How Soluble Fiber Helps IBS Diarrhea

The "soluble" in soluble fiber means that it dissolves in water (though it is not digested). This allows it to absorb excess liquid in the colon, preventing diarrhea by forming a thick gel and adding a great deal of bulk as it passes intact through the gut.

This gel (as opposed to a watery liquid) also keeps the gastrointestinal muscles stretched gently around a full colon, giving those muscles something to easily "grip" during peristaltic contractions. This prevents the rapid transit time and explosive bowel movements that are common with diarrhea.

How Soluble Fiber Helps IBS Constipation

By the same token, the full, gel-filled colon (as opposed to one clenched tightly around dry, hard, impacted stools) provides the same "grip" during the muscle waves of constipation.

This allows for an easier and faster transit time, and the passage of the thick wet gel also effectively relieves constipation by softening and pushing through impacted fecal matter.

If you can mentally picture your colon as a tube that is squeezing through matter via regular waves of contractions, it's easy to see how a colon filled with soluble fiber gel is beneficial for both sides of the Irritable Bowel Syndrome coin—diarrhea and constipation.

How Soluble Fiber Helps IBS Pain and Cramping

As a glorious bonus, normalizing the contractions of the colon triggered by your gastrocolic reflex—whether they are too fast or too slow—helps prevent the violent and irregular spasms that cause lower abdominal cramping pain, a hallmark of IBS.

Heather's Tummy Fiber: Daily IBS Support with Added Benefits

Best of all, Heather's Tummy Fiber Supplement can be taken daily and indefinitely with no harmful side effects or risk of addiction.

In fact, soluble fiber has health benefits far beyond managing IBS. It has been shown to:

• Lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol
• Reduce the risk of heart disease
• Minimize colon cancer risks
• Slow the absorption of fats and carbohydrates, improving glycemic control
• Prevent the formation of free radicals
• Help manage diabetes

It's a Slowly Fermenting Prebiotic

Clinical studies have also shown that Heather's Tummy Fiber Supplement, made from Acacia Senegal, has unique benefits over other soluble fiber sources.

In the large intestine, Acacia Senegal fiber stimulates the development of bifidobacteria and lactic acid bacteria, which leads to the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). These SCFAs play numerous beneficial roles in the physiology of the human body.

Additionally, daily consumption of Acacia Senegal fiber at doses below 15 grams/day has been shown to avoid the gas, bloating, and cramping often associated with other soluble fiber supplements.

As much or as little as you like! There is no minimum amount of water required to mix Heather's Tummy Fiber. You can use just enough water to liquefy it, or you can use a whole glass. Both options are equally effective.

As long as there is sufficient water in your gut, the soluble fiber will work properly. Heather's Tummy Fiber has no viscosity, so there is no choking risk at all. This means you are not required to drink a large glass of liquid with it—unless you prefer to.

You only need to use however much (or little) water it takes to dissolve the powder. Alternatively, you can simply sprinkle the fiber on moist foods instead of mixing it into a drink.

Because the fiber does not thicken in liquids, it cannot coat your throat, and therefore does not pose a choking hazard. You can add the fiber to an empty cup and then add just enough water to liquefy it—just like dissolving cornstarch to prevent clumps.

Once liquefied, you can drink it right away or fill the rest of the cup with more liquid if you prefer. You can also cook with it or add it to soft, moist foods like applesauce or oatmeal.

How is Tummy Fiber Better than Other Fiber Supplements?

Heather's Tummy Fiber is very different from high-viscosity fibers like psyllium and methylcellulose. Those fibers require a large glass of water to prevent choking and must be consumed quickly before they thicken.

With Heather’s Tummy Fiber, there is no such concern. It stays smooth in liquids, offers flexible dosing, and poses no choking risk—making it safe, easy, and effective for daily IBS management.

Here's how to easily schedule your Tummy Fiber with meals, supplements and medications:

Treat your fiber like food. The easiest and most effective way to take Heather's Tummy Fiber is by adding it directly to your meals — ideally at breakfast and dinner. This gives your digestive system 24/7 IBS symptom coverage.

Once you combine fiber with your meals, the only remaining concern is supplements and medications that must be taken on an empty stomach. Simply schedule those around your meals and fiber intake.

