TIFU by assuming I had IBS

NSFW for a story containing both too much and far too little poop

So, I’m an idiot.

This probably begins about age ten, where every time I ate a lot of pizza I would break out in a sort of nightmare-level rash on the backs of my knees and elbows. Being a sane child, I knew in my heart that pizza could never betray me like this and so blamed the most likely culprit - pepperoni.

Time passed and, in my young adulthood, I essentially developed the bowel control of an elderly Labrador.

I was incapable of holding in a fart even under the most desperate of circumstances, and they would pass through me freely like a breeze through a cavernous tunnel. I pooped what I believed to be a normal amount for a healthy adult woman - four to five times a day. Other women would tell me they pooped merely once a day, if at all, and I would laugh at their obviously inferior intestinal fortitude.

The farts didn’t hold me back anymore than I held them back. All it took to get through a night out or a crowded room was a strategically placed door and the power of lies. My relationships were sustained by an abject refusal to be the little spoon.

In time I did begin to wonder about the cause of this. Which is where I came to learn of IBS. IBS is often exacerbated by coffee, spicy food and fat - my three basic food groups. Of course. The only possible explanation.

I’m retrospect, I can see how this progressed over time. In more recent years my manager, who I often sat next to, would periodically have to equip his desk with a high-powered fan and a bottle of aftershave. Partners would be regularly relieved and perturbed as I exited the bathroom wielding various pee-sticks shouting “Good news! I’m not pregnant - I really just AM that bloated!” I began to get mouth ulcers and cuts at the side of my mouth. I felt tired all the time. Just my luck, I thought. There is no way this could possibly be related to the gastrointestinal hell I inflict on my loved ones on a day to day basis.

The first escalation was probably my manager’s wedding. After two days of pizza, poop was just a distant memory. I chugged pints water, ate about six bananas, but alas was in such great discomfort that on the big night I was in bed by 9pm, sadly tossing back and forth and praying I would shit myself in the night, lest I suffer this for a further day. His thank you card specifically congratulated me for my efforts to dance in spite of my severe constipation.

It reminded me of my boyfriend in uni, before he was diagnosed with Coeliac disease. One time he was in such pain we ended up in A&E, awash with panic, assuming one of his frequent stomach ulcers had burst. He emerged from the doctor’s room with a family sized box of laxatives, of which he had to take eight at once, before passing a small poop of near planetary density. Still, the penny did not drop.

The truly bad times began recently. I felt nauseous constantly. I would feel fine for hours at a time and then, suddenly, I became more bloated than I ever had in my life and it would be like my stomach couldn’t empty for me to eat more food. I began losing weight because I physically couldn’t eat. The pregnancy tests intensified, to no result. There would be a worrying absence of poop, followed by an alarming volume of it. Naturally, I assumed I was dying.

One day, as I was consorting myself to try and release a burp and free up some room, I thought ‘god, this is exactly like what my ex boyfriend had to do when he ate all those tray-bakes”. And then the penny dropped. And I took to Google.

Apparently, 1 in 100 have Coeliac disease. This goes up to 1 in 10 if an immediate family member also has it. Which reminded me that I should probably call my sister, who has Coeliac disease, and see how she’s getting on with her new cat. And that I could probably cut out bread.

Anyway, after a few days of avoiding any gluten like the plague, my stomach has returned to normal. I have not been bloated. I have not had to run from a room to fart uncontrollably in a corridor. I feel more awake and comfortable than I have in months.

Doctor is booked for next month.

TL;DR I probably have Coeliac disease, like my other family members, and have been coasting in denial and willpower alone until recently, whereupon I became VERY unwell.