This week I left The IBS Network.  I had been involved with the charity for 25 years as medical adviser, editor of Gut Reaction, volunteer CEO and chair of trustees.  I had seen it through bad times and better.  And like a marriage, the organisation and I had become part of each other.  But with the charity buoyant, a competent team of office staff in place and  supported by a dedicated board of trustees and an enthusiastic cohort of advisers, it was time to hand over and leave.

This year’s Christmas party was also my leaving do.  I took the opportunity to thank the sfaff, trustees and volunteers for their dedication to the charity over many years, to praise their success and to encourage the patients and health care professionals on the advisory board to continue to support what is a vital service for many people with IBS.   Everybody then…

One of the first lessons people learn when they attend self help groups for IBS is that everybody’s symptoms are different.  Some people have diarrhoea and abdominal pain that starts early in the morning and doesn’t let up until they are at work, others suffer with bloating later in the day,  others are constipated whenever they go away anywhere.  And it’s not just the bowel symptoms that vary, people diagnosed with IBS often have a variety of other symptoms. Backache, fatigue,  headaches, breathlessness, indigestion are some of the most common, but any bodily symptom can co-exist with IBS.  Whether the illness is diagnosed as IBS or ME or Fibromyalgia or any other syndrome depends on which symptoms might predominate and which doctor they see, but whatever the diagnosis, the symptoms of these overlapping conditions vary so much that they might be regarded as an individual expression of who you are…