[throw345hn]

As someone with IBS, totally agree with you. I wish the research would trickle down into actual treatments. I have started following a lot of research about gut etc but very little of it leads to something that can mass consumed.

I spent thousands of dollars on trying out medications, tests, visiting a number of highly trained doctors etc, nothing came up in tests and at the end almost all doctors threw their hands up and categorized my gut issues as IBS which is just a catchAll term for which there is no specific treatment other than trying out a number of things.

[fodmap]

Fellow IBS sufferer here. I understand and share your pain.

There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort following the FODMAP diet.

I've wasted ten horrible years until I discovered that Monash University diet.

Ten years of pain and expending.

Hoping it can help you as well https://www.monashfodmap.com/

[genewitch]

For anyone who doesn't feel like viewing a slideshow website, FODMAP stands for "Fermentable Oligosaccharides Disaccharides Monosaccharides And Polyols"

Which is basically Cereals (what make beer) onions, garlic, and beans; Lactose; Fructose; and at least two of the "Sugar Alcohols".

As someone who had their gut biome wrecked by aggressive antibiotics, i was told i will probably have to take probiotics for the rest of my life, but i managed to track down two things that will 100% all the time cause pain - Garlic and Onions. I'm not entirely sure which is worse, but i'd wager garlic. For a long time i assumed it was certain types of oils, too.

Basically if you're adhering to this "Low FODMAP" diet, you're meandering between "slow carb", "atkins", and several other dietary restrictions.

That "fructose" one though, that's a doozy. There are tons of health ramifications to avoiding all of the stuff on the list, so if you suffer from intestinal stuff, it'd probably be best to experiment with each thing on the list (on the site) and see if it causes discomfort, how much, how long, etc.

[graeme]

Low fodmap was of enormous help to me too. For years I thought I had gluten issues, as most bread caused me trouble.

Turns out every wheat product with the exception of sourdough wheat bread is high fodmap! I tried low fodmap and nearly instantly got a lot better. And I can now eat some fodmaps by reintroducing in lower amounts.

Highly recommend anyone with ibs try this. It is complicated but you can get free or cheap apps that let you search ingredients fast to figure out what to remove.

And the great part is the intolerance is quantity based. So, celery in a recipe? No problem. Just don’t eat a massive amount of it. Very much unlike any kind of hard avoidance plan.

This won’t solve all issues but give it an honest shot. Mine has moved from seriously debilitating to minor inconvenience.

[mountain_peak]

Was diagnosed with IBS just after university, then (similarly) spent 10 years suffering and experimenting when I ended up switching to an ultra-low carb diet for unrelated reasons. Within weeks, I started to feel better and for the next 12 years felt great - so much so, that my family (wanting me to enjoy something sweet) started buying me "Keto-friendly" bars with < 2g of net carbs, but also with erythritol. That was a mistake, as within weeks of enjoying the bars, I was back to dealing with IBS. I'm six weeks into trying to undo the 'damage', and starting to feel a bit better, but I'd definitely advise people who have IBS to always be cautious with trigger foods - certainly the ones that personally cause them issues, but also others on the list.

[throw345hn]

Thanks, yes I have been following fodmap for years now and reduced my gluten intake as well and that has helped a bit. Although its only recommended for 3 to 6 months.

I have also slowly been introducing foods I have been avoiding back and so far I have been able to tolerate them well

[jodrellblank]

(I didn't downvote). For comparison, imagine you signed up with the username "Oracle" and posted "Fellow data storage sufferer here. I understand and share your pain. There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort using the Oracle database" and a link to a "purchase Oracle" page.

You might be a well-meaning person, but you're hard to distinguish from a bot pushing a fad diet with online courses, a for-pay app, a shop, "find a dietician" services, certifications, etc. Preying on offering hope to the sick and desperate is common and people are cynical and wary of it, and even genuine well-meaning people are prone to sharing dubious alternative medicine suggestions which they honestly believe help but aren't proven to do anything more than the placebo effect. If you were a long-standing HN commentor, you'd probably get more benefit of the doubt; signing up as "fodmap" to link to an apparently for-profit fodmap service with an emotional message makes it easy to assume bad faith astroturfing at a glance - focused username, commercial link, fringe/alternative/woo treatment, claims of health cure for incurable condition, SEO style message ("As a fellow sufferer, believe me, I know, I've been there, trust me, just one easy credit card payment").

[I wrote this for your deleted comment;]

[mancerayder]

I have IBS symptoms basically fully in times of stress, days on end, otherwise things are fairly normal. I wonder if either my understanding of IBS is false, or it's not biome related for me.

[throw345hn]

I suffer from IBS as well and out of all the things that flares up my IBS, stress is a prominent one. Reading research papers, its been seen that gut biome changes based on stress - look up gut-brain connection, theres been a few books written about it as well.

Its a fairly new thing - from about 15 years back. Nowadays one of the treatments that a gastroenterologist could recommend if they have exhausted everything else is low dose anti-depressant.

Key is to identify what is causing stress and treat that