Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, affects millions of people around the world and is one of the most common gastrointestinal disorders in industrialised countries.
If you suffer from this condition you are part of a huge international community.
Knowing you are one of many may not be much consolation but this page provides a short explanation about IBS, offer a précis of what is known about it and describe how gut directed hypnotherapy can help many sufferers.
Over the years irritable bowel syndrome has been called by several different names. At one time it was often referred to as spastic colon. There was a time when it was called spastic bowel and misleadingly, spastic colitis though it is not a form of colitis and colitis is far more serious. It has also been called functional bowel disease or simply described as a functional disorder.
The good news is that IBS is not life threatening, does not cause permanent harm or indicate a probability of developing into a more serious conditions such as cancer. There is no need to become unduly alarmed.
Nevertheless, if you suffer from IBS, either intermittently or regularly, is a problem which you will want to overcome. After all, it is distressing, can often embarrassing, and can be genuinely disabling; limiting your life, affecting how you travel, what social functions you attend and how you work.
So let's have a look at your gut, which, as you will see from the image on the right, is a long muscular tube. It’s function, to put it bluntly, is to "processes" food from when it enters your mouth until it exits at your annus.As food proceeds along this route it passes through the small and large intestines, or your bowels.
When your intestines are functioning properly, food is passed along this tube thanks to regular contractions made by the muscles lining the wall of the gut. The food is dehydrated then kept to be evacuated as soft stools. Your colon moves stools from the right side down to the rectum through regular contractions.
What happens when IBS develops is that instead of normal regular, gentle contractions, the colon becomes irregular, overactive and the contractions can become more violent ... or contractions seem to stop along part of the gut. That is when you start to notice the symptoms which you can see in the right hand column.
What causes such overactivity? Plenty of theories but no rock-solid certainties. Gut directed hypnotherapy is based largely on the belief that signals sent to the gut from the brain - due to stress or emotional upset - disrupts the way the digestive system, the brain and the autonomic nervous system work or interact together.
Supporting evidence for this comes with reports that about half of IBS sufferers can link the inception of their condition to some stressful event within their lives or a time when they were particularly anxious. In addition IBS symptoms often worsen during times of stress and anxiety.
Apart from psychological influences, other factors which are thought may contribute to the conditions are diet and the environment and psychological influences. In addition intolerance to certain foods may sometimes be a factor, though probably only in a relatively small number of cases. The straight fact is however that being a "syndrome" the reasons for IBS, for its severity and the extent to which it affects sufferers differs from person to person.
Though, as already stated, it is uncertain what causes overactivity of the muscles of the gut, it is thought signals sent from the brain and emotional upheaval are involved. This is underlined by research suggestion roughly half of IBS sufferers are able to link the onset of the symptoms to a stressful events and the symptoms tend to worsen when a person is stressed or anxious.
Hypnotherapy is a highly effective way of reducing stress and enabling the mind and the body to calm down. In addition within the therapeutic sessions patients learn how to remain calm, how remain in control and to alter expectations which may have become established that their digestive system will cause them difficulties.
Though IBS is not life threatening and sometimes the problems are relatively mild, it is important anyone experiencing such symptoms should consults their GP, not
least because other more serious ailments can produce similar indications.
It is therefore essential before undergoing hypnotherapy for IBS, patients must have first consulted their own physician for a proper medical diagnosis.
