IBS Success Story: How Kimberly Healed IBS Urgency, Bloating & Pain After 10 Years of Struggle

Jessie (00:00): Welcome to the IBS Nutrition Podcast, your go-to source for navigating the complex diagnosis of irritable bowel syndrome. Here we dive deep into IBS and discover the power of diets and lifestyle to find freedom from your IBS symptoms. I’m your host, Jesse Wong, fo dietician and a gut experts. For years, I suffered from debilitating gut symptoms that kept me out of work, feeling constant discomfort in my body and anxious around food. Today I’m in control of my IBS, able to eat the food I love, again, travel whenever I want, and spend quality time with loved ones. It is my mission to help you do the same and transform the way you live with IBS. Let’s get started. Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of the IBS Nutrition podcast. I’m your host, Jesse Wong. Today I am joined by my amazing team, dietician Brooke, and one of our former clients, Kimberly, here on the show, Kimberly is going to share her IBS Freedom story with you all.

(01:03)So grateful for you to join us. Well, let’s get started. Let’s dive into your story, and we want to share patient stories to help others out there to know that you can feel better with IBS too, because oftentimes IBS is very lonely, very debilitating, and people don’t share a whole lot about it and not hear a whole lot about it. I guess we do hear quite a bit of misinformation about it, but yeah, that’s why we want to bring our patients back, our guest here to share with you their stories. Okay. Kimberly, a little self-introduction. Who are you and what do you do? If you don’t mind, share as much as you want or as little as you wish.

Kimberley (01:45): I’m 51 years old. I live in southern Indiana. I have two adult children. My husband and I have both been self-employed most of our lives, but about five years ago, I started my most favorite job I’ve ever had. I’m a senior move manager and professional organizer, so every day I’m with clients in their homes, working with them, either helping them to get organized or packing them up and moving them to either a nursing home or assisted living facility and making sure that they are unpacked and set up properly.

Jessie (02:19): Oh, that’s amazing. That’s a meaningful job.

Kimberley (02:22): Yeah, I love it. Love it. Yeah.

Jessie (02:24): Oh, awesome. Okay, well, tell us more about maybe when your IBS got started. What were you dealing with?

Kimberley (02:33): I’m going to say it started probably close to 10 years ago, or maybe a little bit longer, but I’m just trying to think back. And it probably started a little bit before that. The first diet kind of thing I had was when I was nursing my second child and went to the doctor. Her diapers were looking funny, and that’s when she had me eliminate some things from my diet, both for my sake and hers and said it was only temporary. I didn’t have to do it forever, but just to lay off some certain things. But that had kind of stayed with me. And then when I was 42, I had my first colonoscopy because I was absolutely convinced, self-diagnosed, that I had a major gastrointestinal issue. So I’d say pretty young, kind of early, I feel like.

Jessie (03:29): Yeah. I love that you share that because it is something we hear all the time. People have so much anxiety over their health because the symptoms of IBS again, right. It’s very debilitating, very painful. What symptoms were you dealing with? The majority of the time?

Kimberley (03:43): Constant urgency to use the restroom, A feeling of deep internal inflammation. It’s so hard to describe, but with that abdominal pain, yes, when I would poke around on my belly, it was tender, but not painful. It was like a deep stinging burning and itching, almost like there was heat in there. I would pass mucus quite a bit. I looked like on the outside I looked like you could pop me with a pin. I look at certain pictures and I can just see how inflamed I was. I was constantly feeling like I was craving something or looking for something or needed or wanted something to eat, but I couldn’t figure out what that was, and I just had to go to the bathroom all the time. Well, I thought I did. Sometimes I actually did, sometimes I didn’t. It was almost like the symptoms of A UTI, and it was both urination and bowel movement where I thought, oh, I have to go pee pee, and I didn’t, but I felt like I did. And I even asked my gp, is that because everything’s so inflamed, it’s pushing on the bladder? I mean, that’s what I thought in my mind, that’s what it felt like.

