My tum tum History

Where this all began…

My gut has been a reoccurring issue since i was 17. 6 years on I have still been figuring out what works best for my gut and well being in order to feel like i can lead a normal healthy life.

I will try and keep this short and sweet because needless to say this has been a long frustrating journey but if this helps anyone in anyway it will be worth sharing what i found helped me.

Do you have gut issues? My symptoms included…

• Stabbing pains after eating (pain increased late at night)
• Serious bloating… has your midwife momma ever made you do a pregnancy scan?!? Thats when you know you have some serious bloating going on.
• Acid reflux (it not so sexy when you’re burping all day err day)
• Mc Fart a lot (yeah that one not so sexy either)
• lower back pain

In tern, this has also caused further symptoms such as…

• Fear of eating certain foods
• Increased anxiety
• Increased stress (which then in turn increases your fight or flight mode…more on this later)

Where my journey started

Coming from a history of restricting foods during my late teens, it is unsurprising i have been suffering with the reintroduction of foods throughout the past 6 years. If you take anything from this post, I would like to encourage you all to keep your diet as diverse as possible. May your tummy be filled with a diverse array of healthy happy bacteria <3. As your brains second hand man, I can’t stress how much how important it is to care for our guts. Anyways, enough rambling. Story time… during travelling south east Asia, i noticed my IBS first started to occur as a real problem. It would leave me feeling sick at night, bloated and just grumpy AF (I am forever sorry to all the people who have met that side of KT… you know who you are). NO MORE MEAT: During this time i gave up meat and become a vegetarian for the next 5 years. NO MORE DAIRY: I then went on to a vegan lifestyle for about a year whilst i was at university. I did all these steps in an attempt to see if a vegan diet would reduce my IBS symptoms. Although initially i felt like i had made improvements, i still would have flare ups ever now and then.

My most recent experience

During my most recent internship in bali this year i experienced the worst of the worst in a long time of these symptoms. From vomiting, pooping, bloating and a lot of pain after eating, i decided enough was enough and promised myself i would sort this out when i returned to the UK.

My experience with doctors

In my experience, sorry to be blunt but they are useless. When i first went to see them at around 17 they basically just told me bloating was normal. I know the difference between normal bloating and going to sleep crying in pain. I have had two tests done… celiac and the H.Pylori which both returned as negative. Due to the extensive time and effort i had to go to get any of these appointments or tests done, i decided to do my own research. Sure, if i could have afforded it at the time i would highly recommend you go speak to a qualified nutritionist. Which leads me onto what i have been recently been doing to heal my gut… follow onto my next blog regarding the steps i have taken to reach a recovery process (: