If you’ve had IBS for a while, there’s a fairly good chance you’ve already changed your diet. Probably more than once.
Maybe you’ve gone gluten-free or dairy-free. You’ve tried cutting out onions and garlic, stopped eating certain fruits, experimented with low FODMAP, bought probiotics, added fiber, removed fiber, tried supplements and spent far too much time asking Dr. Google what on earth you’re supposed to eat.
And yet you’re still bloated. Still constipated. Still running to the loo. Still getting stomach pain or wondering why something you ate perfectly happily last week has suddenly decided to cause complete chaos today.
So what do you do next?
Usually, people assume they need to restrict something else. There must be another trigger food they haven’t found yet, another diet they haven’t tried or another supplement sitting on a shelf somewhere that is finally going to sort everything out.
But if you’ve already spent months or even years changing your diet and your IBS is still causing problems, I wouldn’t immediately start removing more food.
I’d start looking at why your gut is still reacting.
First, I’d look properly at what you’ve already tried
When somebody says they’ve “tried everything”, that can mean an enormous number of things.
Perhaps you stopped eating gluten for a month, then dairy went because that didn’t work. Somebody suggested probiotics, so you tried those for a few weeks. Then you read about low FODMAP and removed another load of foods. After that came the fiber supplement, digestive enzymes, fermented foods and whatever the latest gut-health recommendation happened to be that week.
Quite frankly, it’s exhausting just writing that list.
The problem is that if you’re constantly changing things, it becomes incredibly difficult to work out what actually affects your symptoms.
Did removing dairy make any difference at all? Did your bloating improve but your constipation get worse? Did the probiotic actually help, or did you start three other things at exactly the same time? Did you stop eating a food because you consistently reacted to it, or because you happened to feel awful once after eating it?
These details matter.
Before adding another restriction, I’d want to go back through what you’ve actually tried, how long you tried it for and what happened. Sometimes that alone reveals that an awful lot of foods have disappeared from somebody’s diet without there ever being much evidence that they were the problem.
I’d look at your actual symptoms, not just your list of trigger foods
“I have IBS” doesn’t tell me enough.
Are you mainly constipated? Are you having diarrhea and urgency? Do you alternate between the two? Is bloating your biggest problem? Pain? Trapped wind? Do you feel as though you never completely empty your bowels?
Two people can both have an IBS diagnosis and have completely different digestive problems going on.
If somebody is badly constipated, for example, simply removing more foods because they are bloated may completely miss the bigger issue. If your bowel isn’t emptying properly and everything is moving slowly, it isn’t particularly surprising that you might feel uncomfortable and full of gas.
And going to the loo every day doesn’t necessarily mean constipation isn’t involved either. You might be passing small amounts, straining, feeling unfinished or going several times without ever feeling properly emptied.
So yes, I want to know what you eat. Of course I do. But I also want to know what your bowel is actually doing with it.
I’d stop blaming every symptom on the last thing you ate
This is one of the easiest traps to fall into with IBS.
You eat something, your stomach bloats and that food is immediately found guilty and removed from the diet. Do that enough times and eventually you’re standing in the supermarket suspiciously staring at a courgette because everything seems to upset your stomach.
The difficulty is that digestion doesn’t happen instantly and your gut doesn’t operate in a lovely controlled laboratory where only one thing changes at a time. What you ate earlier in the day matters. Portion size matters. Your bowel movements matter. How quickly you ate matters. How much you ate overall can matter.
You might eat the exact same meal twice and feel completely different afterwards because the circumstances around it were different.
That doesn’t mean food reactions aren’t real. Of course they can be. But repeatedly blaming individual foods without looking at the overall pattern can leave you with an increasingly restricted diet and very little understanding of why you’re still symptomatic.
I’d much rather work out what your gut tolerates, how much it tolerates and under what circumstances than keep adding perfectly innocent foods to a banned list.
I’d look at what your diet has become after all this restriction
This is where things can get a bit bonkers.
You start by removing one food because you think it might be causing your symptoms. Then another goes. And another.
Before long, breakfast is one of three “safe” options, you’re nervous about eating in restaurants and you’ve become the person examining the ingredients on absolutely everything because you’re terrified one rogue bit of garlic is going to ruin your evening.
That isn’t food confidence.
And it certainly isn’t IBS freedom.
A very restricted diet can also make it harder to get enough fibre, nutrients and variety, particularly if you’ve been avoiding entire food groups for a long time.
I’m not suggesting for one minute that you should force yourself to eat foods that reliably make you feel awful. That would be ridiculous. But I would question whether every food you’ve removed still needs to be removed.
There is a big difference between understanding your individual tolerance and becoming frightened of food because your diet keeps getting smaller every time you have a bad digestive day.
This is exactly the sort of thing we work through during the Build Food Confidence stage of The IBS Freedom Method. The aim isn’t to give you another enormous list of foods you’re supposedly not allowed to eat. It’s to help you understand your own tolerance and gradually build a way of eating that gives you more confidence around food rather than less.
Then I’d look beyond food completely
This is probably the part people least expect when they come looking for help with an IBS diet.
Your gut has a life outside the kitchen.
Stress, sleep, movement, illness, medication, hormonal changes and your general routine can all affect how your digestive system behaves.