Jessie (05:02): Yeah, and I’m so sorry to hear that. And what have you tried before coming to us? I think you started mentioning about some of the dietary changes, which you did it sounds like a long time ago, and that stuck with you.

Kimberley (05:16): So I mean, I’m the daughter of a physician and he’s a retired general and gynecological surgeon. So one thing I’ve learned over the course of my adulthood was surgeons when I had my first baby and she had her first ear infection, he looked in her ear and said, oh, that’s an ear infection. And then he got his PDF and asked me how much she weighed and started doing math. And I said, forget it. I’m going to my doctor or her pediatrician. But he said, I haven’t written a script for a baby since med school. But in my mind, I was thinking, I’m pro doctor. I like doctors. And so I went straight to a gastroenterologist and he was great, and he listened to me and talked to me about my symptoms and things and did the colonoscopy for me. But what was so confusing was I got a perfectly clean bill of health. I had a completely healthy colon, and he ruled out many, many of my big questions and fears. So then that kind of just left me back to square one, trying to figure out, well, then why this just can’t be right. How can this be happening? Kind of thing. So then I started just not much, but trying to talk to girlfriends and things about it. People are comfortable with talking about it. It’s so hard to talk about.

Jessie (06:40): I want to pause you for a second, because your experience, it’s very legitimate. A lot of people have the experience and sometimes they feel like they’re written off by their physicians. I would just want to say that you are not being written off to everybody else listening. It’s a very good thing to have a healthy colon. It can be so much worse if something does come back positive. So don’t feel discouraged. And your first step is absolutely correct, is going to a specialist, going to somebody who actually understands the GI track instead of going to a general physician that may have some knowledge but doesn’t have enough knowledge to know what tests to do or maybe just how to move forward. So getting all of those out of the way, right as your first step is perfect. And you have that knowledge coming from a medical family.

Kimberley (07:28): I saw three different, over the course of this whole, I saw three different gastrointestinal physicians and my GP I talked to about it, and they all three. Yeah. I mean, we’re very good and very kind and listen. But I think again, it’s kind of like, I mean, I should have thought of this analogy before we started talking about it, but it’s like I made it too hard. Like I said, going straight to the top. I mean, I should have started a little bit more simpler and basic with just my diet. Just what am I eating and doing every day? Because I was just so convinced there was so much more wrong with me. This could not be typical. This just could not be something that, and I had never, ever, ever heard of fodmap. I actually stumbled on fodmap, desperate in the middle of the night, can’t sleep online. And I found the FODMAP acronym on Pinterest, and it had a list of all the symptoms. And I was like, yes, yes, yes. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. There may have been two symptoms I didn’t have. And it’s interesting because I’ve even asked other, I’ve asked physician, the last physician, the last astro I saw, I said, are you familiar with the FODMAP diet? And he said, no,

Jessie (08:55): I hear you on that. Well, but I do have to say for anybody else listening, don’t try to do elimination diets on your own. It can be very hard. And sometimes we do see it leads to eating disorders, so going to the physician, making sure everything checks out okay. There’s nothing really wrong with your bowels because it could be overlapping conditions like celiac disease or inflammatory bowel disease, which I’m sure you were thinking of when it comes to IBS diarrhea. Yes. Yeah. So I think getting everything checked out is good. And then when everything is good, then we think about working on diet and lifestyle. It’s never just food, right? It’s so much more than just food.

Kimberley (09:35): Right.

Jessie (09:36): Yeah. Okay. Tell us more. So you went to three gastroenterologists?

Kimberley (09:41): Yeah, the first time, the gastroenterologist, the first one I went to who, like I said, was very, took his time and it was very helpful. He said, I think you just have IBS. And I said, that’s ridiculous. IBS is totally made up. That cannot be a real thing. I mean, even its name, irritable bowel syndrome. Sounds like just a whiner complainer. And like I said, I’ve always been, you’re fine, get up, shake it off. Sadly, I do the same to my own kids or did. But yeah, I just thought IBS is not real. It’s just for cry babies.

