It’s important for an IBS sufferer to gain an understanding, if possible, of the nature of their unique symptom triggers. How, when and what we eat can have a huge effect on the bowel. It’s important to eat regular well balanced, moderately sized meals rather than eat at irratic meal times and portion sizes.

One way of gaining an understanding of which foods are triggering your symptoms, that is often recommended, is the food diary. By keeping a food intake diary you may be able to identify amd remove problematic foods from your diet.

A potential problem with food diaries, identified by Professor Peter Whorwell in his book ‘Take Control of Your IBS’ is when a person has an intolerance to a certain food, the effect may take a few days to come on. In addition the dose’ of that food may be important. For instance, if you eat a food, to which you have some degree of intolerance, once a week it may not affect you, but if you eat it every day it may cause problems.

Bearing this caveat in mind a food diary can help you to gain a good idea of which foods seem to cause you the most problems. It’s really useful to know your ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ foods although there may be some foods that you can’t be sure about.

A handy food diary template is provided by BUPA.