Reduce the Symptoms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

I have struggled with digestive problems for most of my childhood and adult life. I recall my mother saying that I was a colicky baby, plagued with stomach upset, spending most of my infancy crying. As a young girl, I lived with the daily irregularities of either constipation or diarrhea. I can remember as far back as kindergarten, getting a stomach ache and cramps every morning while getting ready for school. It wasn't uncommon for me to miss the bus, or the entire day of school because I was having stomach cramps. My parents attributed most of my stomach problems to my shyness and the nervousness that was caused by having to go to school.

As I got older, my stomach problems became increasingly worse. I didn't realize it at the time, but the increase in the severity and frequency of my symptoms was probably due to a change in my nutrition habits, in addition to the stress of a being a shy person in her teenage years. I would bounce back and forth between being constipated for 4 to 5 days, to having extremely painful bouts of bloating, cramping and diarrhea that would last for hours. By the time I was in my mid teens I would have gone to the doctors numerous times only to be told it was nerves, and that I need to learn to relax. The doctors never did any testing, but would tell me to take a combination of over the counter drugs to treat the symptoms as they appeared.