Autism and IBS

[Momo]

Hello! My name is Malou, im 23 years old and i live in Sweden. 

I have autism, foodfobia and IBS. Also i hate most of the food out there. My list of okay foods is limited to 30 things maximum (if someone is curious i can show you my list lol) I hate the taste, texture and smell of most stuff. I only like plain stuff with limited spice, salt and flavour. I am also vegan now since i didn’t eat much meat/fish or milk products (im allergic to milkprotein). And i think eating other beings is nasty and weird. I grew up mostly a vegetarian thanx to my mother who has been vegetarian since she was 7. Sometimes i did eat meat, fish and chicken at my friends places since they where not vegetarian. That was MANY years ago also. 

Question number 1: Do someone recognise themselves in al this? 

And question number 2: Why can i eat some of the high fodmap foods? Is it individual of what fodmaps you can eat and not? Some don’t work at al and i get constipated, diarrhoea, and my body hurts. I am new to knowing my problems are caused by IBS so i have no clue about ANYTHING. I just know that most of the high fodmaps food dont work for me and that is common when you have IBS but i dont get why some works. PLEASE can someone explain the basics. 

/Malou 

[Esjie]

Hello Malou,

I also found that my body was happy with some of the high FODMAP foods. I did go through the whole 8 week trial 3 years ago of the Low Fodmap diet, and found that there were many low Fodmap foods  which gave me symptoms. while some high Fodmap foods (discovered after the trial ended) were fine for me! (such as sugar snap peas, gluten, asparagus, honey.) Those hardly ever gave me IBS problems.

I took that to mean that the low Fodmap diet is not a "one size fits all" solution for understanding, managing  or finding healing and relief with IBS. And that what is meant to come out of it, is after the low Fodmap trial, more of a tailored individual diet plan which suits you as an individual.

But I did find that some of the low Fodmap foods were very easy on my gut and those are still staple foods of mine now. (Kale, green beans, spinach, rice etc)

Like you, I also have to eat very plain foods, simply cooked and the only seasoning I can usually have is salt. I can get reactions to pepper, spices (except ginger on occasion) sauces, etc. I am safer with just salt. So I use ground Himalayan pink salt on my food. I have got quite used to that and prefer to eat simply.
But I do eat fish and eggs. I was vegan before, but when IBS started I could no longer handle vegan sources of protein (beans, lentils, nuts, tofu etc) in enough quantities for my protein requirements, so sadly, had to go back to eating fish, eggs and butter. That I always found gentle on my gut and easy to digest.

But another thing I discovered about IBS is flare ups and difficult gut times can happen regardless of whether you're eating "safe foods" or not. It's as if something else triggers a flare up and not always what has been eaten. Sometimes, I find it isn't even stress. IBS has its ups and downs regardless, it seems. It confuses our ideas of management and "control" many times!

And...I am doing okay I think generally and have no other serious health problems and am pretty fit for my age (70) etc. I have no signs of any deficiencies or malabsorption.  Rather the opposite! Yet when I write a list of all the foods I can eat successfully, I only have less than 30. And I can't eat fruit any more (working on that!)