Irritable Bowel Syndrome

I used to really struggle with insoluble fibres like wheat bran, but found that soluble fibres like in oats were much kinder to my system. Does soluble vs insoluble make a difference for you?

Yup. Which comes with other problems (hemorrhoids due to soft stool due to lack of fiber).

Still preferable to writhing in agony though.

Not a doctor, but I understand that fiber doesn't come alone and it's possible that the fiber-rich foods have something else in them that irritates the intestines.

Also, there's soluble and insoluble fibers, which behave differently.

It works fairly well for me, yeah. Foods high in fiber or starch can really upset my system.

But for me anxiety about having to use the bathroom ran over all my other symptoms. Now that my anxiety is under better control I can relax a little with the diet and have broccoli now and again, or a salad.

Fibre is probably good for you, if you have a normal gut.

I've found that everyone's IBS is different and reacts differently to different foods or environmental factors such as stress. So generalisations are often a good place to start, if you're newly diagnosed, but over time you will learn what works for you. That said, it sounds like you've made good progress, so do what's right for you and your wellbeing.

Take from the following what you will.

I was diagnosed as a child, a very long time ago, with IBS-C and told to eat lots of fibre.

The problem is fibre draws water into the intestines which, in theory should make your stool easier to pass. Sounds great if you don't shit regularly.

However, if you have a constriction caused by a spasm/contraction of the muscles in your gut - the cramps- you just end up with a very large ball of indigestible fibre and water and shit being forced against the spasming muscles and lots of pain and bloating.

Eventually, the cramps relax and you get explosive diarrhea. Yay!

As a generalisation; I have heard from people with IBS-D that any fibre just causes irritation of their intestines and bowel and just more explosive shitting and cramps than normal.

Either way it seems like it should be avoided.

For what it's worth I found four things helpful for my IBS, lower my carb and sugar intake. Low fibre, dark chocolate and acupuncture.

The dark chocolate was a pure accidental discovery. I was being a pig many Christmases ago and ate a lot of dark chocolates in one sitting. The next day I had a normal dump. I connected the dots and as an ex-scientist I was interested so I did some reading and found dark chocolate contains a good dose of bioavailable magnesium. That gives me the benefit of fibre without the physical mass or irritation it causes. I tried magnesium supplements but they didn't have the same effect. I eat one small bar of 70-85% Coco solids a day. My wife, who has IBS-D, just gets the shits from eating it, which is perhaps not surprising.