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I think other people have cleared up most of your questions. The Brown Sugar Banana Bread I was talking about is the one MCV gave you the link for.
SIBO is small intestine bacterial overgrowth. It's kind of a hot topic right now since some people who have been diagnosed with IBS have SIBO either instead or in addition to. Do a couple of Searches across all Boards with no time limits:
do one for SIBO
do one for small bacteria
and you should hit all the discussions of it. I don't know of anyone from these Boards who has tried the treatment for it and been cured, but if I were not getting relief from Heather's approach, I would be talking to my GI about it.
I gather you're going to try the Break The Cycle Diet again. I hope that gives you relief and you are then able to start adding in other foods safely. If not, here are two other possibilities to consider. First, try an anti-depressant if you haven't already. I used Elavil for a while and it shut down the D. Unfortunately, I had to keep upping the dosage to keep the D shut down and eventually the side-effects got to me. Luckily, I found this Website and the diet worked for me, so I went off the Elavil. You might discuss this with your doctor and see what he thinks.
Second, when I got an intestinal virus a couple of years ago, I had terrible cramping and diarrhea - way beyond my "normal" IBS symptoms. The doctor prescribed Tylenol with codeine for me. It took care of the pain and shut down the diarrhea like magic. Obviously, this is not something you could take regularly, but perhaps trying it for a day or two might calm things down and at least give you a little relief.
HTH. Take care.
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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]
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Thanks again. Yes, I have a parasite & ova kit here, I always have one to take to the lab if I think it's not my typical IBS. I had tried Prozac in the past off and on for years. Several years, I can remember a time when I did not know of eating right and ate whatever and took my librax and prozac and I was stable, and remained that way for a while, gained a lot of weight, etc. I'm not sure what happened. I have not been to the 30day mark without an attack, for probably 4 years, 3 of that being on this diet and board, that is why I am soooo confused. I think I did mention I had giardia years ago and my GI told me it never completely goes away. But this is not that, I know when I get that!!! The good ole' break the cycle....we know each other quite well. I am trying something suggested by a member of this board for 3 days to see how that goes, at this point I'm willing to try anything. I guess with the parasited and bacteria I could understand the D, but not the unGodly pain. Also, I don't have it everyday either, just whenever my colon feels like it!!! And out of the blue!!! Thanks,
Cheryl
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IBS-D, extreme pain and cramping - GERD - lactose/dairy intolerant, OCD, Fibromyalgia
DX: w/ Multiple Sclerosis 3/10
I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me. Phil 4:13
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I was taking 18 total citrucel caplets. Which would have been 9 grams of SF. The acacia was 12gm of SF. Just a difference of 3gm, maybe that was too much.... Just so people realize I didn't double it. Maybe I was just too sensitive by upping it by 3gms a day? However I have cut it back!!! Thanks
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IBS-D, extreme pain and cramping - GERD - lactose/dairy intolerant, OCD, Fibromyalgia
DX: w/ Multiple Sclerosis 3/10
I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me. Phil 4:13
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Quote:
had a very slight case of endometrosis, which is not the cause of my pain
Sorry to butt in here ... I don't read the diet board much these days -- because I actually don't have IBS, I have endometriosis. (But I still hang out here because I am sad and pathetic.) I do remember a lot of your past posts because your symptoms were so close to mine. And, like you, I had godawful attacks that nothing seemed to help. For a long time I was eating nothing but bread.
So ... I have to ask ... was your endometriosis surgically confirmed? Because there is NO WAY to diagnose endometriosis except by physically looking at it and having a pathologist confirm. Because you say that you had a "slight" case of endometriosis, this makes me think that you probably did have a laparoscopy, since you also can't stage endo without the surgery.
You might find this article on intestinal endometriosis interesting. I would also highly recommend all of the information on the website of the Center for Endometriosis Care -- I actually just had surgery with them. It was a 1700-mile round-trip and cost several thousand dollars, but I felt that it was my best shot at getting rid of my endometriosis.
Anyway, when I was at my sickest, I was having really bad D, pain, and cramping. I wouldn't say that nothing helped, really -- I took scads of Imodium and Levsin, and without them I would've spent all day in the bathroom. BUT, I had to take massive quantities to get to the point of them helping. When I went off my birth control pills (late July 2005), I began experiencing horrific painful attacks about once a week -- sometimes more, sometimes less -- where I had ungodly awful awful awful pain in two localized spots, one on the left and one on the right. I was able to eat less and less and had to pop more and more pills. I started having vaginal bleeding during these attacks, went to my doctor, got sent to an ob-gyn for possible endometriosis, and underwent a laparoscopy (December 2005). I had a LOT of endo, and, in particular, I had lots of scarring around my appendix, which was stuck to the bowel wall.
