What to Bring to a Dietitian Appointment for IBS

Dietitian appointments are short, and the first one goes by fast. What you bring decides how much of that time is spent on your own situation rather than general background.

1. Your food and symptom diary

This is the most useful thing you can bring. It shows what you actually eat, not what you remember eating. A good diary has:

• Ingredients, not just dishes. "Stir fry" hides the garlic and onion that may matter.
• Rough amounts. A splash of milk in tea and a large latte are different entries.
• Times, and symptom checks around 30 minutes, 2 hours and 6 hours after eating.
• The rest of your day: sleep, stress, exercise, your cycle and any medication changes.

If you haven't started one yet, our IBS food diary guide explains what to write down, and the printable template gives you one page per day. Not sure how long to keep it? See how long to keep an IBS food diary.

2. A one-page summary

Your dietitian will look at the full diary, but a summary helps them get to the point quickly. Write down:

• The symptoms you get most often, and roughly when in the day.
• The foods you suspect, and how many times each one came before a bad stretch.
• Any foods you have already cut out, and whether it made a difference.
• Days that stood out for other reasons, such as illness, travel or a stressful week.

Keep it to what you saw. "Bloated on 6 of the 9 days I had onion" is more useful than "onion is a trigger for me".

3. Medications and supplements

List everything you take regularly, including over-the-counter products, probiotics and fibre supplements, with the dose. Some of these affect digestion, and your dietitian will want the full picture.

4. What you have already tried

Note any diets or changes you have tried before, for how long, and what happened. That includes earlier attempts at a low FODMAP diet, cutting out gluten or dairy, or changing meal times. It saves your dietitian from suggesting something you already know does not help you.

5. Your questions

Write them down before you go. Some that people find useful:

• Is a low FODMAP diet right for me, and how should I go about it?
• How long should the first phase last, in my case?
• When we reintroduce foods, which should come first?
• Which foods in my diary would you look at more closely?
• What should I bring next time?

6. What you want from it

Say what matters most to you. It might be fewer bad days at work, eating out without worry, or a wider diet than you have now. Your dietitian can shape the plan around it.

If you log in GutGraph

GutGraph keeps your meals and symptom checks in one place and shows possible patterns with statistical confidence based on your logged data. Premium can produce a PDF summary formatted to support the conversation with your dietitian.

Identified patterns are correlations from your tracked data — they do not imply medical causation. Discuss findings with a qualified healthcare provider before making dietary changes.

Look up any food's rating and serving notes in the A–Z food list, and read about FODMAP stacking before you go: it explains a lot of "but it was all low FODMAP" days.

This article is general information, not medical advice. Your dietitian or doctor is the right person to guide your diet.