Jessie (10:23): It is real right now. It’s real. Unfortunately, it’s treatable by diet and lifestyle.

Kimberley (10:31): Yes, but it’s definitely real. Yes. And then I found the fodmap, like I said, on Pinterest. So I did do that. I did try to do the elimination diet all on my own, and that did not go well, of course. And of course, it’s very challenging. I mean, it’s a huge challenge. And then you just get a day where you’re just busy and tired and overwhelmed and you just toss it and you just eat something. And yeah, it was really hard. Also in my job, it’s very seasonal and it’s very, right now is our busiest season. And so I had to give myself the grace to wait until I had time to really focus on myself, which is hard for anyone, period. That in itself. So yeah, I was trying all these things, but still having flares that I could not figure out, and I just could not get to the bottom of it. And that’s when the frustration was just overwhelming. And then I went back to, of course, well, it has to be something else. There has to be something physically wrong. And there wasn’t, blood tests are always perfect. I mean, everything comes back great. That random flare, I couldn’t put my thumb on it. I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Jessie (12:05): Right. And how did you find, may I ask?

Kimberley (12:08): I think because I am so close to Bloomington and I work in Bloomington a lot, I was looking for a dietician, or I don’t even think it was a dietician. I was looking for a FODMAP person, someone associated with the FODMAP acronym near me. And it came up that you were in Bloomington, and this is post. So when I found out you had left Bloomington, but we could do all this, we are now online, I thought, oh, yeah. I mean, I just had to kind of wake up and be like, it really doesn’t matter where the person is. I can still get the counseling that I need. That’s what I was looking for is the counseling, trying to just talk to someone to help me figure out what I was missing. And for me, it was very important that it was a woman. And that’s just the me thing.

(13:04)The three gastro guys and my GP are all men, and they’re all very good doctors and I like them. But there is something to be said for especially the stage of life I’m in going into this perimenopause, which is a whole new, fresh, new hell. I mean, all of those weird things. I mean, I keep itching my head and my ears are itchy, and I had no idea. That’s a new thing I’m learning. That’s a perimenopause symptoms. Who would’ve thought that? But it’s the same with fodmap. And I thought, I really do want to talk to a woman because when there is abdominal cramping and when there are all these things that only we know about, even your bowel movements change in your cycle. So that was another big huge plus, is that when I saw your picture and whatever I found in Bloomington, I stumbled on you and I was in, and then I watched you offered a free something and I watched it, and I booked it that night.

Jessie (14:05): So we offer a free IBS relief masterclass. It’s really learning more about IBS. Right? I think there’s a lot of misconception out there about IBS. So we have this free training toward the end of the free training. We talk about our program as well. But for anybody listening, it is ibs dietician.com/masterclass. If you want to watch it. It’s extremely helpful. It’s not just for patients. Well, it’s not just for people who want to work with us, it’s for anybody to learn more about IBS and understanding there are different types of IB S and more importantly, IBS symptoms don’t show up randomly. It’s understanding. You need to find your unique trigger so that you can prevent symptoms from coming back. Well, we haven’t got to do now yet with Kimberly, so let’s give our listeners some hope. So how are you doing now? And then we can go back to talk about what we did together.

Kimberley (14:58): So much better. I feel so much better. Finally. So beforehand, like I said, I was always looking for things and constantly wanting to eat something and trying to find a way to soothe my symptoms. I don’t have any of that anymore. I’m getting back to my normal adult weight that, I mean, I feel like my typical weight that I should be, I mean, my weight has fluctuated. I feel like so much over the past, I don’t know, couple of years. I mean, most of my adult weight has been the same since I’ve had children. It pretty typically stayed right there in that window. But then it started fluctuating again, my age, the menopausal thing, all kinds of things. But I’m finally getting that more stabilized. I was taking the wrong kind of magnesium, for example, and Brooke was like, yeah, the glycinates great, but we really think you should take the citrate. Well, I didn’t even know there were different kinds of magnesium. There’s four or five, right? I didn’t even know that.

