In August 2006, I found myself curled up in a ball on the floor during a dinner party I was hosting for out-of-town guests. The next week, after they left, I stayed in the fetal position all week, made two trips to urgent care, got a scrip for narcotics and a suggestion that I needed a psych evaluation because the pain–a 10 out of 10 with no apparent cause–was obviously all in my head.

On the third trip to urgent care, a doctor gave me a proton pump inhibitor and some valium, and within an hour I was able to uncurl myself for the first time in eight days.

The next week, I had a full GI. Oh, the prep, the pink, disgusting prep. And the trips to the toilet. Fun. The gastroenterologist found diverticulosis, a huge hiatal hernia, gastroenteritis and a mild infection of candidae albicans. He suggested that I eliminate sugar and wheat from my diet, take a daily dose of Benefiber, eat live probiotics and keep taking the proton pump inihibitor for as long as it made me feel well.

And, most of all, he wanted me to mediate the stress in my life. I was diagnosed with IBS C/D–irritable bowel syndrome with equal constipation & diarrhea, which he admitted is a throw-away diagnosis because basically, there was nothing wrong with my digestive system that he (a surgeon) could fix. However, he counseled me, stress is generally the No. 1trigger of IBS, so anything and everything I could do to eliminate it would be helpful.

Over the next three years, I tried everything from going sugar-free and gluten free and eliminating raw veggies–definitely a trigger for me–to yoga and massage to stop the flares. Some days, my belly would bloat out from its normal size to six or eight inches bigger. Some days, I couldn’t go to work for fear of not making it to the bathroom in time. What finally kicked the IBS was a combination of eating carefully (some wheat and sugar were OK, but dairy was not), taking my Benefiber and probiotics religiously to keep things moving, plus removing the Mirena IUD. The Mirena, it turned out, causes IBS in many women. Removing it in the fall of 2009 eased so many of my IBS symptoms. A solid regimen of acupuncture for two months cured me.

When you feel good, you forget what it’s like to feel like shit. Particularly for women, we’re wired that way so that we’ll keep procreating. Also, when you feel good, it’s easy to slip up. Then slide downhill. Then stop doing everything that makes you feel good. And all of a sudden, you’re back to where you started and scratching your head–literally, because the candida overgrowth has reached a systemic level and EVERYTHING itches, even while taking a daily antihistamine–about what the hell is going on in your body.

Then, you remember the last time you felt this bad.

Shit. I did this to myself.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been having mini panic attacks. All of my skin is incredibly itchy despite seemingly constant applications of lotion. None of my clothes fit because my belly is so distended. My eyes are running to the point that I actually stopped wearing mascara–why bother when I rub it off on the drive to work? Since mid-December, I’ve had a horrible case of dermatitis under my wedding ring, something I now see for what it is: a yeast infection. It even smells yeasty. My ingestion of sugar is through the roof. I feel full even when I haven’t eaten, and when I do eat I feel nauseous, but when I haven’t eaten my stomach hurts. I am sluggish. I have had a constant headache for the past god only knows how long. My bowels have been vascillating between crampy and at a full-stop. My sinuses are swollen and painful to the point that my teeth hurt.

I have worked myself into a huge IBS flare the likes of which I haven’t seen in more than 2 years. And this is a flare that is complicated by a huge candidae albicans infection. I can smell it on my breath. Gross.

That’s the bad news.

The good news, cloaked in a groan of bad, is I know exactly what I need to do to fix my malfunctioning gut. The bad part is that I am looking at a few weeks, or possibly months, of getting back to normal. And probably about $500 out of my pocket.

So, in an hour I’m seeing my GP for a new prescription for valium or xanax to deal with the stress–stress caused/exacerbated by work, and by the overgrowth of flora in my gut, which then makes the IBS flare, which then makes me want to eat more sugar, which then makes the stress worse, and so on in a cluster of vicious cycles.

Then, I’m going to the acupuncturist, who will help calm down my nervous system and start working on helping my body shed its infection. She also has a great candidae clearing regimen that I’ll begin today.

Then, I am committing to eating a sugar-free, wheat-free, dairy-free diet for the next three weeks. Fun. I’m so excited, especially for the sugar withdrawals I’m bound to have over the next three days. I should be pleasant to be around (but then, there’s the valium.).

Then, I am committing to take my fiber again, daily, as well as probiotics. I’ll stop by the naturopath’s office on the way to the MD to pick up some more. I will be stimulating the health care economy well.

The next few weeks will be a pain in the ass. I can’t believe I did this to myself. Again.