Irritable Bowel Syndrome – IBS
 by: Sher Matsen

Irritable bowel syndrome also called IBS is one of the most common disorders of the digestive tract. Symptoms of IBS often increase with stress or after eating and include

Abdominal bloating, pain, and gas

Mucus in the stool

Feeling as if a bowel movement hasn’t been completed

Irregular bowel habits with constipation, diarrhea, or both
The cause of IBS is unknown. Symptoms are thought to be related to abnormal muscle contractions in the intestines. However, when tests are done, they find no changes, such as inflammation or tumors, in the physical structure of the intestine.

IBS can persist for many years. An episode may be more then severe than the one before it, but the disorder itself does not worsen over time or lead to any serious diseases such as cancer. Symptoms tend to get better over time.

If you have not yet been diagnosed with IBS, try to rule out other causes of stomach problems such as eating a new food, nervousness, or stomach flu. Try home treatment for 1 to 2 weeks. If there is no improvement of if your symptoms worsen, make an appointment with your doctor.

Your doctor may prescribe medications for you to take in addition to doing home treatment. There are no tests that can diagnose IBS but your doctor may recommend testing to rule out other possible causes of your symptoms. The amount of testing your doctor will do depends on your age, the pattern, and severity of your symptoms, and your response to initial treatment.

Prevention:

There is no way to prevent IBS. However symptoms often worsen or improve because of changes in your diet, your stress level, your medications, the amount of exercise you get, and for other reasons. Identify the things that trigger your symptoms. This can help you avoid or minimize attacks.

Home Treatment:

If constipation is your main symptom

Eat more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Add fibre rich food to your diet, but do this slowly so that you do not develop severe cramps

Add unprocessed wheat bran to your diet. Start with 15g per day then gradually increase to 60g

Try a product that contains a bulk forming agent such as Citrucel, FiberCon, or Metamucil. Start with 15g a day and drink extra water to prevent bloating

Use laxatives only if your doctor recomends them.

Get active. Increase your physical activity.

If diarrhea is your main symptom

Try the dietary suggestions for relieving constipation. Fibre rich foods and wheat bran can help reduce diarrhea

Avoid foods that make diarrhea worse. Try eliminating one food at a time then add it back into your diet and see if symptoms develop. Many people find the following foods or ingredients make it worse:

alcohol

caffeine

nicotine

beans

broccoli

cabbage

apples

spicy foods

foods high in acid such as citrus fruits

fatty foods like bacon, sausage, butter, or oil,

dairy products

sorbital

olestra

starchy foods such as bread, rice or potatoes

MSG

If diarrhea persists a non prescription medication such as lopeamide found in Imodium may help. Check with your doctor if you are using lopeamide more than twice a month.

To reduce stress

keep a log of the events in your life that seem to trigger your symptoms then try to correct the underlying issues

get regular and vigorous exercise

When To Call Your Doctor:

If you have been diagnosed with IBS and your symptoms get worse and begin to disrupt your usual activities or does not respond to home treatments

If you are becoming increasingly fatigued

If you are symptoms frequently wake you up at night

If your pain gets worse with movement or coughing

If you have abdominal pain and fever

If you have abdominal pain that does not get better when you pass a stool

If you are loosing weight and you don’t know why

If your appetite has decreased

If there is blood in your stool

About The Author

Sher Matsen author of Healing Herbs For The Mind Body & Soul offers you alternative choices for treating disease and illness at http://www.herbs-that-heal.com © Copyright Sher Matsen, All Rights Reserved – You may republish this article with an active link to our site.

Irritable bowel syndrome is called a “syndrome” because of the fact that a syndrome is characterized by having a certain set of symptoms. Symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome can vary from person to person and a doctor can only truly diagnose irritable bowel syndrome when he or she has examined the different symptoms experienced by a person.

However, may people who have Irritable bowel syndrome experience symptoms that are so mild that they do not really bother to call a physician. In fact, a person experiencing symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome would more likely attribute it to “bad food” than anything else.