Jessie (15:59): Yeah, there’s a lot.

Kimberley (16:01): I was so confused about taking a magnesium because I had alternate diarrhea and constipation, and I thought, well, that’s not going to be good. But no, I’m finally on a regular diet. Everything’s leveled out. My weight is where it should be. I have one bowel movement every morning, and it’s typical. I know. I mean, it’s like I was so envious of people that could do that, and now you’re one of them. Yeah. I’m like, well, look at this now. I still just coming out of a holiday weekend, which was a very atypical holiday here, because it was gross and nasty, and well, not much going on, but I still will get into some trouble if I’m not careful and overdo it with holiday. But otherwise, I mean, I just couldn’t be happier. I feel like a normal person finally.

Jessie (16:57): So glad to hear that. Well, I’m going to let Brooke jump in and you guys can talk about what we did together with you and what the process was so that listeners can maybe get some insights on what they need to do as well. Okay.

Brooke (17:10): Yeah. So Kim, remind me in the beginning where I was looking back through your notes, but where did we start with diet or what was the most helpful intervention that we did together?

Kimberley (17:29): Well, as bizarre and crazy and as awful and weird as it sounds, and it was equally as awful for me to do. It was pictures of my poop. I would do one and I’d take a picture and be like, that can’t be normal, right? What is that? I mean, I’d be like, and by the way, there were five of those today. I mean, I remember one time you laughing because I was like, I just feel like the grossest big giant poop monster. Yeah. In your note. Yeah. But there, and then I’d go three or four days and not do it at all. And it I couldn’t figure out. But honestly, I think that was the most helpful because, and then I remember going to poop eda. I didn’t know about that and learning all that by myself. And we were laughing. I was saying, yeah, I got a seven hour flight to London. I’ll just make sure no one can see my phone and look at hoop. Well, I’m flying over there. But it really was helpful because it ultimately led me in a direction I was never even thinking about going, ever. I never would have thought that that was my issue.

Brooke (18:49): And I think that London trip was kind of where you really realized your trigger food. Is that correct?

Kimberley (18:57): Yep. Because they have it figured out over there. And I’m so frustrated that the United States is not on board. I was scared to death. I thought, I’m going to die on this trip. I don’t know what I’m going to be able to eat Every single menu I opened up next to what? I mean, it would have the food allergies listed to the side of every single entree. And I thought everywhere we went, and it was never once an issue. I mean, even when we went to those, there’s just vendors everywhere. Markets. I mean, there’s fresh food. They’re cooking, there’s food you can buy. I mean, they’re all over the place and they’re so much fun. And I would walk up to a place and say, I’d really like some of this pa, but I have, and they’d be like, oh, yeah, what is it? I mean, they were just totally on board with, I feel like over here, we’re not there yet. I mean, I’ll go into a restaurant now and literally say, I’m the one to the staff. I have a question about this dish. And they’re like, oh. And then they’re just kind of like, oh gosh, I don’t know. And they have to go to the kitchen and ask. And it wasn’t that way in Europe.

Jessie (20:13): I would say in the us, it depends on which city you are and are definitely cities where they have more awareness of when it comes to food allergies or intolerances so that they can accommodate. But then it is not across the US

Kimberley (20:27): And not in rural Indiana.

Brooke (20:30): I was just going to say, you’re in a very rural area, which was another good point. And I’ve used you as an example with other clients to be a self-advocate and to call the restaurant beforehand and ask what their protocols are, and you order things especially and following the correct guidelines. And you are great at doing that, and you were just so matter of fact about it and just that’s what needed to be done, and you just did it. And it’s a great example.

Kimberley (21:04): Well, yeah, I think, like I said, my husband and I have always been self-employed business owners, and I want to know what my customers want. So when I call a restaurant and say, Hey, I need you to help me with this issue. We’re coming in tonight and this is set this aside for me or don’t do this or that they’re accommodating. Because I think in the group thing, we were talking about this, the girl was scared to death to go anywhere and ask. And I said, they want your money. They want your business, and they want you to come back. And they want me to tell other people, just call ahead. Just tell ’em what you know.

