Success

My IBS has been acting up a lot less lately. The nutritionist I visited a few weeks ago thought that my adrenals were depleted and that I was sensitive to salicylates in food. To help my adrenals he put me on a detox diet: no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol.

The detox diet was murder. The main reason I went to the nutritionist was that I was feeling increasingly fatigued. I had been using tea and sugary snacks to keep me awake and when that prop was gone the fatigue got much worse. It was all I could do to drag myself in to work. But two weeks later the fatigue is a lot better. I'm better than when I saw the nutritionist. But I still crave sugar something fierce.

I've also been avoiding all foods that I know or suspect contain salicylates. Among those are many more or less acidic fruits, such as peaches, strawberries and oranges.

The nutritionist also recommended that I read The Edge Effect by Eric Braverman. It is about neurotransmitter dominance and deficiencies. I did the quizzes and found out that I'm dopamine dominant and have deficiencies in all neurotransmitters, although GABA was the greatest deficiency. Armed with that information, I've been following recommendations for people who are GABA deficient, including taking supplements.

A lot of my IBS issues are triggered after lunch in the office. Needless to say it's very embarassing with all the gas, bloating and frequent visits to the toilet. While I've been able to modify what I eat during those lunches, the modifications have only helped partially. The rest is down to taking Rhodiola rosea and Ashwaganda before lunch and peppermint oil afterwards. Any of these herbal supplements taken on their own don't help much. I need to take all three for my digestion to be good.

I'm by no means cured but it feels like I've at least got a handle on the symptoms and clues for what direction to head in. Right now it feels as if my diet is very restricted. Tofu and banana is all I can eat, it feels like. I'm hoping that if I can keep it up, my digestion will heal to the point where I can gradually reintroduce things I'm now avoiding. So sometimes it feels as if I've got hope, sometimes it feels like all these restrictions aren't worth it. I'm taking it one day at a time for now.