IBS Success Story: How Mariela Identified Her Trigger, Overcame Diarrhea, and Reclaimed Her Life

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 map dietician, and a gut expert. 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 everybody. Welcome to another episode of the IBS Nutrition podcast. Today I have a past client here with me, and this is Mariela. Mariela came to us in 2022 when she was struggling with diarrhea and a lot of food fear, and we worked together to identify Maria’s trigger and also reintroduced a lot of food back into her diets and give her the confidence to eat again. And today we are so excited for Mariela to come and join us and share her IBS story. Hi Mariela.

Mariela (01:13): Hi Jessie. Thank you for having me on.

Jessie (01:16): How are you? Thank you for joining us. I’m great. I’m just so excited to share your story because your story, because probably one of those that many can really relate to a lot of food fear cutting out foods that you could probably tolerate for a long time right before identifying your triggers. So before we go in, tell us, if you don’t mind, share with us who you are as much as you like or as little as you want to share.

Mariela (01:40): Yeah, okay. Well, I am a soon to be 41-year-old woman who has two kids, happily to be married for a little bit of what, 15 years now. And I think looking back into my life and when I first started having some issues, I think I was pregnant for the second time when I first started having symptoms here and there. It wasn’t anything that was very like, oh, you got to pay attention to this type of situation. It was more very sporadic. Right. And I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if it was just symptoms of the pregnancy or what was going on, but I really wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating or not eating. But yeah, that was nine years ago now. So it’s been a long process until I found you two years ago and I was able to finally figure out what the issues were and get things under control. And now two years later, I’m living happily and haven’t really had many issues or anything like that since. So I’m excited to be here and share a little bit about my story and then sort of go through the process again.

Jessie (02:52): Well a little trip down the memory lane, especially now that you’re in such a good place and you don’t have to really worry about symptoms. Yes. Okay. Well, tell us a little bit, what symptoms were you struggling with before you come to work with us?

Mariela (03:06): So it started with urgency that I remember I would be dropping my daughter off at daycare and all of a sudden just feel this need to just use the restroom and had to rush back home because thankfully the daycare was kind of closed so I could make it back home. But it was just this very, like I said, random, not all the time. As the years passed, it started to become more of an issue. And then I remember in 2017, the biggest thing I was struggling with the most were migraines. I was having constant migraines and it wasn’t once every month. It was like once or twice a week, I’m sorry, or sometimes even three times a week. And I’m like, okay, this is really not normal. It’s not something that I’ve really suffered with in the past. So I started going to the doctor and I said, this is what’s happening.

(03:56)I’m not exactly sure what’s going on. So he is like, okay, well let’s just do, at the time, I believe they did some testing just for allergies just to see what was going on. Everything would come back fine, and I still struggle and I still struggled. So went back a couple months after and I said, Nope, something is going on. This is not. So they did some blood work and some testing and found that I could have some intolerance to maybe lactose. And I said, okay, so maybe that’s what it is. And me being Latina, dairy is a big part of our diet, but to me at the time it was like, oh my God, what do I do? But I started experimenting with different things, vegan stuff, stuff that was lactose free, started feeling better, no more migraines, but the GI issues continued sporadically again.

Jessie (04:45): Yeah. What GI issues were you dealing with that?

Mariela (04:48): So more that it was the urgency I would eat and within half hour to an hour I would have to find a bathroom. There was no, oh, I can hold it. I can breathe through this, it’ll be fine. It was either you go or you’re going to go find a place to go or you’re going to have an accident. I have breakfast, get in my car, be on my way to work and have to pull over at a gas station or be at work and sometimes not feel great and have to use the restroom. Thankfully, usually the GI issues would stop by the time I would get to the office just because I had already had to stop. If I was out and about, it would just hit and I couldn’t figure out why. Or if I was like, okay, well I took this out of my diet, why isn’t this getting better?

(05:36)Like I said, it wasn’t all the time. It wasn’t after every meal. So it was very hard for me to say, oh, it could be this or it could be that. So this now we’re talking, it’s probably two years after 2017 and I’m still having these issues and they’re becoming more and more recurrent. I ended up going to a gastroenterologist. They did all types of tests and everything would come back fine. No, you don’t have this, you don’t have that. Everything’s good. I’m like, okay, I guess I’ll try to figure it out on my own Again, go back to the primary doctor. He would do more lab work again, everything was fine. And at some point he said, well, I think you just have IBS. And I said, okay, what does that mean? He said, well, you may have some intolerant to some type of food.

