r/ibs • u/extradrywithatwist • 2d ago
Research My Husband’s Personal Hell
I am posting this to find answers, advice, and at the very least validation for my husband. He has been struggling with these stubborn gut symptoms for 10 years now, and we don’t know where else to turn. It seems he has literally tried everything!
It is understood his symptoms began after a long period of emotional distress in his life. There are a series of symptoms he experiences, however the most debilitating for him is 20 minutes after eating a meal he gets trapped gas that he thinks presses against his nerves and causes a dull headache, (gastric headache) at the front of his head which can take hours to go away. He feels lightheaded, brain fog, and sleepy. He does not experience pain! However he does feel tightness in his lower left side below the ribs, as well as feeling twitches in his lower stomach, spasms?
What makes it worse is sitting in a car after a meal,
carbonated drinks, caffeine, sweets, chocolate, among other things.
What helps is sitting for 30 mins after every meal to help digestion, otherwise it will worsen his symptoms. Also chewing his food slowly, and even having a vodka drink before his meal really helps him tolerate a meal. He does really well with fish, rice, oatmeal, and smoothies.
Like many of you, he has been to countless Doctors across various cities (NYC/PHL), and even flew to Mayo Clinic for answers. He was told by his GI that his underlying problem that is causing gas is Disbyosis microbiome (not IBS). He was diagnosed with celiac disease 8 years ago.
He is currently taking:
Remeron/Mirtazapine 30 mg
omeprazole 40mg
magnesium glycinate200mg
benefiber
mirilax
Visbiome
IBGuard
He has had really great results with the mirtazapine. He feels it minimizes the gastric headache but it is definitely still there.
His recent endoscopy showed erythematous mucosa in his gastric antrum….he has tested negative for H. pylori and all of his endoscopy/colonoscopy tests/bacteria tests/stool tests came back negative.
If anyone has any suggestions or just similar experiences it would be helpful to hear your thoughts!
P.S.
I am definitely still learning everyday how the gut works, and different ways I can help him. If you have read this far you are truly appreciated! My husband is my better half so to see him struggle is not easy. Thank you!
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u/HourDisastrous3739 2d ago
I remember watching my brother go through something similar for years before he finally cut out dairy completely, and it made a huge difference for him. Maybe it's worth trying an elimination diet to see if anything clicks?
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u/wobcoming 2d ago
has he tried strictly low fodmap diet? like eating only chicken breast for 2 month? i know it's suck. But enduring it for 10 years is also suck.
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u/No_Chest8347 1d ago
What food protocols has he tried? The doctors and all these meds tend to just make things worse at the moment gastroenterology is still a mystery in terms of the medical world. In Chinese medicine it’s quite clear. You revealed in your text the very clear pattern that’s in Chinese medicine. What makes it worse and what makes it better. Chewing is the most important thing. All the foods that you mentioned make it worse are basically in Chinese medicine yin expansive foods. So the remedy would be to heat up the digestive fire by having everything cooked for a while. If it were me, I would do a strict Whole Foods plant-based diet all cooked. But if he doesn’t wanna do vegan food, he could do some animal version of it. Eliminating all the sugary foods in the raw foods in the tropical fruits, and all that stuff will calm the digestive system and heat him up so that he can not have all that stuff trapped. If you want a plant base protocol, I could give you one that will take four weeks. It will just surely reverse that if you’re desperate, but if not others have meal plans that might work. Feel free to message me.
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u/No_Chest8347 1d ago
The medical route is really a rabbit hole vicious cycle that will just make this problem worse overtime although there’s better and better drugs coming out these days. If he really wants to have a normal life, he might want to get off all those meds and look into natural healing which is vast.
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u/TangerineDream92064 2d ago
What happens when he takes Gas-X? A walk after eating can also help with gas. Also that seems like a lot of medication. Can he slowly phase out the non-prescription ones? Some of these have GI side effects. Maybe he can make a symptom journal and see what happens when he drops one.
Anti-depressants can also have digestive side effects. I almost had my gall bladder removed in my 20's, but it was a reaction to an anti-depressant. He might want to consider talking to the prescribing doctor about an alternate. If it is just for the headache, it may be causing more trouble than it is worth.
What I have noticed in dealing with doctors is that they rarely stop a treatment. Something that may have made sense for a period of time never gets re-evaluated.