Jezebel and Bad Gut Feelings

Gawker media, purveyors of up-to-the-minute snark news and gossip related to the bustling asylum that is Manhattan, adopted a new baby and named it Jezebel. (Hope the lawyers at Jezebel magazine in Atlanta don't get twisty underwear over the name. I quite like it, both for it's femme fatale connotations and because Poe's song, "A Rose is a Rose", is knocking around my head since I clicked over to Jezebel.com)

The editors, standard-issue hot Manhattan chicks, say their aim is to provide women with the content they themselves want to read. Better writing than most blogs, for sure, and content that is less fashionista ridiculousness and/or celebrity-worshipping than other women's mags. So far, so good, say I, up until they start mentioning that farshtinkener Julia Allison, at which time they will go back to being dead to me. Probably you don't know who that is. Better to keep it that way and resist the urge to Google. She's just a slutty magpie, forever drawn to the sparkly and shiny cameras and always kicking up an annoying racket.

The bad gut feeling has nothing to do with the new girly site. It has everything to do with a little bullshit thing for which doctors have invented a bullshit name. IBS, or Irritible Bowel Symdrome: One day your poor stomach bloats up to about the 5th month of pregnancy, the next day you spend annihiliating the toilet. They tell you to stop drinking coffee, eating chocolate, and cut back on sugar. No change. Now dairy is the culprit. And wheat. Still no change? Must be yeast or bacteria. Eat this yogurt and take these pills. What do you mean it's worse? I know: fructose! No more fruit for you, young lady. Colonoscopy! Test that turd! Everything's ok? Hmm. How about this? Are you anxious, depressed? That must be it: it's emotional, it's all in your head.

Two-and-a-half-years later, I still do the bad gut shuffle and no relief, much less cure, is in sight. To any fellow sufferers out there reading this, keep trying and don't get discouraged. To any gastroenterologists reading this, do me a favor: Don't tell patients their symptoms are in their head when they sit before you looking like malnourished Sub-Saharan orphan. Unless you are actually Dr. House, don't try procedures and medications when you don't know what's wrong with them. But most of all, will you PLEASE find treatments that work for IBS and somebody, please, find a cure.