Jessie (21:42): Yeah, that’s great. That’s great advice. And really advocating for yourself because you’re not doing it to be annoying or anything. You’re doing it to protect your own health. And if a restaurant does not respect that, then it’s probably not somewhere you want to go back to. Now, Kimberly, I want to ask you, how long did it take for us to figure out your trigger, and what was the process?

Kimberley (22:03): Not long at all. I think about two weeks, honestly. It took me about a week to absorb it and get on board because I was devastated by the news. I just thought, no, no, no, no. And it took about four weeks for me to feel like I got it all out of my system. And once that happened, I thought, I am never going back. I mean, I think it is, there is a lot of mental with this, once you figure out, you’re given the suggestion, let’s try to eliminate this. And it’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s going to be so hard. I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to make that adjustment. And then once you surrender and do it and realize that you feel so much better, then it’s not a problem. Then you don’t have, you’re like, this is great. I will do this mean. Yeah, it’s so worth it.

Jessie (23:14): And for your case, you specifically actually have the food trigger and that once you remove the food, you feel so much better and you’re not going back. And I think a lot of listeners here might be thinking, I’m just going to deal with the pain, deal with the urgency or deal with what would you tell everybody?

Kimberley (23:31): Absolutely not. I mean, why would you deny yourself the ability to feel good, to feel great? I mean, I have one main huge trigger that I will not touch, but then I have two or three other smaller ones that I will accept. For example, if someone else made something and brought it to my house and it’s got a little bit of that in it, I’ll maybe have a small serving, but otherwise, absolutely not. I will not touch.

Jessie (24:03): And the two to three smaller triggers. So you are referring to the FODMAPs. Okay. Would you maybe talk a little bit about our process of reintroducing FODMAPs for you? How long have you been on low FODMAP prior to working together and maybe what our process was?

Kimberley (24:19): I’d say maybe three or four years, but that was on my own without any help, and that was before I could figure out what the main problem was. So there were certain things that were obvious flares and triggers. The second I would eat it, I would think, oh, yeah, that was a bad idea. I mean, not necessarily within hours, but by the end of the day or definitely the next morning big. And then I also just avoid big giant categories of too much. I just am very, very careful with sugars of any kind. And now that I understand what sugars are, I just in my mind will be like, yeah, I’ve had just enough of that. So I don’t know. I’m so used to it now, but it’s not a big issue. It’s not

Jessie (25:19): A problem anymore. It does take time. Yeah. Okay.

Kimberley (25:21): It does take time, and it takes, like I said, you have to put in the effort to take care of yourself, but once you get it down, then it’s, it’s not a big deal. But yeah, the elimination and reintroduction it, it’s scary. And it’s almost like I would do it on the weekends when I knew I could be home and close to my own bathroom because I thought, I don’t want to do it when I’m going to work or going, you just don’t know how you’re going to respond. But again, I was still not doing it correctly on my own because I was still intaking my one major. And so it was just very confusing.

Jessie (26:05): So when you were trying it on your own, because you haven’t identified the root cause to all of your symptoms, you haven’t removed that trigger. So when you were doing the fault challenges, you had symptoms, and when we were doing the fault map challenges for you with you, would you say you tolerated most of the fault maps?

Kimberley (26:24): Okay. at that point, yeah most of them. There were some that I knew for sure I wasn’t going to do, and some that still to this day will bother me if I think, oh, no, that banana looks like it’s not too ripe. I’ll go ahead. But it was, or maybe just half of it instead of the whole, right?

Jessie (26:49): Yes.

Kimberley (26:51): Yeah, definitely. There were things that I thought, I don’t need to try to reintroduce that. That’s one that I know for sure. But then there are others that I have been able to bring back into my diet and it’s so exciting.

