Yes, I started to feel unwell about four years ago, I had what I used to jokingly call terminal constipation. Very persistent constipation which I didn't seem to be able to do anything about, and in the end I consulted the GP about it and was given a long list of things like psyllium husk and linseed, to take away and use them as dietary additives, which I did. The constipation persisted but I persisted too, to manage it at home.
I also complained of tiredness and I was given a battery of blood tests and was found to be lacking in thyroxine, which was also given to me to take regularly, and I started to have problems with my bladder, and having to go to the loo three or four times in a night and having to rush off during the day and go to the loo. And again I went back to the surgery with this and I was given some very helpful 'Help the Aged' leaflets, one called 'Incontinence' and the other one was called 'Laughter Without Tears', and they told me how to exercise my pelvic floor, which I went away and did.
So I went away and managed these symptoms, although they were very unpleasant and the tiredness was getting worse. I resigned from my part-time job because I just couldn't be active for a whole day any longer, but I didn't think that there was anything seriously wrong with me until summer last year, when the constipation suddenly changed to uncontrollable diarrhoea and I became very bloated. I had an umbilical hernia, problems with breathing. I was just so tired that after the first few hours in the morning I could really do very little at all. And I went to my GP and I think she suspected irritable bowel syndrome so she gave me a medication called mebeverine which I was to take before meals which would slow down the diarrhoea.
It didn't get any better and I was really feeling extremely unwell, I was absolutely enormous, I looked about seven months pregnant. I couldn't lay down in bed at night, and I went back to the GP again and she decided to refer me to the gastrointestinal unit, but she said I would have to wait some time because she didn't consider it was an urgent need, she thought it was just IBS. |
