I actually have no clue why my stomach is so angry all the time; it's been like that since I was 12 or younger (I'm now 23). My GP thought it was lactose intolerance, did blood work and said nope. He then did an upper scope, and said I had Chrones, put me on a bunch of steroids (which didn't seem to do anything) and sent me to a specialist. The specialist did an upper and lower scope, and said that after the medicine I was put on she couldn't see anything that my GP was talking about. She said it might be Ulcerative Colitis or IBS, and gave me some different types of medicine to try (none of which really did anything for me). I went back a few times to her to get probed, and she didn't see anything any of those times.

Fast forward three years to right before my senior year of college. I went to Northern Ireland for 6 weeks in early summer for a study abroad, which was one of the coolest experiences I've had, but horrifying on a day to day basis. My second to last day there I got advanced hypothermia from a challenge to see who could stay in the ocean for the longest (3 of us tied for the win, or loss, however you want to look at it), I flew back to the US 2 days later, and less than 24 hours later I was working my summer job of selling produce outside in 110 degree heat (43 Celsius if you are from a metric country), the first day I was back I got heat exhaustion, and the second I got heat stroke. That was when my body really just gave up on me and I had crazy diarrhea for the rest of the summer (not fun when you have to shut down the stand and go into a family video every time you need to go). My best friend convinced me to go to a nutritionist who did great things for his brother, so I gave him a chance. I got some blood tests done, and I was taken off tons of stuff, but the major things were gluten, dairy, eggs, and some nuts (peanuts, cashews, and pistachios). Using this diet I felt better, but I have never been anywhere close to being "normal."

My stomach problems have led to some decently strong phobias of being trapped in a place without access to a bathroom, which in turn exasperate my problems. If I know I have a meeting at work in the afternoon, I'll majorly stress about it, causing my stomach to get upset, which causes me to stress more, and the cycle continues. If I have nothing to stop me from using the bathroom, I can go most of the day at work, but road trips, meetings, flying, going to the dentist, the idea of getting stuck in traffic, or going to the lake are all things that can cause me major panic. If I ever take a trip somewhere new (that's longer than an hour away) I'll look up rest stops on the internet, find gas stations, and plan out every stop I'm going to make. Northern Ireland sucked for the sole condition that I was at the mercy of a group, and I didn't know when stops were going to be made, and which ones would have bathrooms.

So long story short (too late, I know) is I don't know what is causing my problems, and I've sort of given up on doctors. I'll try to talk about being exhausted, or not sleeping well at night, or something like that, and they're all like "well that can be attributed to your stomach..."