Jessie (27:07): Yes

Kimberley (27:08): So exciting.

Jessie (27:10): Yes. I’m so glad to hear this because Well, and again, right, hearing your story too, you’ve been on the lymphoma diet for such a long time prior to this and not doing it correctly and not knowing how to reintroduce correctly. And I think this is very helpful for listeners too. Don’t try any elimination diets on your own because it is so confusing. One, it’s number two, it really causes a lot of food fear when you don’t know how to reintroduce properly or if you work with a provider. This is something we hear a lot too, which frustrates me as a dietician, because sometimes people go to a dietician who doesn’t specialize in GI and being put on the lymphoma diet, and they stay on the lymphoma diet thinking that’s what they need to do because the doctor told them to do it, or a dietician told them to do it. Well, for your case, you found it on Pinterest and you stay on it for a long time. Yeah. So please, if you’re listening, don’t try elimination diets on your own. It can be harmful for our mental health. I think the mental health piece is the more important piece because you become so afraid of it.

Kimberley (28:13): Yeah. I was so embarrassed. I also was scared to death, like I said, to go anywhere and try to eat something, kitchens or someone else cooking something. Yeah, it was debilitating. But also, I had gotten into such a habit of, Ooh, that’s a big FOD map, nono, so I’m just not going to eat it. And then I realized slowly after working with you guys, oh, this is exciting. Actually, that wasn’t what was causing the problem, and I could bring it back into my diet. And so actually in the end, there are very few things, very few things that I leave out. But I also, I will say too, in my stage of life and at my age, we don’t hardly eat a single bite of processed food. I mean, I’m not raising kids anymore. I don’t have frozen chicken nuggets and box. I don’t, I’m not even just tossing a couple into my mouth that are leftover instead of throwing ’em away. I mean, we do have a very whole food, clean diet, mostly because of our lifestyle at this stage of life. Yeah.

Jessie (29:27): Well, that’s great that you can do that. Most people won’t be able to do it, but however you know what your triggers are, you can avoid them pretty much, and you expand it on your diet. Oh, I love that you said maybe I can eat that. It’s really exciting.

Kimberley (29:42): Yeah.

Jessie (29:42): Okay. Oh, that’s amazing. Now, there was something you wrote in the testimonial about going to conferences and having to get your own hotel room versus not. Can you tell us more about that? I read two lines of it, and I’m just thinking, oh my God, this is so exciting.

Kimberley (30:00): Yeah. So my boss, the way she was just going to take the project managers, those are the girls of us that put the jobs together for our clients when they need to get the family member moved, whatever. And she said, let’s go to conference. And we are members of an association, a big association, and she was going to put us all in sharing rooms. And I said, I’m just going to pay for my hotel room out of my own pocket. It’s not a big deal because I just really can’t expect someone to share a bathroom with me. And she’s like, why? And I said, Cheryl, the other night, I got up at two o’clock in the morning and pooped.

(30:38)I’m like, I can’t share a hotel room with someone and do that. I mean, that’s so strange. And she just kind of laughed and was like, are you sure? And I was like, I’m sure it was such a strange problem. And somewhere in your program it asked me, do you have nocturnal pooping? And I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a thing again. I thought I knew that was weird. I knew that couldn’t be a normal thing, but I didn’t even know, how do you say to someone, Hey, by the way, I pooped at 2:00 AM I would wake me up in the middle of the night because I had to go to the bathroom. I mean, that is so strange to me. Yeah. I mean, thank goodness she’s a woman. And she laughed and was like, I mean, totally up to you. And I did. And I was the one down the hall in my own room. And I mean, even the other girls would be like, we’re constantly texting, Hey, we’re going down for dinner or whatever. Do you want to meet in the lobby? And I’d be like, no, I’m ready here. And they’d be like, you. Okay. I feel like, but yeah, I mean, it affects your whole entire life. Entire. It did. It doesn’t anymore. I was able to go to conference last year and share a room.

