Hi everyone,

My purpose in putting my story out here is in the hopes that it will help someone else. I am sure the answers are different for everyone, but hopefully this will help someone out there. Please let me know ifi it does.

I am now 40 years old and my problems with bad smelling flatulence began when I was in my teens as I recall. I didn't really think much about it back then although I did get into some embarrassing situations in public. After having 2 children the problem worsened. I was much less able to control when I passed gas.

Sometime in my 30's, I began searching for answers on the internet. My biggest reason at the time was because my daughter was having the same problem beginning at age 4. She wasn't aware at all and we began getting into embarrassing situations frequently. She was a very big fruit eater and that seemed to be the biggest contributor. But then I felt she really couldn't eat healthy at all. I was very upset about this, but we had situations where people at her school avoided us. Awful for a mom!! Also, I had read on the internet that we probably weren't getting a lot of benefit from the food because we weren't digesting it well anyway....which made sense to me.

About the time my daughter was 4, we had moved from a very humid state in the south to a very dry climate. I began having trouble with dry mouth, dry eyes and fatigue. A couple of years later, still very fatigued, a friend asked me if I might be dehydrated. She thought that could be causing the fatigue. I started to put some things together. I had dry eye, dry mouth. Very discouraging to me, I had not been ablt to make enough milk to breast feed my babies. I cried many tears over that and felt like such a failure. No one understood...they thought I was just stressed which was making me unable to breast feed, or that deep down I really didn't want to. Of course, I knew deep down SOMETHING PHYSICAL was the problem. I remembered at one of my appointments during my first pregnancy, I told the doctor I had a stomach ache and had thrown up that morning. He looked at my tongue and said WOW you must have thrown up a lot, you are REALLY dehydrated.

At the time, I didn't think a lot about it. But now I was looking back and making some connections. Maube dehydration was causing me more problems than I knew. That very day, I gave up sodas. It is unbelievable to me now, but back then with the exception of during my pregnancies and the times after while I was trying to breastfeed, my normal was to drink 4-6 cokes a day. A lot of that was trying to use caffeine to avoid fatigue. Doing that plus drinking water made a huge difference to begin with. Although I hated water to begin with, I eventually began to prefer water.

Some time during those years, I was also doing a huge amount of searching on the internet. One of the things that did not work for me was enzymes. I am not sure if I ever took really quality ones though. I eventually came across an article on the internet called "the Whey to better digestive health." That got me started drinking whey protein. I drank it and fought my daughter to make her drink it as well. It was supposed to be a prebiotic which would help grow better bacteria in our guts--then we would improve digestion. It really did help. The biggest problem was that my daughter began to get stomach aches from constipation. We really had to drink lots of extra water to keep from getting constipated with it. It was too much for my daughter who was around 3rd grade by that time.

I learned from this article that yogurt and kefir also were good pre/probiotics. I began eating yogurt for breakfast every day which was also a great help. I never could get my daughter to like either one, however. At that time, I also did some research on Sjogren's syndrome because of information from my dentist. It causes dry mouth and dry eye and can cause other problems. I have never tested positive for Sjogren's but had a slightly positive rheumatoid factor at about age 38. I looked up natural treatments for Sjogren's even though I hadn'e tested psitive because I did have the symptoms. Omega 3's were important. I began taking flax oil with the yogurt which also helped a lot, although I always had a few problems. By the way, the flax oil also tremendously helped vaginal dryness.

Over the last few years, I began to have problems with constipation. I added a lot of fiber, which tended to cause more problems. I think now it was mostly because I didn't sufficiently increase water intake and I was taking too much. I also added evening primrose oil, and fish oil. A little off the subject---but I think the fish oil has been tremendous for me. I used to get respiratory infections frequently and have not had one this year!! I usually get those infections when the heat is turned on thru the winter and spring. I think it happens because of my dryness. When it does, I take mucinex or plain robitussin with lots of water...if I am not careful my gas will get worse on these meds. But I need them to thin out secrteions so they can drain. And I take ecchinacea to get well.

Back to the subject. Here is waht is working for me now:

1. For breakfast I eat flax oil with vanilla yogurt--a few tablespoons of Dannon naturals vanilla yogurt and cinnamon(cinnamon is supposed to be anti-inflammatory and a large amount of it covers up the taste of the flax oil.) I take one tablespoon of the oil. I also have a smoothie with dannon naturals plain yogurt, blueberries, kefir and sweetened with stevia.

2. After all these years, I have cut out whole wheat. I occasionally eat some sourdough bread or white tortilla or bread--just never whole wheat. I think that has helped a LOT. I am not positive but am doing so well without it I am afraid to add wheat back in.

3. Apparently starches with acidic food is a bad combination--i.e. my delicioust vegetarian enchiladas have kidney beans, tortillas, and enchilada sauce--starch in beans and in tortillas with acidic enchilada sauce is a bad combination.

4. I take evening primrose oil--one 3 times a day, and 2 fish oil at lunch and 2 at dinner.

5. I take 2 slo-mags a day. Slo-mag has calcium and magnesium. I need calcium but it tends to constipate me but not with magnesium.

6. I drink lots of water--with meals and in between. I slow down on it if going to the bathroom a lot. Increase it if I eat more calories, fiber, or have had fluid loss from exercise or diarrhea. Drinking a a half to one glass with a meal has helped despite what I read about not drinking with meals. I guess everyone is different.

7. I began running which has helped a lot I think.

8. I eat oatbran cereal (hot cereal)before bed. At first it caused a good bit of gas, but my system adjusted over a few weeks. If I did it over I would star out with a little and slowly increase. It is delicious with brown sugar, butter and bluberries. It is much better than oatmeal to me.

9. I don't eat a lot of meat. Occasionally I do. Just not every day. And I try to be careful about how much Sugar I eat.

10. If I go out of town or have something I want to eat that I shouldn't, I take a few pepto-bismol before and after the meal. 2 before and 2 after. It soaks up the bad smell of gas and keeps me from an embarrassing situation. It just cannot be taken on a regular basis because it is neurotoxic. I think I have taken it for about a week before when I wanted to make sure I didn't have trouble. I think it could cause constipation if you're not careful. There is lots on the internet about how to take it for some occasion you want to be sure about.

11. I try not to eat a TON of fiber at one sitting. I try to spread it out in the day.

I am doing much better now but am having a little diarrhea the last few days. I may need to back off some of the oil (I suspect the EPO because of when I had the same thing in the past.) I am sure that it is finding the right balance of oils, cacium and magnesium, regular foods I eat plus fiber. I think I just always need to have more magnesium than calcium. Also I think the amount of fiber and oil I need each day varies depending on other foods I eat that day---more cheese and meat means I need more fiber, water, oil, or magnesium. Right now I am keeping a food diary and hopefully I will strike the right balance as time goes by.

I really hope this will help someone someday. I have been blessed by all I have learned from others on the internet.

Glory to God and blessings to all!!