There are cases when the symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome can interfere with one’s life. Symptoms of Irritable bowel disease such as diarrhea and abdominal pain could cause enough distraction that a person would want to seek some help.

How does a person get relief from these symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome?

1) Think about your symptoms – in order to control your symptoms, it is important to understand what these symptoms are. This is because Irritable bowel syndrome can have a variety of symptoms depending on the person. Some people may experience diarrhea, some people may feel constipated. Some people experience abdominal cramping while others may feel bloated.

Knowing about your symptoms can give you a guide to relieve those symptoms. By knowing specifically what symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome you feel, you can take the necessary steps to stop those symptoms from stopping you.

2) Choose a proper diet – What you eat is directly related to how you will feel. Once you know the symptoms of your illness, you can take steps to eliminate those symptoms. One of the best ways to do this is through eating a well-prepared diet. Depending on your symptoms, you can choose foods that will sooth you stomach and not cause further aggravation of the symptoms.

Since what you eat directly affects your digestive tract, you need to choose wisely. Some people say that you need to pinpoint what foods aggravate your Irritable bowel syndrome symptoms by eating each food and observing the effect. However, you do not really need to make yourself into a human lab rat in order to find the diet to soothe your irritable bowel syndrome symptoms. Here’s a little tip for you: do not eat anything that’s high in fat, contains alcohol, or anything dairy. This is because these foods are likely to affect your IBS adversely.

3) Relax – many studies have shown that people who experience a lot of stress are likely to develop Irritable bowel syndrome. It may be because of the same reason that professionals today always keep some antacid on hand.

Stress triggers a reaction in your gut. It actually causes your stomach to release more acid and enzymes. This, of course, leads to very bad symptoms of Irritable bowel syndrome. This is the reason why most people suffering from IBS today seek out relaxation therapies like acupuncture or yoga. By relaxing you will be able to make digestion a smooth process for your body.

By following these tips, you are sure to relieve the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. In following these tips, you would be able to at least keep the pain of IBS away. Just because it is not curable does not mean you have to suffer its symptoms everyday.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is tagged as such since it is characterized by having certain symptoms. It varies from person to person and a doctor is the only one capable of determining and diagnosing that indeed a patient is experiencing such problems.

However, most people do not even need to call a physician if they do experience it, simply because the symptoms are just too mild. In fact, most people blame food instead of IBS.

Irritable bowel syndrome can cause interference and discomfort in one’s life. Some symptoms range from diarrhea to severe abdominal pain. This could cause one to lose focus and suffer if they just let it go on.

Finding relief from irritable bowel syndrome:

1. Think about the symptoms you are experiencing. In order for you to control them, you need to know what to watch out for when it happens. The symptoms always vary depending on the individuals; some may feel constipation while other may feel bloated or abdominal pains.

Knowing what symptoms are possible raises your awareness of the problem. You can then take steps to stop these symptoms from happening.

2. Choose the right diet for you. What you eat always affects your health. Once you know what symptoms to watch out for, you can start eliminating them by properly taking care of your health. You can do this by eating the right kinds of food. You can choose foods that will help soothe your stomach, but this would of course depend on the symptoms that you experience.

Choose wisely, since what you eat will eventually affect your digestive tract. You don’t really need to experiment about the kinds of food that you can eat. Just keep in mind that eating food with fat content, food that has alcohol or anything dairy infused, will likely cause irritable bowel problems.

3. Relaxing is a good way to beat IBS. People who stress too much are likely to develop bowel problems, so it is better to find activities or just simply take the time off to de-stress and relax.

Stressing out triggers a reaction in your gut and it causes a release of acid and certain enzymes in your stomach. Thus, leading to a very irritated bowel; for this same reason, therapeutic practices such as acupuncture are now being sought by those suffering from IBS. Relaxing helps make your digestion become a smoother process.

If you follow these guidelines, you can be sure to alleviate some of the discomfort of irritable bowel syndrome. By following them, at least you are keeping the symptoms at bay. Even though there is no cure for it yet, it doesn’t mean you have to keep up on suffering from it.

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