Living with any inflammatory bowel disease is difficult and while some are worse than others, living with two is perhaps one of the worst bowel problems a person can have. Ulcers are very painful in themselves. They make eating certain foods painful and can even make eating anything on some days difficult. It feels as though you have swallowed a burning ember of fire and nothing can stop it. Some ulcers are so bad that not even prescription medication can calm the pain. There is also a condition called irritable bowel syndrome. This particular disease is not always as painful as it is annoying and embarrassing. It is as it name suggests, irritable. When the inflicted party is upset, nervous, stressed, or anything in their body is different this disease takes effect. Your bowels begin to churn and ache and if you can't get to a bathroom within a few minutes it only gets worse. This disease creates diarrhea when the person with it gets upset or thrown out of balance.
I am only 21 years old and have suffered from irritable bowl syndrome (IBS) since birth as well as an ulcer since the age of seven. These things do not always affect my life in bad ways, but they are always there lying and waiting. I was born with IBS and I was lucky in that aspect because my father and sister both were affected by IBS, and therefore finding out I had it was not much of a surprise. IBS was an easy diagnosis as it began its course the first time when my mother moved out and the change caused me to begin having symptoms. It was not as persistent as it was with my father, as my problems would come and go when I was young and did not take full affect until my teen years. The doctors said that at my young age medication would be an overstep, so me and my father together decided not to take any medication as the symptoms were more bearable than the side affects of the medication.
At the age of seven I began having stomach aches all the time. As a 20th century child I, like most my age, lived in a “broken” home. My mother had been gone for 2 years and my dad had remarried. I had a smaller sister, a step sister, and a step mother that hated me simply for being my dad's daughter. It was due to this particular part of my life that the ulcer was born. As most parents do, my father thought my stomach ache was simply a way to get out of school and it wasn't until I began to cry from pain and stopped eating that he realized it was not just some way of staying home with my grandmother all day. It was my grandmother who finally took the steps of finding out what was going on. We went to my family doctor and with a simple push with his hand on my stomach the pain hit so hard I began seeing spots. The doctor immediately sent me to the hospital to undergo a digestive system test. I'm not sure exactly what it was that he made me drink but it was like drinking strawberry flavored liquid chalk. They then put me through a series of x-rays and other tests. It was that day they found the ulcer. After asking multiple questions and looking back on my school records it was decided I had acquired a stress induced ulcer.
Dealing with a stepmother who hated me and talked of killing me and having my dad to herself, the sickness of the grandmother who had been raising me as her own, my father not believing me when I told of the things my stepmother would say to me, and my mom never coming to visit had created the thing I would hate for the rest of my life, an ulcer.
At first medication was very helpful and I was finally able to eat normally again. After a while the medicine stopped working and I found that drinking buttermilk with everything I ate helped keep it from getting too bad. My ulcer separated me from my friends because drinking anything with carbonation would send me into pain, as would anything with tomato sauce on it. Therefore going to birthday parties and eating pizza was ruled out for me. I had to stick to eating the crust and cheese and leaving the sauce behind. It lasted until I was thirteen years old. At the age of thirteen my dad finally divorced my stepmother after she slipped and mentioned trying to poison me in front of him. That was the same year my grandmother passed away and I moved into my grandfathers house. It was also the year my ulcer finally calmed down, for a little while at least. This was also the year that my IBS began to strike again. For the remainder of my teen years every time I would get nervous, upset, or anything of the sorts my stomach would begin to churn and bubble and the bearing down pains of having to run to the bathroom would hit. This made dating difficult, as going out with anyone new and being nervous would send me running to the bathroom every ten minutes. I wound up not dating anymore, but simply making friends and hanging out from time to time. After beginning college and having the stress of college finals my ulcer began to slowly return.
It was just a few short months after meeting the man I am not married to so at first we thought my upset stomach was a baby in the making. I went to our local walk in clinic to find out that my dreaded life long affliction had returned. It was this doctor who in my views saved me from years of pain. There had been a new type of ulcer medication that had came out just shortly before that would not only provide relief from the ulcer, but help to heal it as well. It was only a few months later that the pains from my ulcer went away. I now have a life long prescription for this medication and anytime I feel like my ulcer is returning I simply take it for a few days and it once again subsides.
The story with my IBS is not quiet as happy an ending as with the ulcer. I still have issues with it and now being a wife and mother it is harder than ever. For most people worrying about a sick child or husband, bills, or what is going to be for dinner is a simple thing. For me it can turn into frequent trips to the restroom. I still choose not to accept medication for the issue because the list of side affects are much worse than dealing with the disease. I hope and pray my daughter and any future children we may have do not inherit IBS as I would never wish it upon anyone. I am getting by and living with my condition, it gets hard at times, but I know that I have it for a reason, perhaps to help other people deal with these conditions.