(06:25)You just kind of need to figure out what that is. And I said, okay, but how do I do that? And then it was more like, well, you just got to take things out and then try ’em again. I okay. But there was really no direction on how to do it, what the process was. So again, I was sort of on my own trying to figure it out. I remember I cut out onions and garlic and things like, okay, maybe it’s that right? You read on the internet and I would just start cutting things from my diet and I still was not finding any type of relief. At some point, I even cut out dairy milk. So I went into the oat milks and the almond milks and still not feeling well. So I couldn’t really pinpoint it. It was really hard. And it wasn’t until a trip we took in 2021, we were overseas.

(07:13)We land the next morning we go have breakfast at a restaurant. We get in a car because we were going to go meet some family and there’s traffic and we’re fine for a few minutes, and then all of a sudden the episodes start where it hits. And I’m like, okay, just try to breathe. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. And we’re in this traffic, we’re not moving. And I’m like, Mariela, just breathe. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. And finally I had to say to the family member were with, I said, we need to find a place to pull over because I need to use the restroom. And I think that was the moment when I said enough, and I was like, I can’t keep living this. It’s just too much. I was starting to get anxiety when I would leave my house, whenever we get places, I would look for where the bathroom was, just in case I needed to use it.

(08:03)I knew where it was, it, it was pretty bad. We get ready to go on road trips and I would try to like, okay, well I’m not going to eat this or I’m not going to eat that just in case, or what happens if it’s this? Okay, well 30 miles out or 50 miles out, wherever there might be a restroom. So it was just starting to affect me mentally as well. So I told my husband, I said, when we get back, I need to find a solution because I can’t keep doing this. So then we come back and it was like a Sunday afternoon, we go to bed and I start scrolling through my phone, literally went on Instagram. I typed IBS dietician and guess was the first person that came up. It was you. And I said, okay. And I started going through your Instagram, reading the information that you have posted, and I said, okay, well let’s see if she has any appointments available to meet.

(08:51)I think you were getting ready to start a group session, but I think it was two weeks out or two or three weeks out. So I said, okay, lemme try it. And I went on your calendar and there was one appointment and I said, I’m taking it. It was, it was meant to happen. It was meant to be. I needed to just do it. And then you and I met two days after that, and then there was never, I never turned around and I said, okay, let’s do this because I can’t keep living like this. So that’s how I got to you.

Jessie (09:22): That’s great. So you found me, and then we had our first one-on-one consults. Yes. Tell us, maybe tell me what you were feeling after our first appointment.

Mariela (09:34): I was feeling like okay, here is someone that hopefully is going to guide me into how to figure out what the issues are in order to get better. Because honestly, at the end of the day, that’s what I wanted. I wanted to have regular bowel movements because I wasn’t, I could go three, four days without anything, and then one day I’d be in the bathroom all morning or go six, seven times throughout the day. It was kind of crazy. And then I’d be like, okay. And that was honestly, when I think back to my life, I feel like that’s how I was since I was little, but I never had the urgency issues. It was just more of the, I wouldn’t have regular bowel movements. I would go two, three days, fine. Then I have bowel movement and keep on going. And that was just normal and that’s what I thought was normal for me. But after that first meeting and after we discussed things and you came up with some ideas of what it could be, I was like, okay, I’m ready to try whatever we need to try so we can figure this out. Whatever it was, whether it was adding things, removing things, I was ready. I was at a mindset where for now what it had been, I think it was four years by then that I had already been used to cutting things. That to me was cutting. One more. Okay. We can do it. It’s fine. It’ll be okay.

Jessie (10:57): Yeah. We are not going to mention the trigger on the podcast because everyone have different triggers and it is not helpful for listeners to just cut out random things that you hear on here. Now, Mariella, prior to working together, you’ve already been cutting out food. What have you cut out? I think you said dairy and then onions and garlic.