Jessie (31:59): Yeah. Oh my God. Look at that. I know. Yeah. Amazing. Saving money, saving time, saving everything.

Kimberley (32:11): Yeah.

Jessie (32:13): Okay. Yes. Well, Brooke, do you have any questions you want to ask Kimberly or Kimberly? Yeah. Or Kimberly, do you have anything else you want to share in the questionnaire before we did this?

Kimberley (32:23): I said the biggest mistake I made and doing this whole thing was booking it. During my busiest season of work. I wish I would’ve, but in desperation, like I said, I was just like, no, we’re doing this right now. There’s not going to be a good time. But I really was overwhelmed and busy at work. Had I slowed down and taken more time, I think I would’ve gotten a lot more out of it. Although in the end, we found my problem. So I don’t know. I don’t know if it would’ve mattered or not, but I got a lot out of the group meetings talking because you’re so overwhelmed with your own issues, and then someone else will talk about theirs, and you think, oh, yeah, that happens to me too. But I didn’t even really think when someone says, well, how are you feeling? You don’t realize, oh, I didn’t think of that one. But yeah, that too. Yeah. But I mean, I was just like Brooke was saying, oh, you’re not in your car on your way to another job. And I’d be like, I can jump on it too from my vehicle. Can I be the first one, please real quick, because I’d be zooming all over the place. But when I was able to really do the whole with everyone, that was very helpful.

Jessie (33:44): So for those of you listening, this is Kimberly talking about our signature small group program, and we call it the VIP group program, which we meet every week, which is very important because with GI disorders, when we recommend a change or when we recommend to modify certain things, diets or lifestyle, you see the changes pretty quickly. And we want to follow up soon after that to make sure we understand what caused the change. Is it a good thing? Do we want to continue that or do we want to change our strategy? And Kimberly said too, we look at bowel movements, which is, oh my God, so helpful. Because if the stool is progressing in the right direction, then we know the strategies we are implementing are working. And everyone is so different when it comes to IBS. Some people have food triggers, some people have lifestyle triggers. Some people have symptoms from the medication or supplements they’re taking, or they have overlapping conditions. But being able to see the poop really helps us get better understanding of what’s going on in their guts.

Jessie (34:47): Sorry. Once you do it, it’s like, well, we just got off a call with a colleague who is working with us right now. She’s a dietician herself. She’s an older dietician too. And she’s like, oh my God, this is enlightening seeing this stew pictures.

Kimberley (35:06): And I think to myself, why? I don’t know why it’s so hard, but it is, like I said, when I had a baby and her diapers weren’t looking correctly, it was no problem to say, Hey, but when it’s your own and you’re an adult, it’s like, but I mean, it probably was the thing that saved me.

Jessie (35:28): And a lot of our clients actually say, Jessie, I’m so sorry. Oh, Brooke, I’m so sorry. There’s blood in here. Or, it’s so gross because it’s fully diarrhea. And then one of our responses, don’t worry, we’ve seen it all. It’s not gross to us at all because it’s information. And the dietician that we just got off the call from, she said, I’m putting the poop in food. I don’t like that. I want it in its own place where we put it usually in the notes section. She didn’t know how to do it. I said, you know what? As long as you upload it for us, we are grateful. Please keep doing that. Yeah. Okay. Well, do you have any recommendation for people who might be struggling rights now? What would you recommend for them to maybe pursue or start?

Kimberley (36:10): Oh, definitely do this program. Definitely. For sure. And like I said, give yourself time and grace. And like I said, I had to take a minute and go through my pity party before I really got on board with surrendering to eliminating certain things I didn’t want to. Yeah, just it is a process, but it is so worth it. It’s so worth it.

Jessie (36:39): Yeah. Understanding your triggers. Did you have any lifestyle triggers that you worked through and learned more about?

Kimberley (36:45): I don’t think so. I don’t think so. Thank goodness. I mean, major, huge, horrible, traumatic stress has happened, of course in my life. And I think it happens in everyone’s life. But we’ve had a pretty good run where things have been pretty, I’m a really good sleeper. No, I really don’t think any of that. I think it was mostly 99% diet, just what I was eating. Yeah.

