My Gut Journey: From Constipation to Clarity (Sort Of)

WARNING!! This is going to be very candid— you are literally getting a free glimpse into my inner thoughts and a timeline of my journey with navigating gut health. For those who know me in real life, this is quite embarrassing to share, but I believe it’s important to talk about.

From the first month that I entered college, I was dealing with a whole array of issues out of nowhere that just seemed unsolvable to me. I was soon to find out that they were all related to one thing: MY GUT! But it took a lot of trial and error and many doctor’s visits for me to come to this conclusion. Without further ado, here’s a snapshot of my journey.

FRESHMAN YEAR

Ever since I was a kid, I have always had bowel movements similar to Type 1  on the Bristol Stool Chart. I thought this was normal up until my freshman year of college because nobody ever talks about poop. That’s why I think its so incredibly important that uncomfortable conversations take place. Poop is like a little sneak peak into what  our digestive health is like, so lets make poop a tool, rather than a taboo.

Even though my bowel movements have always been very similar to rabbit droppings, this was something that was only occasional. College is what made it a 1000x worse.

In addition to this newfound constipation, I was bloated after every meal. I constantly found myself just staring into the mirror confused because I knew that even though I hadn’t been eating any more than usual, my stomach still felt enlarged. – it wasn’t until sophomore year that I realized that the food you eat can play a huge factor in whether you feel bloated or not. I wish someone would’ve told me that in order to stop me from spending all of those extra hours in the gym trying to get rid of what I thought was fat, but was actually bloating. 

Looking back on my journey, I now notice that every time I had brought up “bloating” as one of the symptoms that I had experienced with constipation, it was completely brushed off at every doctor’s office visit. For example, I would explain that bloating caused me to feel full more easily which resulted in me eating less– but simply because I hadn’t lost any weight it was written off as normal. I would also say that the feeling of being bloated made me feel deeply uncomfortable because it wouldn’t go away as I went about my daily life– but that was also just written off as a consequence of constipation, rather than any hope for a solution being brought up. The point I’m trying to make is that, just because someone brushes something off as normal, doesn’t mean it’s normal. It took me a long time to realize this, but anything that impedes on your ability to experience life to the fullest is not something that should be ignored. Life is truly about feeling comfortable in your own body. 

Another huge hurdle was my skin. Initially I chopped it down to the stress of college or me trying out new cleansers, but once the stress subsided and I was back to my normal routine, the acne was still persistent, and in fact getting worse. The products that had been a part of my staple routine had started to fail me. So on top of visiting doctors for my gut issues, I visited multiple dermatologist offices. I tried spironolactone. I tried doxycycline. I tried so many topicals— yet nothing seemed to work. At this point in time, I felt very stuck. Every doctor’s visit left me hopeless. I felt ugly and I had no idea what was causing me all of these issues

  Fast forward to my

 SOPHOMORE YEAR…

By now, I had just completely accepted the things that were happening to me. I accepted having a face full of acne. No joke, there was not a spot on my face that was clear. (click here to read more about my acne journey). I accepted constipation. If I was gonna poop once a week, so be it! I just took it truly as the new normal. First semester went by operating under the “new normal”, and everything was fine on the surface. I had gotten straight A’s, and I was running track, and spending time with my friends. In reality, I cried myself to sleep a lot and was numb to the world. My confidence was shot. I was in a secret hole that I couldn’t get out of. I didn’t know anybody that was going through what I was going through. Just to clarify, it wasn’t necessarily that I gave up, but it was more that I was unbelievably confused. It was as if everything I tried didn’t work

That was until I had experienced a pivotal moment that made me realize that I couldn’t just ignore the problem. One day I was going about my life doing my schoolwork when I realized I had to pee. Before I could even get up, it all just rushed out of me. I cried for hours because I was literally a 20 year old who had just peed their pants—that was the cherry on top for the disaster I was already going through. While I didn’t have another accident again, every time that I had the urge to pee I would have to find the nearest bathroom within the next 5 minutes or else who knows what would’ve come next. Because of this and the other symptoms that I persistently experienced, I began to do poorly in school. I avoided drinking as much water as I usually did because I didn’t want to be in a situation where I would have to pee in public. I was scared to eat because I didn’t know how my gut or skin would react to certain foods. I was at the most unhealthy, both physically and mentally, that I had ever been. 

Me after peeing my pants

I knew that something was seriously wrong, but I still didn’t know what. The months leading up to this breaking point, I avoided going to the doctor with any more constipation issues because everytime I would go, they would offer me MiraLAX or Metamucil , and then send me away, leaving me feeling dumb for even coming to them in the first place. I had decided to muster up the courage to go to the doctor once more because even if my other symptoms were constantly downplayed, I knew there would be more serious measures taken once I explained that I had literally had an accident at 20 years old because of how severely constipated I was. The healthcare provider that helped me out had asked me a plethora of questions, taken a sample of my pee, and had felt around my stomach before notifying me that I had gotten to a point of severe constipation, to which I was given Metamucil and MiraLAX.  Fast forward to now, I am still battling with constipation. But I’m a bit wiser, and I have some more insight to offer.  While it might seem like not much good came out of the whole “pee incident” it changed my life. I have been unrelentingly trying different diets, watching documentaries, reading articles, and even trying to get involved in some research pertaining to gut health.  Overall, I just know I’m not letting up without a fight. Yeah the score board might be Gut - 1 , Me- 0, but this is my revenge era. I have let these issues overtake so many areas of my life for too long. 

“Yeah the score board might be Gut - 1 , Me- 0, but this is my revenge era”

The Journey continues:

Now… I bet you read through this whole thing hoping for some sort of fairytale ending at the end of the article because maybe you’re going through something similar and looking for answers. Bad News. I don’t have an answer nor a solution to the things that I have been going through…. as of right now. The Good News about not having a solution is that this offers the opportunity for me to tackle this issue of gut health as aggressively as possible, so that I don’t have to deal with this nightmare anymore. While I don’t have any concrete answers yet, I do have things that have personally helped me out. I am actively learning new things everyday. Keep exploring through the articles to keep updated with how far I’ve come.