@lynneblundell I’ll just throw out a bunch of ideas after hearing some of your symptoms: Have you checked your thyroid? Any chance of Lymes disease? Are you starting menopause? Personally I think getting enough water is important, but an extra abundance of it does nothing but put you in the bathroom every 30 minutes, if you are peeing out all of that water, your body didn’t need it I’m thinking, and there is a such thing as too much water, which is very dangerous but requires a lot of water intake in a short time and is rare.
My brother-in-law suffered from very bad gout, and finally found a diet that has significantly changed his life. I have another friend who cured her colitis with changing her diet. For years I seemed to have a lactose intolerance, any dairy and in 20 minutes I was in the bathroom. I took some MEGADOSES of antibiotics, both oral and IV for something completely unrelated. I did take some acidopholous to hopefully hold off yeast growth. Even with the probiotics I wound up with a vaginal yeast infection (which I had never had before, even when I had taken some antibiotics in the past for common things like strep throat or a sinus infection), who knows what was going on in my tummy, but after this extended and high dose of all of these antibiotics and then some yeast medicine my lactose intolerance was gone. It has never reoccurred in over 10 years. I trully believe it was one of the antibitics that cured me, but no way to know which one.
The moral of the story is that when something is chronic, even if you have suffered for years, it is very possible it will resolve itself, either from persistent trials of various remedies or pure dumb luck, I hope this happens for you.
Diet, I would try eliminating wheat, then I would try dairy, then meat, etc. Not altogether, but separately so you can tell what is doing what. Generally, what I have found, is that if you go without something for 2 weeks, you may not notice if you are much better or not, but then when you eat it again at the end of the two week trial you might feel like shit, and then you might have your answer.