Heather’s Tummy Fiber will not interfere with nutrients in food and will not interfere with medications or supplements that can be taken with food.

For medications or supplements that require an empty stomach, the rule of thumb is to take them one hour before meals or two hours after you eat food or your fiber.

Yes, you can! Heather’s Tummy Fiber is completely inert and stable, which means you can’t damage it, and it will not go bad. It is unaffected by heat, cold, or time.

You can safely add the fiber to any food or drink— whether you're cooking, baking, or mixing it into a bottle of water. Add it to your meals, beverages, or recipes as far in advance as you like.

The fiber will not mold, mildew, spoil, or lose its effectiveness. Whether it’s refrigerated, frozen, boiled, baked, or microwaved, the Tummy Fiber will stay fresh, effective, and it will work regardless..

The fiber is impervious. The food or drink you add it to will eventually go bad, but the fiber itself won’t. So prepare it ahead of time without worry.

This flexibility makes Heather’s Tummy Fiber ideal for meal prepping, cooking, or on-the-go use, supporting your IBS management routine with zero hassle.

No. Tummy Fiber is 100% Acacia Senegal, which is a 100% soluble fiber.

Soluble fiber cannot cause or worsen diarrhea or constipation, or flip one to the other.

But it also won't help you until there is enough of it in your gut 24/7 to regulate motility.

In the meantime, everything that is impacting your gut will keep impacting it.

It's a process to work up your dose, and you are still on a very low end.

Details:

There are two kinds of fiber, insoluble and soluble.

Insoluble is a stimulant and can set off IBS symptoms, and if you have strictures, it can cause intestinal blockages.

The Tummy Fiber is pure soluble fiber so it won’t do that – it can't.

It’s not a stimulant, it’s a bowel motility regulator.

It can’t cause blockages, diarrhea, or constipation, but it also will not help you until you gradually work up to enough of it in your gut, 24/7, to regulate motility.

In the meantime, everything else will keep impacting your gut and you will likely keep fluctuating day to day.

The Tummy Fiber is 100% soluble fiber, it can’t make anything worse, but it also will not help you with just the first dose or two, or first few days or two.

For constipation, it likely won’t help the first week or two either.

This is because you are starting at a low dose that won’t do anything at all — it is just to get your gut used to more fiber gradually.

All fibers are indigestible, so you always want to increase fiber slowly and steadily.

Do not skip doses.

Do not jump your dose up and then down and then up and then down.

Do not skip days – none of this will work.

This is a process. It can’t be erratic. It takes some time and patience, and you have to follow the process consistently, day in and day out, or soluble fiber will not do what you want it to do.

You need to start with just ½ teaspoon twice daily and then gradually increase.

Add an extra ½ teaspoon to just one of your doses, every 3–4 days.

So add an extra ½ teaspoon to your morning dose, wait 3–4 days, and then add an extra ½ teaspoon to your evening dose.

Wait 3–4 days, and then increase your morning dose again, etc.

You’ll keep following that pattern and gradually work up to the dose your gut needs for normal motility.

A rough average final dose for diarrhea is 1–3 tablespoons per day total.

For alternating diarrhea/constipation, probably 2–3 tablespoons per day total.

For constipation, a likely 3–5 tablespoons per day total.

That shows you the huge dose range, and also how far you will likely have to increase from the starting dose of just ½ teaspoon twice a day.

The fiber cannot make anything worse, but again, until you gradually work up to enough of it in your gut, it won’t help you either.

It has to reach the point where it can control your bowel motility.

You just will not have enough of it in your gut to affect you at all until you have worked your way far enough into the process.

I will tell you candidly — it will probably take you a few months to work up to the dose you would need to resolve chronic constipation.

In the meantime, you’ll still have symptoms, and you may need to use laxatives if you’re already doing that.

You should see improvements kick in as you gradually get your dose up around 3 tablespoons per day total.

Then you’d keep gradually increasing until you feel stable day in and day out.

You can’t just jump to this dose though – fiber does not work that way. I wish it did!

But you have to gradually get your gut used to more fiber, and then reach the point you need for motility regulation.

Once you hit that, you stay at whatever that dose is, morning and evening, as soluble fiber literally only works when it is physically present in your gut.