Mariela (11:15): Yeah, I would cut out onions and things. There was at one point where I cut out bread, but then I was still eating other things that included pasta things. So I would cut out random things just because I thought, well, this is what I had for breakfast. Then I had a trigger an hour later I was in the bathroom. Maybe it was something that I ate that day without thinking, well, maybe it wasn’t something that I ate that morning. Maybe it was something that I ate, ate before and I just ate. And it was just, that’s what triggered it is the fact that I actually had some food. So I would just randomly, the biggest one I would say was dairy. Completely, 100%. I was eating lactose free to the best of my ability. At the time. I also was doing vegan bread, and I think that was primarily it. Just like I said, aside from the onions and the garlic, that was the biggest things.

Jessie (12:11): Yeah.

Mariela (12:11): Yeah.

Jessie (12:12): Okay. Well, let’s talk about our process. What do we do together and what really helped you?

Mariela (12:18): So the first meeting, you looked at my history, my medical history, we talked about what kind of testing had been done. I shared all that information with you, lab works, all of the results from those things. I think we also talked about probiotics and whether I had used them or not used them. And then what the process would be. I was going to be joining the group, the group program. I believe there was, I think it was what, four or five women, I believe, including me, I don’t recall. I know there was a couple of weeks where it was more, and then some people were ending, and then some others were starting. So I know for sure there was always at least three of us in the group, which was great because listening to everybody else’s experience, which was sometimes different than mine, made me feel like, okay, I’m not the only one that’s going through something in life, and we’re all here and we’re all being so supportive of each other. And that was amazing because it made me feel not so alone in that aspect. So that was good for sure.

Jessie (13:30): Well, I was going to say thank you for saying that because one of the things we hear as IBS dieticians is people message us, emails us a lot, is saying, we don’t want to join the group program because I don’t want to share this with other people.

Jessie (13:43): What people don’t realize, and oftentimes they will join a group program, and once they join, it’s like, oh my God, I didn’t know I can get so much support. And I think that is so wonderful for you to even say that because people don’t see the benefit. The group program, I think what it offers is that we are able to meet with a patient weekly. With IBS, it’s really hard to see a patient maybe once every two months or three months. We don’t know how things are going. And then we try to ask you as much information as possible maybe in those intermittent appointments. And everybody gets frustrated in the process. So to me, as a practitioner, the biggest benefit is being able to see my patients every week to make sure we are supporting you through a process, and you are progressing in the right direction. And I think people just don’t not always see the benefits, if you don’t mind sharing more.

Mariela (14:37): No, I agree with that because we would meet one week and I could say, Hey, this is how I’ve been feeling with what you asked me to do. And then you say, okay, perfect. So we’re going to continue to do this, but going to stop doing this, and now we’re going to add something else, and then let’s meet again in a week to see how that’s making you feel. And if it’s not making you feel great, then we’re going to stop it all together. So aside from that, you also had the app where we would track everything including our bowel movements and then what we were eating and not eating and how we were feeling. And then you would make comments to that, especially if you had us do a particular challenge during that week that we didn’t see you. So that to me was helpful because I could just say, Hey, I did this and this is how I was feeling and I wasn’t feeling so great. And then you say, okay, stop it. Even so, even though we weren’t having that one-on-one every day, you were still checking in the app and saying, yep, okay, go ahead and stop doing that. We’ll try this instead. So to me, that was very helpful. Like I said, you were able to pinpoint my issue very quickly and then just putting the tools that you gave me to use for me, it was very beneficial. So I really enjoyed working in the group.

Jessie (15:57): I’m so glad to hear that. Yes. What do you say is the process right, of identifying your trigger? We’re not going to say the trigger, but then let’s explain the process a little bit because I think it’s really scary for people hearing that, oh, I have a trigger, and then I’m sure you tried it before too, is to try to identify what your own triggers are. But there is really a systematic way to do it so that there’s no confusion.

Mariela (16:22): So with me, it was a little bit different than I’m assuming with other people just because it was one thing, it was very clear to you what it could be, and you identify that by us going through my medical history, me telling you how I felt and after eating and what I was eating and not eating and things like that. So we didn’t do, I know you talk a lot about the FODMAP and how that works. We didn’t do that with me, but once you identified what you thought it was, and we tried it, you said, we’re going to try this for the next month, see how you feel, let’s cut everything out, and then we’ll reintroduce it just to see how you feel and see if this is actually the trigger. To me, that was great because I was able to cut it out, and sure enough, the minute I reintroduced it the first day it was right there. It was great to finally, after all those years of not knowing what it was to say, this is what it’s, and I can do this. I can remove this from my diet, and it’s going to make me feel so much better because I’ve been feeling so much better for the past month alone of just not eating it, putting it in my diet.