Jessie (37:16): Yeah. That’s awesome. Yes. So for anybody else listening, don’t give up. And you probably want to do this before you rush into, well, you go into a b, C season, but you got out through the program through your BCCs and Okay.

Kimberley (37:33): I did. I mean, like I said, that is my only regret is that I was so busy doing it and would’ve spent more time really zoned in on it and focused on it, but also in the end, it didn’t matter. It really didn’t matter. I mean, we got it figured out pretty quickly, and I was able to do it when I was really busy.

Brooke (37:57): Yeah, I think the good part of the group program is each person kind of gets their own time, but that only own time only needs to be 10 to 15 minutes. If you can jump on and jump off, if you have more time, even with your camera off to just listen in and hear everyone else’s story while you’re doing your work or whatever, that is great too. So it can be as quick as 10 minutes to as long as when there’s a bunch of people and it’s like an hour long, but it doesn’t have to be a huge time commitment. And if you’re journaling and doing all the things, you’re going to get a good response out of the program, for sure.

Jessie (38:36): Right. Yeah. By the journaling to put pictures, the diet journaling, the food journaling, those are all really helpful cues, especially for your case, since your biggest trigger was the food and we were able to identify it. And now, what are you looking forward to in life?

Kimberley (38:51): Oh, gosh. I mean, we talk about, we say we’re going to travel more, but yeah. I mean, if I can talk my husband into taking a minute off work, I don’t know. Just cooking again, I love to cook. Oh, yeah. I don’t even really know what sushi is. I’ve never really had sushi, but it’s this, again, southern Indiana here, people are having sushi parties now. And I think, okay, well, let’s learn about that. I mean, I can do that now. I can just say to the chef, let’s do it, and here’s what I can and can’t do. And I don’t know. I mean, just all of it. Everything. I mean, that’s great. Just I feel like myself again, I have my life back. I have my freedom. I mean, that is the biggest thing. Freedom. I mean, it’s like I was a slave to the unknown. Yeah. I mean, I just never knew what would give me a flare. I never knew and I couldn’t. And now that’s gone and it’s just so nice.

Jessie (39:59): Yeah. Identifying your trigger to get IBS freedom, Right? Yeah.

Jessie (40:03): Yay. Yes. And we try not to, for those of you listening, we try not to say what the trigger is because everybody have different triggers, and it’s really important to identify your own instead of eliminating everything. And that’s actually something Kimberly did in the past is cutting out a lot of food, and now you can eat all of those food back except that one trigger that really causes a lot of your symptoms.

Kimberley (40:28): Right. Yes. Don’t give up. And then I know the words to just be careful with.

Jessie (40:33): Right?

Kimberley (40:33): I can eat them. I just need to really be careful and then, yeah.

Jessie (40:39): That’s amazing. So don’t give up warriors if you’re listening. Know that there is a path forward, but you need to identify what triggers your symptoms so you can remove it, so you can avoid symptoms. And also having tools to manage if symptoms do happen, which sometimes it still does, but once you know what it is, you can’t recover a lot faster.

Kimberley (40:59): Right.

Jessie (41:00): Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Kimberley (41:03): Yeah, thank you. Good to see you guys again.

Jessie (41:06): Thank you for tuning into the IBS Nutrition podcast. We hope today’s episode has brought you closer to understanding and managing IBS. Remember, you are not alone on this journey and finding freedom is possible for more on IBS. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcast platforms, and please leave us a five star review. We would really appreciate that you can access links mentioned in this episode in the show notes to learn more about your type of IBS and how to identify your own food or lifestyle triggers. Register for our free IBS masterclass, three steps to IBS Relief for our proven holistic three steps approach to managing IBS once and for all. Head to IBS dietician.com/masterclass to register. Until next time, take good care of your gut and here’s to your health and happiness.