I have suffered with IBS (mixed, mainly loose with constipation a few times per month), for almost 30 years.
The first 6 years were dreadful then it settled to a predictable pattern in my 30's (actually disappeared when pregnant at 32) but since my mid 40's it has been dreadful.
I am now 52. As things had got worse since the age of 45 I've had 2 colonoscopies, a gastroscope, a pill camera endoscopy and bile acid malabsorption scan. All during the last 5 years.
'Just' IBS and functional dyspepsia according to my gastro and she appears no longer interested.
I avoid my triggers foods, only drink water, I exercise, meditate every night before bed and listen to gut directed hypnotherapy yet I have symptoms every single day.
The worst thing for me are the mornings. As soon as I wake I have to go to the loo quick. Some times it's loose, some times it's slightly constipation but often it's fairly normal yet the urgency is there regardless and even when I've finished I feel as though I still need to go. My digestive system will gurgle and growl all morning, regardless if I eat or don't. I will often need to go again an hour or so later and sometimes again during the day but 80% of the time, come the evenings, it all settles only to start up again as soon as I wake.
I actually dread waking up now as I know what my morning will consist of and it makes living a 'normal' life difficult. There is nothing worse than leaving the house with that incomplete feeling. I am fortunate that atm I am not working (I have other health issues including endometriosis and am deep in perimenopause atm which is a whole other issue) but I do have to take my DD to college three mornings a week and often have to rush back home because sitting in rush hour traffic has set things off again.
I do acknowledge that I have an unhealthy obsession with my bowels and a huge fear of needing the toilet wherever I go and that stress in itself is not helping but nothing I do to help actually helps. I am even under a neuro-gastroenterologist in London but none of their strategies are helping me.
I long to feel normal, I hate that I long to get every day to whizz by so I can get to the evenings when everything settles. That's pretty miserable.
Has anyone else struggled with anything like this? I feel I've tried every diet, eliminated every trigger food, tried every prescribed and off the shelf medication but it's just getting worse the older I get.
It's miserable being held hostage by your bowels every day.