Guest Post for IBS Awareness Month: Navigating IBS and a Hypersensitive Body

by Lindsey Wondolleck

IBS Impact welcomes a guest poster this week. Lindsey Wondolleck lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, two young children, and their German Shepherd and cat. She has a degree in nutrition but is currently working in the insurance industry because it is a more flexible job that’s remote and can accommodate her IBS and chronic migraines. When she’s not running back and forth between soccer games and gymnastics, she’s outside gardening and making beeswax candles, or in the colder months, she’s needle felting and rewatching “Lord of the Rings” while sitting by the cozy wood-burning stove. We thank her for her time and willingness to share her experiences and insights to help others in the IBS community.

IBS was something I never really knew about, even though I probably had a mild form of it growing up. I didn’t think much of it when I was younger or a college student. It wasn’t until after I had my first child that two things had become worse around the same time: anxiety and stomach issues. Thinking back on my life, I now see the signs that I had general anxiety as a child, and I remember suffering now and then from stomach pains. It never was a concern for me then and it seemed manageable until I fell into a deep depression and anxiety loop about a year after my son was born. (Another health issue showed up around that time as well that went misdiagnosed for three years but now has been properly diagnosed with chronic migraines.) During that time of misdiagnosis, anxiety, and stomach issues, I felt like my body was attacking itself and I couldn’t figure out what was happening. My mental and physical health slowly got worse and by the time the pandemic showed up, suffering silently for months in my home, I hit a very low point. I would be running to the bathroom 4 times a day with urgent diarrhea and sometimes just fluids because I didn’t have any food to digest from the lack of eating. I had forced my GI and general practitioner to run every test they could to try and figure out what was going on with my GI system. I weighed 89 pounds (40 kg) and I had put myself into a major calorie deficit thinking that I had cancer somewhere in my GI system that the doctors could not see, even though all tests and all bloodwork came back normal. At this point, my doctor politely but sternly let me know that she could see my anxiety was not normal anymore and it was time to start anxiety medication. Of course, I put this off for years because my anxiety made me afraid of the side effects, but I gave in and said I would do it as it felt like my anxiety was harming my body more than the side effects would. 

The rest is history. The anxiety medication gave me my life back and put me in the driver’s seat rather than the passenger seat. While my anxiety was a large contributing factor in triggering my IBS, it was, however, not the only one and because I no longer experienced unhealthy amounts of anxiety, I now had the brain space to be able to tackle my IBS and find ways to manage it. In the last two years, I have worked with a registered dietitian who was trained in the low FODMAP diet from Monash University, attended therapy sessions, listened to gut hypnotherapy on my phone, started exercising, prioritized a full night’s rest, joined the IBS Support (Official group – a science-based support group on Facebook run by a wonderful group of admins and made sure my stress and anxiety levels are at a manageable level. I can happily say that five years later I am mentally and physically in a much better space than I was. It was very discouraging to find out I have IBS at 26 years old when seeing friends around my age not having IBS dictate their lives. At 31 years old, I have learned to not let that bring me down anymore. I had finally accepted that I do have IBS and there is no cure for it, but I can manage and reduce my symptoms by avoiding my lifestyle triggers and food triggers. I still have bad days now and then, however I have more good days than bad days now. On the days I have an upset stomach, I go back to my IBS toolkit I’ve curated for myself and take the time to rest and recover. IBS is a gut-brain miscommunication disorder, and for anyone reading this, I want you to know that it’s okay that you have IBS. Please don’t feel hopeless. There are treatments and ways to manage your symptoms. I encourage you to find doctors who are sympathetic and willing to help you. Working with a registered dietitian was one of the most worthwhile investments I made for myself and I cannot recommend enough finding one that specializes in IBS. You got this! I hope my IBS journey gives you hope and confidence to accept your IBS diagnosis without fear and begin working on managing your symptoms!

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