know, and, and I understand that I, I understand that not a lot of studies have been done in this country, which is shocking because I know just within my family, my sister-in-law and. another brother-in-law, not the two are not married and brother-in-law both have IBS. So that’s, you know, that’s one family.

Barbara: It’s pretty common. Yeah,

Donna: it is pretty common. And I’ve heard that hypnotherapy can work. I personally have never tried it. But that, I mean, I think it sounds interesting,

Barbara: But I think you’re on the right track as far as what first started it because I read something recently that was saying that intestinal tract is highly sensitive to emotional states and you had definitely You were in a very emotional state at that point in time with all the losses.

Donna: And I would have never Connected the two.

Barbara: Mm hmm

Donna: ever would have connected the two but there it was right in front of me the whole time. Yeah,

It’s interesting though, I think knowing what I’ve, knowing what I know now, the short amount of research that I’ve done on the vagus nerve, I believe I only started looking into that either last, I think it was last week?

I was shocked at the amount of information there was.

Barbara: Oh, yeah.

Donna: It’s unbelievable.

Barbara: It’s, it’s a very popular thing to be studying right now. So there’s a lot coming out.

Donna: Yeah. And I didn’t know it. This was a happy accident. I think one of my, well, I have found out that one of my yoga moves actually stimulates and calms. The vagus nerve.

Barbara: Yes, more than one. I think actually.

Donna: Yeah,

Barbara: Actually, even even breathing probably Dr. Weil’s breathing techniques will do it.

Donna: Not only that, but during one of my episodes, I just to handle the pain. You know, I started the breathing technique that he describes, and it reminded me a little of being in Lamaze, you know, that was not a happy memory, but you know, of course I did it, but it did help to calm things down, or at least help me manage the pain.

So, you know, all these things, all these things help. And I really hate to think of anyone going through this and especially going through it alone. I was lucky. I had a really good support group, but it’s, it’s really awful because it doesn’t just, it doesn’t just affect you during the episode. It affects other things. It affects, you can have malabsorption issues, which I did. And when you’re not absorbing nutrients, it can affect your, your hair, your nails, your, weight,

Barbara: weight, your energy levels.

Donna: Absolutely.

Barbara: Pretty much everything. Yes.

Donna: At one point, I think I mentioned, I. I had dropped to 98 pounds and for reference, I’m five seven.

So you know, it was, it was terrible and

Barbara: That’s pretty thin.

Donna: Yeah. And I, I felt, I just felt bad. You just don’t feel good.

Barbara: Yeah. The one question that I always have is if, if you could have made the connection between the events and then the illness, if you could have changed things.

Donna: Looking back, I wish I had made the connections sooner because, and I wish I had known that hypnotherapy was even an option. This is all new news to me.

And I would, I think I would have tried that first. I think I would have tried that first. I’m really, I’m very happy. I’m fully supportive of anyone trying the FODMAP diet cause it helped me. And they’ve also developed a food additive. It’s actually just an enzyme, an enzyme powder, and you can purchase it through them and you take the scoop and it’s, it’s flavorless and you sprinkle it on foods that you’re not allowed to have.

And it gives your body the enzymes to break these foods down so that you don’t have an episode. And I tried it on one of my high trigger foods and it worked for me.

Barbara: Okay.

Donna: And other people have said, you know, that they’ve had some luck with it. I can’t say that I do it that often. It’s only when, you know, friends insist on going out.

Restaurants are always a nightmare because you don’t know what’s in there.

Barbara: Yes.

Donna: And I, I don’t go out to restaurants very often, but, it’s a handy thing to have. It’s a handy thing to know about.

Barbara: And what was that called?

Donna: It’s called Fodzyme. F-O-D-Z-Y-M-E, I think, but it, it’s available on the FODMAP, F-O-D-M-A-P, or the Monash website will always direct you to that as

Barbara: well. I might include those links in the notes.

Donna: Yeah.

Barbara: All right,

Donna: And the the FODMAP App, I mean it’s incredible that they make this information available to you for free on line, but the app on your phone, I think there’s a one, I think I remember there was a one time charge and it’s so minimal. It’s like 15 or 16 dollars and then you just have it forever and they continue to make updates, which I think is wonderful as well.
I mean, just kind of, you know, keeping you up to date that. Well, we found that this particular product isn’t as high in something as we thought, you know, you might want to give it a try. Things like that. Yeah, it’s very helpful thing to have.

Barbara: Yeah.

Donna: So I think that if I were to give advice to anybody dealing with this is. Try what works.
Yeah, try what works for you. Try everything. Try absolutely everything. If hypnotherapy does it for you, wonderful. If changing your diet works. You know, working with a dietician, you know, do that, try anything because you can, you can manage this to a point where I can’t, it’s funny, I can’t say that I’m cured because I don’t know, but I can say that I am symptom free.
And to me, that’s as good as a cure.

Barbara: That’s its own form of healing, really.

Donna: Yes.

Barbara: I want to thank you, Donna, for, for being here today. It’s a very interesting story. And I know there’s people out there with IBS that it will be helpful for. Thank you.

Donna: Well, thank you for inviting me. I, I really hope, I mean, I really hope that I can help someone.

I’m, I’m really grateful for all the support that I’ve had. And yeah, it’s not an easy thing to live with. So I send my love to all those out there dealing with it.

Barbara: Thanks for listening today. You can visit SelfPoweredHealing.com/november2024 to find all the episodes for NaPodPoMo. Leave a comment too, if you like. Thank you to all that have been a part of this 30 day challenge. Beginning in December, I’ll be returning to my less intense schedule, publishing three episodes each month, at least. I also will have more healing stories coming up.

Stay tuned.

By the way, Self Powered Healing is still looking for interviews with people who want to share a story of healing. Do you have a healing story? I would love to hear about it and see if maybe you could share it on our show. So if you’re interested in sharing, then visit selfpoweredhealing.com/share to schedule a chat.  

You aren’t committing at this point. You’re just having a chat with me to see what’s going on. It will be confidential unless or until you decide you want to share. And if you get there and there’s not a convenient time for you, send me a message because we’ll always find a time.  

And remember this always,  