IBS and Anxiety making school tough

nb1436
Tue, 03 Sep 2013 12:09:31 +0000

Hello, I am a transfer student who just started nursing school. I transferred to a school that is about 500 miles away from home. I actually transferred to this school last year but about 2 weeks in had to take a medical leave for the entire school year. I developed severe IBS. With the IBS, I developed an anxiety disorder and was not able to sit in any class for fear of getting sick or having extremely loud intestinal noises. While I took a year off, I focused on resolving my IBS. I went to a GI doctor and a nutritionist and by changing my diet to a modified paleo diet, I was able to almost completely eliminate any IBS symptoms. My anxiety went away when I became confident that I wasn’t going to get sick anymore.
With my new diet I was ready to go back to school in the fall. The first week was good. I was feeling pretty good, made it through all my classes. But come the second week, I was so sick to my stomach. I still went to class but all my symptoms from last year started to come back. My anxiety came right with it. Now, I can’t get my symptoms under control no matter how I eat. My anxiety has gotten so bad that I can’t concentrate on class and I can barely sit through class. I am constantly worrying about my classes and if I will get sick or not.
I went to the doctors and they prescribed me some anti-anxiety meds and I am also seeing a counselor for CBT but nothing seems to work. I am also trying to get in to see another GI doctor.
I really want to try and stay at school but it seems like the stress from these issues put on top of the stress of being at a new place far from home seems too much to handle. I think the best would probably to take another medical leave for a semester if the school allows another one and take that time to focus 100% on my health. I might even look into a school that is closer to home. I just feel so guilty that I can’t fight through this and my parents are pretty upset too.

Has anyone gone through something like this that can give me some helpful advice on what to do?