Troubled Mind, Troubled Gut: The Minefield of a Stress Induced IBS Diagnosis

By Ida Regan 

I woke up one rainy morning in March with a strange feeling that something was off. It was an intangible, abstract thought. Without anything substantial to attach the feeling to, I dismissed it. I got out of bed and wandered into the bathroom, sat down and flinched on the cold toilet seat, and then I realised what it was. I hadn’t pooped for five days. 

Five days? Could that be right? I stayed sat on the toilet pondering this over, counting back on my fingers to the last time I could remember a bowel movement. I googled, why can’t I poop?!?! I tried to stay calm, hoping that this vague scream into the google void would be answered with a reasonable explanation. The internet said what it always says in response to any set of symptoms: cancer. Panicked, I called 111, my bum starting to get a bit numb. They arranged a meeting with a GP for later that day, who conceded that I was “extremely compacted”, her soothing tone diametrically opposed to her words. 

I was given test after test and received normal result after normal result. After the final test (coeliacs) came back negative, my doctor stopped calling. When I put more messages asking for answers on my practice’s online service, I was answered by doctors who had never met me. I was being ghosted! In person meetings and phone calls were replaced by curt messages on the system and the dreaded “Dr … has completed and closed your request”. In the minds of the GP practice, all normal results seemed to say that I was fine and that their work with me was done. They were stumped; I had been dumped. My symptoms had apparently not got the ‘normal’ memo and continued unabated. Extreme distention and bloating, fatigue, nausea, brain fog, sudden onset anaemia, and not having a ‘movement’ at one point for EIGHT DAYS were all being considered par for the course of my life. I sent a desperate message to the system, like a wounded ex begging for their lover’s attention. 

Two days later, I received a phone call from a woman I had never spoken to or met before. She told me blandly, “Yeah, it sounds like it could be stress-induced. Have you heard of IBS? I’ll send you some resources”. I was promptly emailed a link to the NHS webpage on IBS and nothing else. 

It’s proving difficult to properly express how naff this made me feel. I was walking to the bus stop when I got this phone call and, after she hung up, I just suddenly stopped moving. I had to sit down on the pavement for a minute with my head in my hands. Prior to this, I’d keep coming up with battle plans – next thing to test, next possible cause. Obviously, no one wants to be told that they have a thyroid problem or an autoimmune disease, but there is something to be said about the relief that you get from a diagnosis. The validation – you knew something was wrong, and now you know what. Once it has a name, you can learn how to manage it. Unless its name is IBS, then the next steps are, deal with it, I guess? 

Sat on the curb, bum numb once again, I felt completely at a dead end. This is just my life now, I thought, wincing. I have these symptoms forever. No one I thought would help me is going to and I can’t tell anyone else because it’s IBS, and you don’t talk about things like that. I managed to walk, my feet dragging, into the corner shop next to the bus stop. I bought myself an ice-lolly and played some Lizzo, and that combo seemed to melt away a bit of the negative self-talk and slowly reawaken ‘battle plan’ mode. 

Yes, I felt let down and slighted. No, I was not going to just give up. If no one else would help me, I became determined to cure myself. Somehow. The first part I am certain about – the how bit is still sort of nebulous. The main issue is that I have a stress-induced case due to a concoction of personal problems that I can’t get out of. It is currently logistically impossible to escape my stress. I’m a carer for a family member and I’m in a job I don’t like, but due to Ol’ Miss Rona I can’t leave it. There are also a whole host of other things that I don’t have the word count to go into! The NHS waiting list for mental health support is extremely long, and I know that there are people who need it more desperately than I do. So, at least to start with, I have to make some headway on my own. 

Stress-induced IBS is a minefield because it’s difficult to know where to start. Will changing my diet fix me, or is the onus solely on me de-stressing my life (the latter of which is currently only possible if I up-sticks to Mongolia to live as a goat)? It’s also difficult to talk about. I see my issues as more highly inconvenient and disruptive than disgusting, but that’s not the general perception around IBS. Those three letters cause a plethora of assumptions to be made about you, many of which aren’t even relevant to the type of IBS I have. I have an isolating diagnosis; IBS has a vast range of symptoms and triggers, so I don’t even feel a camaraderie with the one friend I know who also has IBS. Her experience is so different from mine that the only thing we have in common is the name. Still, I am determined to give everything a go and take up every suggestion that might improve my symptoms. 

My health remains in a dubious state. My doctors’ interest has gone on a steep decline from very concerned to blasé. But I have decided to be the master of my own fate. IBS won’t know what’s hit it.