IBS and the problem with drinking plain water.

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Tipnatee N

Very helpful member
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
594
Reason
DX FIBRO
Diagnosis
11/2012
Country
US
State
NY
I have lots of problem drinking plain water for 7 years now. First it was the tap water , then the bottled water. It causing an instant stomach pains for me to no end. My stomach suddenly get so painfully bloated so tight I can't breath, I get extremely nauseous to the point of panic attack most of the time. It's weird cause now when I need liquid in my body I have to drink flavored tea, coconut water, or flavored mineral water anything that's not plain water. Which it's very hard to understand how flavored water can be good for my body.

When I was researching online about it, it turns out that I wasn't the only one with this problem. In fact there are numbers of people who suffering with IBS have the similar problem drinking just the pain water.

Some said it was chlorine, some said metal poison, some said it was the plastic bottle and so on. Some recommending purify water , yet some still have problem with it regardless which apparently I'm now included.

The funny things about it is that none of these people have any problem drinking flavored water or mineral added water also. So maybe the problem with the pain water according to the informations I gathered up till now is actually not the water but the dilutioning problem that comes from drinking plain water it self

I know my body crave vitamins&minerals all the time and it made some sort of sense that diluting it may cause my body to react violently.

I love drinking water before it started to hurt me. I'm mostly now drinking one of brand name product that made green tea with honey and ginseng like water it self, and it has been very good to my stomach with much less dry mouth problem. How weird is that? :confused:
 
I personally (thankfully) have no problems with drinking plain water. It love water - drink at least 2 liters of it a day, so believe me, hearing your story made me thankful that my plain water is not a cause for problems. And sad to hear your struggles.

We can't drink our tap water where I live, so we have to buy our drinking water separately. So there are lots of brands of drinking water. Some people are adamant about having their drinking water delivered in large glass containers because the plastic makes them sick. There is definitely a lot of truth to that - especially in the summer, if you leave plastic bottles out in the sun and warmth (and most places don't have a/c either), you will taste the plastic in the water. I mean if you can taste it, imagine the toxins in it. Ours comes in large plastic containers (glass ones are way too expensive), but we transfer the water into glass bottles as much as possible. (whenever I can handle the extra work).

And yes, bottled drinking water and tap water in different areas/countries differ in many ways. Major difference is the ph level, but also many minerals and their levels differ. I was quite shocked to hear that in most states fluoride is added to tap water - I don't know, how can we be sure it is good for everyone? Again, I am no expert.

I do remember on holiday in NYC first time in the mid 90's, the tap water there made me gag each time. It has a very distinctive taste and me & my family could not fathom how people could tolerate it. But then we realized, we were used to drinking very soft, probably too-filtered water ourselves, so our water, though lovely in taste, is also not the optimum/healthiest water.

I recently read that peppermint oil is the best natural solution for IBS, so I will try that as soon as I can. It is something one can add easily in a glass of water and test whether it works or not quite quickly. :)
 
I totally agree with you on the chemicals Vicky .

I used to live in the area with great tap water and it tasted absolutely fantastic. Then when all my symptoms started after I've was released from hostpital , the doctors warned me not to drink plain water for at least a month. I asked them why, they tried to explain it as easy as I could understand that I'm low on electrolyte so I need to drink electrolyte type drinks for a while. Which was kinda weired cause my legs were swollen from water retention. Their recommendation was sport drinks, but I couldn't see how those colored high sugar drinks can be good for me so I ended up buying electrolyte water even though it was more expensive for the whole month supplies and I drink alot.

Yet after a month I was so happy to finally went back to drinking the plain water again , then the weird stomach bloated started. My yoyo weight and fluctuation in sizes problem become quite freqency I didn't know what to do with my self right along my clothing options ( still don't) :confused:

However do to great clean tasting tap water at the time I didn't realized the cause till I moved to the different locations with horrible tap water in the area. I couldn't even keep the water down and kept threw it back up like a acid reflux each time I drink. So I filtered all my water twice and set it in the glass bottles to let all water particals fall to the bottom , so amazed of how much stuff stucked in the bottom of the bottles even after filtered.

Even so I still couldn't drink too much of it without stomach aches, so I tried bottled water. If I'm lucky it won't hurt as much but sadly most if the time it does. But by then I already almost gave up the idea of forcing my belly to drink pain water so tea was my best option. And you know what ? Pepermint tea with honey was also my great option to drink. I was obsessing buying and trying all the pepermint tea I could gets my hands on. But making it to perfection become too demanding when I was hardly able to moved at the time so buying premade had to do.

Funny things is that I didn't feel any problem drink tea that was packed and bought in the pastic bottle the same way as the pain water bottle does.

I think one of it must be the PTSD effect during my hospital stayed , which sent wrongful alert to my body that when my belly acid get diluted by plain water even just a little. Like a baby cried out when the securty blanket got taken away it react with IBS symptom and throw a temper tantrums. With result of me looking like a pregnant women having a morning sickness. :x

(sorry for the long post)
 
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