Post-surgery, it took a couple months but the D pretty much went away except during periods. Unfortunately, the horrid cramping attacks continued, though they didn't happen nearly as often. I stopped having the localized pain on my right side after surgery -- so I guess that it was the appendix that caused that pain. The left side was still painful but wasn't nearly as bad. The pain, however, didn't improve much and just got worse as time went on. That's why I ended up deciding to have surgery again, this time with the best expert I could find. The jury's still out (I'm only a week post-op), but, they did find a ton of endometriosis -- I even lost half of my right ovary. In particular, I once again had a lot of it in the cul-de-sac area -- endo in this spot almost always causes bowel problems. This is also one of the toughest spots to get the endo excised, and usually if you've got it there then unless you have a good surgeon it comes back.
I did end up going back on birth control pills back in April/May-ish because I was so miserable, and after 3-4 weeks I don't think I had any more of the horrible cramping attacks. I went off them again six weeks or so before surgery to make sure that the endo would be at its most visible and I did have a couple of those attacks, but not bad considering how often I used to have them. I've got my fingers crossed they are gone for good!!
Anyway, I guess I sort of wrote a novel here, but the bottom line is that I hope you're dead positive you've got the endometriosis totally ruled out for the source of your pain. I never thought that I had endo -- even when they were wheeling me in the OR for the laparoscopy, I figured it would be just like all the other tests I had where they came up totally empty. Somewhere on the website, Heather has a list of disorders that need to be ruled out before IBS is diagnosed -- I wish I had made sure I diligently ruled them all out rather than just airily dismissing them as "Oh, I'm sure I don't have that." Endo can definitely present itself as mainly GI symptoms, even if your periods don't seem that bad.
Oh, and as far as anti-spasmodics go ... Levsin didn't work that great when I took it as-needed -- it wasn't until I was taking it regularly (every four hours) that I really noticed a difference. Towards the end I also took about 3x what the doctor told me to  but I will of course not recommend that. I rarely take Imodium or anti-spasmodics anymore (and I can eat real food, too  ).
I hope you can find *something* to help. No one should have to live like that. 
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jen
"It's one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle -- to get one's head cut off." -- LC
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Hi Jen,
Yes, I had my first lapo in October of last year and that is when my Gyn found it, lasered what little was there, but I'll tell you, I feel I have had more pain, female, not IBS, menstrual cramping, heaving bleeding and such since that procedure!!! I am back on birth control for the excessive bleeding, I'm doing the 6 weeks on and 1 week off for a trial period to see how that does. However, all 3 colonoscopies have all came to the spastic colon and to the one area major area, (even though I do have the spasm in the ascending, diverse and descending colon) where my pain is most severe, that is goes so spastic that the last one he had to blow so much air through the scope to get my colon to open just so he could finish..........That was a fun next few days working all that air out, if you know what I mean.
When I was prescribed levsinI took 4x a day and took it faithfully and then tried the levbid cause it was a 12hr. so I only had to remember twice a day. That worked for a while, but then I got bad again. I had had every blood test, scope, x-ray, scan, etc. I have confimred GERD, Severe IBS, as my report has read, labs have been negative, stool cultures have been negative, I just don't understand why I'm getting worse as I get older, I had read it's supposed to get better when you get older???? Actually, my husband has diverticulitis and IBS and take levsin as needed, and at times when I go to bed I take a Librax and a levsin before I go to bed, since the majority of my attacks seem to be at night, which has always stumped my doc. So needless to say, they thought the birth control pills was hurting me, now they don't. And before the lapo I was on pills, had regular periods, no pain, no cramps, no heavy bleeding....So I am really frustrated about that now that my female problems have gotten worse since the laser surgery.
Thanks for the response. I hope my response was understandable in stating, that they decided the endo was not the cause of my pain, it is definitely my spastic, retarded colon.
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IBS-D, extreme pain and cramping - GERD - lactose/dairy intolerant, OCD, Fibromyalgia
DX: w/ Multiple Sclerosis 3/10
I can do all things through Christ who strenghtens me. Phil 4:13
Edited by LtDanFan (08/17/06 04:09 PM)
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I totally missed the middle dose!
Are you happy with the Acacia? Is it giving you any side effects that you didn't have with citrucel?
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IBS-C with pain and bloat
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