Living With a Digestive Disorder

“Health is not valued till sickness comes” – Thomas Fuller

Imagine this.  You’re a healthy, active twenty year old in college but have persistent stomach aches that occur so often that people begin to believe you’re lying when you explain you can’t actually go for a run with them because you can’t get out of bed.

This is my life.

I’m now 24, I’ve seen a plethora of healthcare physicians and have had numerous radiology studies done, and the only thing they can diagnose me with is IBS.

I’ve been told by many friends who work in/know others who work in the healthcare industry that IBS is the “go-to” diagnosis for people with my symptoms.  Even still, if this is my true diagnosis, why am I not getting any better, despite being on three-four different kinds of medications after exhausting all of the other medicine-related options?

I took those medications ordered by my GI doctor for 6 months.  I was having great results until suddenly I wasn’t anymore.  The frustration was incredible.

I’d wake up every day nervous about going into work because of all of the uncomfortable and uncontrollable issues I would have that suddenly hit after lunch.  There were days at work where I’d just have to put my head down and massage the left side of my stomach (where the pain is and always has been located).  There were weekends when I couldn’t go places with my fiancé because of the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach.  I began watching what I was eating and even had a blood panel done to see if I had a food allergy, but it came back completely negative.  I stayed away from greasy, unhealthy foods and limited my diet to foods full of fiber and it still didn’t help.

I was running out of ideas and my pain wasn’t subsiding.  It was costing me my afternoons after work and caused me to lie down and binge-watch Netflix until it was late enough to attempt to go to sleep.  It was causing me to limit my running and I became out of shape.

Last November, I finally tried vitamins from a fitness company that included a probiotic (I had been taking Align but with no luck) and there was finally relief after a few weeks of constant use.  I used them for maybe two months until the cost became too much.  The vitamins were over $100, but it included a 30 day supply that included not only probiotics but also other vitamins that the website determined I needed to take every day based off an individualized survey of my current issues.

After about a month off of the medicine (due to the cost) and taking nothing else to help combat the pain, my “flare-ups” have returned.  Yesterday afternoon at work, I felt completely nauseous and I could hardly concentrate.  By the time I got home yesterday afternoon, the awful pain on the left side of my stomach had completely debilitated me- I spent the rest of the night on the couch watching TV because nothing else helped ease the pain besides laying down.  I have occasionally tried working out/running to help the pain, but yesterday the pain was too intense to even attempt running.  So here I am today, knowing that the only “solution” to my problems are vitamins that cost over $100.  I ended up ordering the vitamins last night.

My question to you is this- are you living with a digestive disorder, and if so, which one?  How do you combat your worst days so you can continue to do the things you love?  How do you handle the rising costs of prescription medications?  Have your doctors suggested a way to handle your digestive disorder that has worked for you?  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading my little rant!

Emily