how i can manage IBS at home?

Answer 1

How can I break the cycle of attacks?
Diarrhea and pain should resolve in just a few days. Constipation, especially if it's been chronic, can take several weeks after you initially calm down your gut. Please hang in there.

The best thing to do to break the cycle is to really restrict your diet for a few days (and only a few days - this is a short-term diet only) to nothing but soluble fiber foods and soluble fiber supplements, and lots of strong hot peppermint tea (if you're prone to acid reflux, try fennel or chamomile or anise instead of the mint). Peppermint is a powerful muscle relaxant and a painkiller. Fennel is the best for bloating and gas - it can really help. Try to be mildly active, even if just around the house, as gentle exercise will work the muscles of the bowels and help get them back into a pattern of normal contractions. Walking or stretching or an easy yoga practice is ideal. Exercise is especially crucial for constipation.

The soluble fiber will stabilize the GI contractions that are going haywire with IBS and causing pain, and will normalize bowel function from either extreme (diarrhea/constipation) as well. So stick to foods like plain white rice, plain instant oatmeal, cream of rice cereal, dry corn or oat or rice cereals, pasta, white breads or toast, peeled potatoes, etc. Boring, I know, but it's just a few days. Make sure you've added in a soluble fiber supplement like AcaciaTummy Fiber, too - this is crucial. Start with 1/2 level teaspoon twice a day, and then gradually increase until you stabilize. Have plenty of fresh water or the herbal teas. For soluble fiber to normalize your bowel function you must drink enough water - aim for at least 128 ounces of water each day.

After a few days, you should be feeling much better, and your gut will have stabilized. Start carefully expanding your diet - the recipes for zucchini, banana, pumpkin breads work well here, and so does the jok rice porridge soup. Begin to incorporate insoluble fiber foods - carefully! - by blending fresh fruit with soy or rice milk into smoothies, and blending cooked veggies into soups or pasta sauces. Have the smoothie with rice cereal or oatmeal, and the soup with rice or polenta. Try a bit of grilled fish or skinless chicken breast with your pasta/rice. Safe treats are the recipes for vanilla or chocolate puddings, peppermint fudge cake, banana cream pie. Keep your fat content very low and be extra careful with insoluble fiber. As you stay stable, you can expand to all the other IBS recipes, and just follow the general guidelines (still low fat, no triggers, careful with insoluble fiber) but you'll be back to a healthy diet overall and not just plain soluble fiber. You should always continue to make soluble fiber the basis of your diet, though, and have those foods as the foundation of your meals and snacks.


How can the same diet work for diarrhea AND constipation?
The same diet (as well as supplements like Acacia Tummy Fiber, Equalactin, Citrucel, Fibercon, Benefiber, etc.) will work for diarrhea and constipation BOTH, because the basis of the diet is soluble fiber. Soluble fiber works to alleviate all symptoms of IBS, from diarrhea to constipation to painful cramps and gas - it's magic.

Why is soluble fiber so special? Because unlike any other food category, it soothes and regulates the digestive tract, stabilizes the intestinal contractions resulting from the gastrocolic reflex (which go awry in people with IBS due to a brain-bowel miscommunication), and normalizes bowel function from either extreme. This means it regulates both over-motility and under-motility of the colon (people with IBS suffer from one or the other, or even fluctuate between the two). So, soluble fiber prevents and relieves both diarrhea and constipation.

Nothing else in the world will do this for you. How is this possible? The "soluble" in soluble fiber means that it dissolves in water (though it is not digested). This allows it to absorb excess liquid in the colon, preventing diarrhea by forming a thick gel and adding a great deal of bulk as it passes intact through the gut. This gel (as opposed to a watery liquid) also keeps the GI muscles stretched gently around a full colon, giving those muscles something to easily "grip" during peristaltic contractions, thus preventing the rapid transit time and explosive bowel movements of diarrhea as well. By the same token, the full gel-filled colon (as opposed to a colon tightly clenched around dry, hard, impacted stools) provides the same "grip" during the muscle waves of constipation sufferers, allowing for an easier and faster transit time, and the passage of the thick wet gel also effectively relieves constipation by softening and pushing through impacted fecal matter. If you can mentally picture your colon as a tube that is squeezing through matter via regular waves of contractions, it's easy to see how a colon filled with soluble fiber gel is beneficial for both sides of the IBS coin. Once you're stabilized soluble fiber will also help prevent further problems.

Both soluble fiber supplements (like Acacia, Equalactin, Citrucel, Fibercon, Benefiber) and soluble fiber foods (like rice, pasta, oatmeal, potatoes, white bread) will work. Insoluble fiber (like bran, raw fibrous veggies, salad greens, unpeeled fruits) will also relieve constipation, but at the risk of triggering violent GI spasms that can be very painful. These spasms can actually seize up the colon muscles in a type "charley horse", which then results in no motility and constipation once again. For this reason, the soluble fiber base is key, and insoluble fiber (which should absolutely be eaten) needs to be treated with care, and eaten according to the guidelines. Also drink lots of fresh water and exercise, of course - but you already know that.

Fats of all kinds are also triggers for constipation as well as diarrhea, because fats are a very powerful GI tract stimulant just like insoluble fiber. Fats can cause the same type of rapid spasms or "charley horse" muscle contractions in the colon, and again result in either diarrhea or constipation. The major trigger foods - red meats, dairy, egg yolks, fried foods - are high in fat and, for the meat, dairy, and eggs, also have proteins that are very difficult for the body to digest. They can basically grind digestion to a halt for IBS-constipation folks, or send it spasming out of control for the diarrhea-prone, and result in severe attacks either way. Coffee (even decaf) is a powerful GI tract irritant, and can have the same effect.

In general, people with constipation are afraid to eat the soluble fiber foods (for some reason I've never gotten to the bottom of they're thought of as "binding"), but not afraid of the supplements because they're usually marketed as laxatives (though they're technically not). On the other hand, people with diarrhea are comfortable with the soluble fiber foods but terrified to try the supplements, because they feel (quite understandably) that a "laxative" is the last thing they need. I spend a lot of time volleying back and forth trying to convince both groups of folks that a diet based on soluble fiber, avoiding the trigger foods, and carefully incorporating insoluble fiber, will only help and not hurt them, no matter what their specific IBS symptoms.

Answer 2

The most important thing is to stay regular, even if you have diarrhea.