Could I have IBS?

by Holly
(London, UK)

I am a 23 yr old female and I have lately been suffering from abdominal pain and diarrhea and queasiness. I haven't consulted my doctor yet but after reading some IBS comments Im starting to wonder if this could be my problem. Since recently moving to the UK this has happened and I have been eating a lot of highly junk food and dairy diet. Please can you give me tips of how to get rid of my symptoms if you agree this could be IBS, or if you have any clues to what else it could be?


Symptoms of IBS or food intolerance

Your symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea and queasiness could be due to IBS. However, these symptoms are symptoms of lots of different bowel conditions so until you go to your doctor to have this checked, it isnt possible to be certain. If you have been eating a lot of junk food and dairy products this could be due to your diet and perhaps the first thing to do is to remove these from your diet and see if your symptoms improve. If you didn’t have much dairy in your diet before it is always possible that you may be lactose intolerant which is a very common condition. If you think it is your diet causing your symptoms, you could keep a food diary to see what foods you are eating and try to correlate these with your symptoms.

I often see young people in my clinic with bad guts and in a lot of cases it is due to the poor diet that they have, the lack of exercise they are taking and also the irregular meals that they are eating. Bowels need regularity in the same way as humans do so this is definitely food for thought isnt it!