bowel spasms

[sheilajay]

Hi I am 67 and was diagnosed with IBS 8yrs ago. I followed the fodmap diet and found I cannot eat any vegetable [apart from potato and carrots] , fruit or anything with fructose in it by cutting all this out most days I can cope. The problem is about every 2months my bowel goes into spasms and I get really bad pains in my back the doctor advised Buscapan but it still lasts upto a week he also suggested taking co-codamol but I was sick for 23 hours so apart from using a tens machine I don't know what to do. Its making me feel really low as every time I get an ache in my back I think its coming again and I'm struggling coping with the pain. I would appreciate any help

Sheila

[Julie Thompson]

Hi Sheila

Your diet seems overly restricted for a low fodmap diet. You are probably not having much fibre in your diet currently and most people would be able to manage the choices that are normally allowed on the restriction phase. I do wonder if this might help? You don't state however what your bowel function is. I have found that some people if they cannot re-introduce many of the higher fodmap foods sometimes do well with taking a probiotic at this point. This may alter the balance of microflora in your digestive tract and I have had a few people who have managed to re-introduce more fodmaps when they have started to take one - this is through clinical experience though - not through any research as such.

Perhaps take a probiotic for a month and then see if you can retry your excluded foods by using only small amounts initially and increase to tolerance. Check the label of the probiotic and ensure it doesn't contain a prebiotic as this might not help your symptoms (prebiotic = food for gut bacteria = inulin, FOS or fructooligosaccharide). This may enable you to have more fibre perhaps.

I hope this helps

[sheilajay]

Thank you Julie for your help I will certainly give it a try
Sheila