Just a little introduction

So this is new.  New blog.  New issues.  This one is more immediate than my other.  It’s my IBS.  I’ve been diagnosed with IBS-D for 5 years but have been living with it much longer.  If you don’t know what IBS-D is then you might want to look it up – I don’t want to gross you out just in case you’re snacking.  It’s grim.  And it isn’t fun; for me or my friends.  It makes me, as one friend put it, “anti-social”.  So, the purpose of this blog; in two weeks I’m starting the FODMAPs elimination diet.  I’d never heard of FODMAPs until very recently and then the universe decided to throw them in my path.  All the time.  The final straw came a few days ago when I couldn’t eat lunch while out-and-about with a friend as there was no loo in dashing proximity.  It’s bad at the moment.  I thought when school ended and the stress receded things would get better, but they haven’t.  I’ve been having 3 or 4 “rush for the loo” (or RFTL) moments a day and I’ve snapped.  This just cannot go on.  So it is time to declare all-out war.  And what does “all-out war” against IBS look like?  Well, it’s the FODMAPs elimination diet – also known as the “give up all the food you love diet”. Hmmm.

I suppose it makes sense – I have IBS and, if this new theory is to be believed, it’s so bad because I am eating all the wrong things.  Still asking me to give up dairy (mostly), gluten and a lot of fruit and veg is going to be hard. Onions, really?  I mean, come on! So that’s why I’m writing this blog.  As a way of venting.  But I also think I’m not the only one out there going through this.  It’s hard to talk to people about it – even the closest of friends don’t need to hear about my IBS symptoms over coffee – and who can blame them? It’s a pretty lonely issue to have to deal with.  So I suppose that I’m hoping that this might make someone else feel a little less like they’re so alone. 

So, I probably should make this clear, I am in no way a food expert.  I am not in any way "medical". I am a historian by trade.  This is being entirely based on a magazine article that a friend gave me.  So please don’t take this as anything other than my VERY limited personal experience. I am, however, planning on picking up this book that the article recommended; The Complete Low-Fodmap Diet: A Revolutionary Plan for Managing Ibs and Other Digestive Disorders  

So, on that note, this next two weeks I am girding my loins.  This weekend I am playing with “gluten free” food and it’s going to be hard.  Looking at restaurant menus I have suddenly developed a real sympathy for people with much worse digestive issues that I have; how on earth do coeliacs cope?  Eating out in London on my girly weekend will not be easy but I’m determined to give it a go.

Still.  You can take the red wine out of my cold dead hand!