The gut and brain are constantly communicating with each other, which is why stress can affect bowel movements, urgency, bloating and how strongly you experience digestive sensations. And no, that does not mean your IBS is “all in your head”. Your nervous system affects your digestion because the two systems are connected.
I’d also want to know whether anything happened around the time your symptoms started or became significantly worse.
Did you have food poisoning or a stomach bug? Did you take antibiotics? Start a new medication? Go through a particularly stressful period? Did your bowel habits change before everything else seemed to go wrong?
Sometimes those little bits of history are far more interesting to me than whether you ate broccoli on Tuesday.
I’d question whether everything has automatically been called IBS
IBS can cause bloating, pain, constipation, diarrhoea and changes in bowel habits, but those symptoms aren’t exclusive to IBS.
So if your symptoms haven’t been properly assessed, have changed considerably or are becoming worse, I wouldn’t want you endlessly experimenting with your diet while assuming IBS explains everything.
Other digestive and health conditions can cause similar symptoms and may need investigating depending on your individual history.
This is particularly important if you have symptoms such as blood in your stool, unexplained weight loss, persistent vomiting, severe or worsening pain or a significant unexplained change in your bowel habits. Those are not things I’d suggest dealing with by cutting out another food and hoping for the best.
Please speak to your GP and get them properly assessed.
And I’d look at whether you’re actually eating enough
Restriction can creep up on you.
You remove a few obvious foods, then a few more because you think they might be contributing, and eventually you’re eating the same small collection of “safe” meals every week.
Some people also start skipping meals because eating feels risky. If food regularly leaves you bloated, uncomfortable or desperately looking for the nearest loo, it’s completely understandable that sometimes not eating feels easier.
But irregular eating can create another set of problems entirely.
You might go hours without food, become absolutely starving and then eat a much larger meal than usual. Or perhaps you’re trying to cram all the nutrition you think your gut needs into one enormous bowl full of veggies, seeds, pulses, fruit and whatever other gut-health ingredient is currently fashionable.
Your bowel may have something to say about that.
Sometimes improving digestion involves surprisingly boring things such as eating regularly, drinking enough water, changing portion sizes, slowing down when you eat and making sure your bowel is actually functioning properly.
No shiny tub of gut-health powder required.
Sometimes the next step isn’t another IBS diet
This is probably the biggest thing I want you to take away from this.
If you’ve already tried low FODMAP, gluten-free, dairy-free, supplements, probiotics or multiple elimination diets and you’re still struggling, more restriction is not automatically the logical next step.
Something hasn’t been explained yet.
Perhaps your constipation needs more attention. Perhaps the amount or type of fibre you’re eating doesn’t suit your gut. Maybe there is a pattern around stress, sleep, hormones, illness or medication that hasn’t been considered. Perhaps foods have been removed unnecessarily over time and your diet now needs rebuilding rather than shrinking even further.
Or perhaps your symptoms need further medical investigation.
This is why I don’t believe in handing everybody with IBS the same generic diet and sending them on their way. Your digestive history matters. Your symptoms matter. Your bowel habits matter. Your lifestyle matters. Your individual tolerance matters.
You matter.
Stop asking what else you need to remove
If your IBS diet isn’t working, I’d resist the urge to immediately search for the next food to cut out. Instead, look backwards for a moment.
What have you tried? What actually changed? Which symptoms are still bothering you? What are your bowel movements doing? What happened around the time your IBS started or became worse? How restricted has your diet become? And what else is going on in your body and your life that might be affecting your digestion?
Because there comes a point where another elimination diet simply gives you another elimination diet. It doesn’t necessarily give you an answer.
And for me, understanding why your gut is reacting the way it is is far more useful than becoming exceptionally good at avoiding food.
Need help working out what may be causing your IBS?
If you’ve already changed your diet, removed foods, tried supplements and Googled the absolute shit out of IBS but you’re still bloated, constipated, running to the loo or generally fed up with your digestive system, there may be more going on.
The IBS Freedom Method gives you a structured way to look at the bigger picture rather than continually guessing which food needs to disappear next. And if you’re not sure where to start, my FREE Gut Health Call is a private, relaxed and completely judgement-free conversation where we can look at your symptoms, what you’ve already tried and what may be worth investigating next.
About Helen Jane
Helen Jane is a qualified Nutritional Therapist and IBS Coach with over 11 years of experience helping people reduce IBS, bloating, food intolerances, digestive discomfort and low energy through practical nutrition and lifestyle changes. As founder of Your IBS Freedom, she specialises in helping people improve gut health naturally using food as medicine, without restrictive fad diets or unnecessary overwhelm, supporting clients across the UK, Europe and the USA. My Reviews
Disclaimer
This blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment from your GP or healthcare professional.
References
IBS Won’t Stop? Why Your Gut is Misfiring and Your Medical Next Steps | Ubie Doctor’s Note. (n.d.). https://ubiehealth.com/doctors-note/ibs-gut-misfiring-persistent-medicals-solutions-4723e2
Urbanik, T. (2026, August 23). IBS diet not working? 7 Evidence-Based Next Steps. Neuroplastic Pain Guide. https://neuroplasticpainguide.org/conditions/ibs/ibs-diet-not-working/