Jessie (17:39): Yeah. I’m so glad to hear that. And I want to say it to our listeners as well. Everybody reacts to their food triggers differently. It depends on what the trigger type of trigger it is, and the reaction will be different. Sometimes there’s often a delay in reaction, and then the duration of the reaction can be different as well, depending on the person and depending on the food. Now, did we help you reintroduce some of the foods you cut out? I think dairy was a big one.

Mariela (18:06): So dairy was a big one. I hadn’t actually had, I think a full glass of milk or regular milk, I should say. I do still follow a lactose-free diet. I will say that just because I feel better when I do, even though I know I can tolerate a small amount of dairy. When we reintroduced it, I remember you had me, do I believe it was a cup of milk or no, not a cup. I think it was a fourth of a cup at first. I was able to tolerate that, and I hadn’t actually had that for the longest time. And then you had me increase that for the next two or three days, and then I wasn’t feeling so great. So it was great to see that I could tolerate a small amount of dairy. So now in my everyday life, like I said, I do still follow lactose F, but whenever we’re out, if my husband gets a dessert that has milk in it, I’ll be like, let me try that, and I know that I can have a spoon or two, and I’m like, okay, it doesn’t hurt me.

(19:05)I used to think it would. So that has been great because if my kids get a milkshake, I can try it and be like, okay, yeah, that’s too sweet. But I will say it was kind of funny because I said right after I was able to tolerate, I said, I’m going to go get ice cream with the kids. So we all go and I get a small cup of ice cream, and I started eating it. I’m like, oh my God, this is so sweet. I hadn’t had regular ice cream in so long that I had forgotten how rich they were. So that took a minute to get used to again. But again, to this day, I still do follow lactose free diet just because it just makes me feel better. I don’t feel as bloated. Milk makes me feel bloated.

Jessie (19:45): Okay. But you can still go out and eat ice cream, but I can tolerate choose to.

Mariela (19:48): Yes. 100%

Jessie (19:49): Yay. Oh my God, that’s huge. Mariela, we’re not missing out on life experiences.

Mariela (19:54): I know I have cheese. I have certain cheese or cheese that I still to this day won’t have, but there are some the hard cheeses and the more aged cheeses I will eat ’em. The softer ones I try and I don’t feel great with ’em, so I’m like, okay, I don’t need to have those, but I can still have cheese. So yeah, it’s good.

Jessie (20:14): Oh, I love that. What about garlic and onions? So these are oftentimes big triggers, and you were at one point afraid of it or you’ve removed it from your diet. How about those things? Let’s give some hope to our,

Mariela (20:27): I do eat ’em. I do eat ’em. I don’t eat ’em all the time just because my husband doesn’t really like onions, so I don’t, but I do eat ’em, and I have no problems with him as long as I don’t, I usually have no problem with either one. I found that out too after working with you. So if I have onions, I have onions, I just don’t like raw onions, but I’ll add ’em to a meal. I’ll blend them in, into seasonings and things like that, and I’m fine. Yeah, I have no problems with that. That was not the issue.

Jessie (21:00): They’re really good for I’ll gut. Right. So would you say after removing the trigger, right, it’s your tolerance to these foods improved drastically, and now you’re not even afraid of them anymore?

Mariela (21:10): Yeah, and it’s funny because now one of the big things that we do in working with you, and I know sometimes people may not like to talk about it, is we track our bowel movements and we have to take pictures of ’em, so then you can analyze it and all these wonderful things. I will say to this day, every now and again, I still look and I’m like, okay, that’s a good one. Or, oh, that’s not a good one. Or, oh, I probably ate something that didn’t sit well in my stomach. And so I can sort of look at that and also have an idea of how my body is doing, which it’s a cool thing, I guess. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird that I’m evaluating my bowel movements every so often.

Jessie (21:49): No, it’s not weird. In fact, it gives us so much information. I know before it jumped on the call, you will look at it and be like, oh, maybe I didn’t eat enough fiber. And that is always a sign, right? When you don’t have a lot of stool coming out, probably we are lacking some fiber, which is okay.

