I was sick for about almost 10 years before I was officially diagnosed with FM. It must have started in my mid or late teens with constant stomach aches, bloating, flatulence and diarrhoea. And I’m not talking about ‘tummy feels a little sore’. I remember thinking to myself over and over again, this can’t be normal, if this is normal then I don’t want to be here anymore. The pain was unbearable, and it made going out a big chore because I would want to know a toilet was nearby. My nights out frequently turned to nights in and I missed a lot of events because I was always sick.
I tried to work out what foods were possibly making me ill. I was so sure that it was dairy at one stage, but removing dairy from my diet didn’t make a difference so I was back to square one. I went to three different doctors who all casually dismissed it as a simple case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and told me to try the different products available for IBS treatment. I drank aloe vera juice, had IBS probiotics, chewed peppermint tablets, went on all sorts of vitamins, but nothing worked. The sharp stomach pains followed by hours of diarrhoea followed by days of stomach bloating continued.
People threw in their two-cents worth about what I should do, or why the symptoms were occurring. “You’re eating too much”,” you’re not eating enough”, “eat more vegetables”, “eat more fruit”, “stay off milk”. I was over it, and over everyone else’s opinions too. The worst was when people used to think I was “just stressed” or would exclaim with a sigh “are you sick again”. THAT made my southern Italian blood boil.
Anyway, I had basically given up and just thought one day I’d grow out of the symptoms, but at the same time one part of me was saying it has to be something bothering you, even if that something hasn’t been pinpointed as a cause of these symptoms yet (maybe some weird food additive we use in modern cooking, and some time in the future 100 years after I die they’ll discover that x1b2x3 yellow food additive causes shocking ‘food poison-like’ symptoms in some people)…….I know, vivid imagination……..
FRUCTOSE FRIENDLY IN MELBOURNE 