Am I ever going to feel better again? Tammy wondered as she and her husband sat in their cabin on a long-awaited cruise, her stomach filled with gas, pain radiating into her back. “I felt at the end of my rope,” Tammy recalls of another day ruined by her chronic irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). “I just wanted to enjoy my life again.
A search for answers
“This was in April of 2021. Eight years earlier, I’d started feeling like a big balloon was expanding inside my stomach, pushing air into me with nowhere to go. I took Gas-X until the cows came home and it wouldn’t help. I also developed severe constipation. Every single morning, I woke up with gas and an aching stomach.
“I am a financial analyst, and I put on a happy face in the office but felt miserable. No one knew what was going on inside me. And it was hard to make plans. I worried about so many things. Is there a bathroom nearby? Is my stomach going to hurt?
This story is from the July 08, 2024 edition of First for Women.
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This story is from the July 08, 2024 edition of First for Women.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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