Mariela (22:04): Affects and we go out. We still go out, and I’m very, what’s great after working with you is that I’m very good at advocating for myself. We go out, I call ahead all the time, and I ask the restaurants if they cater to people that have food sensitivities, and most of the times they do, which is great. And one of the other things that I’ve learned is how to read my body. So just like I can sort of look at my bowel movements and know if I am doing well or not so well, or if my body needs something or doesn’t need something the next day, depending on how I feel, I can say maybe there was something in that meal that had something that made me trigger symptoms that made me trigger a little bit. It’s not the same as before. It’s not that urgency, but I just feel it in my body. It’s one of those things that, because I don’t put the trigger in my body anymore. Now when I eat even a tiny bit of it, I can tell my body is like, you ate something you probably shouldn’t have.

Jessie (23:08): That’s so good for you to share because sometimes until you know what your baseline is, if you’re continually eating your trigger, then you really have no idea what your baseline is. But if you are always at your baseline, then you kind of feel that, oh, something has happened. I know this is something that can trigger my symptoms. Okay, well that is so great. You’re very in tune with your body. You know exactly how you feel most of the time. And if there’s any changes, you know, it can feel it. And you can also look at your poop and understand, oh, there’s something changes, and you know how to assess it now. I think it’s such a useful skill. I think you said earlier, oh, it’s so gross, but no, it’s not gross. I mean, look at your own poop. It’s not gross. Looking at other people’s poop, leave it to the professionals. Right, right.

Mariela (23:49): Yes, 100%.

Jessie (23:51): Yeah. And poop gives us so much information about how things are going. Are we moving too fast, too slow? Could there be information in there? Is there mal absorption? It’s such a useful tool. Okay. What are you looking forward to in life after you have overcome your IBS symptoms?

Mariela (24:12): I look forward to continuing the way that I have been for the past two years, which is no more urgency. I don’t run to the bathroom. We’ve always traveled quite a bit. Now I travel and I prepare myself, right? So if I’m going to be at an airport, I usually taste snacks with me, the stuff that I can eat, because you never know, right? You never know where you’re going to go and whether or not you’re going to be able to find something. So I always try to prepare myself for whatever. If we’re going out to dinner, to somebody’s house that I may not know or may not feel very comfortable letting them know, Hey, I have this need. I’ll take something with me. I’ll take a bar, I’ll take a snack, I’ll take whatever. So I prepare myself for situations where it’s very unknown whether or not I’m going to be able to find something that I can eat.

(25:08)So yeah, I look forward to this. It’s been great. I mean, now I have morning routines. I have regular bowel movements. I plan my day. If I have to travel, I say, okay, I’ll get up a little bit earlier so that I can have my routine in the morning and everything will be fine. So then I can go on my day and not have to worry about the fact like, oh, what if I need to use the restroom? And another side to that is sometimes I am out and I’m like, oh, I need to use the restroom. But I’m like, Hey, it’s not an you can wait. You can breathe. That’s one of the other things that I got from the class is the breathing exercises, how to calm, have that gut and mind connection and just making sure that, Hey, it’s okay. This is not urgent. This can wait until maybe you’re at a place where you can find a bathroom or until you get home later in the day. There were a lot of things that I got from the C and from working with you. And honestly, I am so happy that I decided to go on Instagram that Sunday night, and I was able to find you because I was going crazy. I really, really, really was going crazy trying to figure out what was wrong.

Jessie (26:16): Well, thank you for sharing all of that, and thank you for trusting us. I feel like we’ve made a friendship through working together, and I’m just so glad you came on here to share the story. Now we are going to close out with maybe something, maybe share a couple of things that is encouraging for people who are struggling rights now.

Mariela (26:36): Okay. Well, there is hope. That’s the biggest thing. There is hope. And if it is IBS, I recommend working with you 100%. I truly, like I said, enjoyed the experience. I loved working in the group settings because it didn’t make me feel alone like I’d mentioned before. And everyone was just so supportive. Everybody from, and one of the things that I found amazing was that in my group, there were people from all over the world. It wasn’t just here. So it’s one of those things you’re like, okay, it’s not just me in my little house, in my state. It’s everywhere, right? Everyone is suffering. And it’s okay to come out and say, I have a problem and I need to find a solution. And to me, like I said, you were that solution. And once we were able to figure out what my trigger was, being able to take that out of my diet and just living great. I mean, it’s been two years of no urgency and it, it’s just been amazing. It’s been amazing.

Jessie (27:39): Thank you so much for sharing all of that. 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.