IBS – Irritable Bowel Symptom

Hypnotherapy has been proven to be highly effective in alleviating IBS symptoms. Over 15 years of solid scientific research has demonstrated hypnotherapy as an effective, safe and inexpensive choice for IBS symptom alleviation.
Hypnotherapy routinely produces long term positive results in over 80% of the people who use it.

Hypnotherapy is often thought to be a therapy that only affects the mind, but as mind and body are inseparably joined, hypnosis can also help physical ailments.

For Irritable Bowel Syndrome, one of hypnotherapy's greatest benefits is its well-established ability to reduce the effects of stress. Your state of mind can have a direct impact on your physical well-being, even when you are in the best of health. If you're struggling with IBS, the tension, anxiety, and depression that comes from living with an incurable illness can actually undermine your immune system and further compromise your health.

Hypnosis can reduce this stress and its resultant negative impact by placing you in a deeply relaxed state, promoting positive thoughts and coping strategies, and clearing your mind of negative attitudes.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome in fact is almost uniquely suited to treatment by hypnosis or self-hypnosis, for several reasons. First, as just noted, stress-related attacks can be significantly reduced. Second, one of the most impressive aspects from hypnotherapy, and of tremendous benefit to IBS sufferers, is its well-documented ability to relieve virtually all types and degrees of pain. Finally, because IBS is not a disease at all but a syndrome, if you can relieve and prevent the symptoms, you have effectively cured yourself of the disorder, and you will be living an IBS-free life. This outcome is a definite possibility from hypnotherapy treatments.

As with other complementary therapies, although there is evidence that hypnotherapy can provide lasting health benefits for many patients, there is uncertainty about precisely how and why the treatments work. Most scientists believe that hypnotherapy acts upon the unconscious, and affects the body's regulation of involuntary reactions that are normally beyond a person's control. Hypnosis puts these autonomic responses under the patient's power. Happily, treatment is suitable for people of all ages, for males and females, and there are no risks or side effects.

Common symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) may include:

• Abdominal pain and spasm
• Diarrhoea
• Constipation
• Bloated stomach
• Rumbling noises and wind
• Urgency - a need to rush and open the bowels
• A feeling of incomplete emptying of the bowels
• Incontinence if a toilet is not nearby
• A sharp pain felt low down inside the rectum
• Nausea, belching and vomiting

What is an Irritable Bowel?

Medically, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), is known by a variety of other terms: spastic colon, spastic colitis, mucous colitis and nervous or functional bowel. Usually, it is a disorder of the large intestine (colon), although other parts of the intestinal tract, even up to the stomach can be affected.

The colon, the last five feet of the intestine, serves two functions in the body. First, it dehydrates and stores the stool so that, normally, a well-formed soft stool occurs. Second, it quietly propels the stool from the right side over to the rectum, storing it there until it can be evacuated. This movement occurs by rhythmic contractions of the colon.

When IBS occurs, the colon does not contract normally, instead, it seems to contract in a disorganized, at times violent, manner. The contractions may be terribly exaggerated and sustained, lasting for prolonged periods of time. One area of the colon may contract with no regard to another. At other times, there may be little bowel activity at all. These abnormal contractions result in changing bowel patterns with constipation being most common.

A second major feature of IBS is abdominal discomfort or pain. This may move around the abdomen rather than remain localised in one area. These disorganised, exaggerated and painful contractions lead to certain problems. The pattern of bowel movements is often altered. Diarrhoea may occur, especially after meals, as the entire colon contracts and moves liquid stool quickly into the rectum. Alternatively, localised areas of the colon may remain contracted for a prolonged time. When this occurs (which often happens in the section of colon just above the rectum), the stool may be retained for a prolonged period and be squeezed into small pellets and excessive water is removed from the stool making it become hard.

Air may also accumulate behind these localised contractions, causing the bowel to swell, so bloating and abdominal distress may occur. Some patients see mucous in the stool and become concerned. Mucous is a normal secretion of the bowel, although most of the time it cannot be seen. IBS patients sometimes produce large amounts of mucous, but this is not a serious problem.

The cause of most IBS symptoms - diarrhoea, constipation, bloating, and abdominal pain - are due to this abnormal physiology.

IBS is not a disease and although the symptoms of IBS may be severe, the disorder itself is not a serious one. There is no actual disease present in the colon. In fact, an operation performed on the abdomen would reveal a perfectly normal appearing bowel.

The problem is in fact one of abnormal function. The condition usually begins in people below the age of 40, often as young as in the teens. The symptoms may wax and wane, being particularly severe at some times and absent at others. Over the years, the symptoms tend to become less intense.

IBS is extremely common and is present in perhaps half the patients that see a specialist in gastroenterology, and tends to run in families. The disorder does not lead to cancer. Prolonged contractions of the colon, however, may sometimes lead to Diverticulosis, a disorder in which balloon-like pockets push out from the bowel wall because of excessive, prolonged contractions.

Causes

While our knowledge is still incomplete about the function and malfunction of the large bowel, some facts are well-known. Certain foods, such as coffee, alcohol, spices, raw fruits, vegetables, and even milk, can cause the colon to malfunction. In these instances avoidance of these substances is the simplest treatment.

Infections, illnesses and even changes in the weather somehow can be associated with a flare-up in symptoms. So can the premenstrual cycle in the female.

By far, the most common factor associated with the symptoms of IBS are the interactions between the brain and the gut. The bowel has a rich supply of nerves that are in communication with the brain. Virtually everyone has had, at one time or another, some alteration in bowel function when under intense stress, such as before an important athletic event, school examination, or a family conflict.

People with IBS seem to have an overly sensitive bowel, and perhaps a super abundance of nerve impulses flowing to the gut, so that the ordinary stresses and strains of living somehow result in colon malfunction.

These exaggerated contractions can be demonstrated experimentally by placing pressure-sensing devices in the colon. Even at rest, with no obvious stress, the pressures tend to be higher than normal. With the routine interactions of daily living, these pressures tend to rise dramatically. When an emotionally charged situation is discussed, they can reach extreme levels not attained in people without IBS. These symptoms are due to real physiologic changes in the gut, a gut that tends to be inherently overly sensitive, and one that overreacts to the stresses and strains of ordinary living.

Diagnosis

IBS can often be suspected just by a review of the patient's medical history. It is however by way of exclusion of other conditions such as conditions of the bowel, that a firm diagnosis of IBS can be made. Diagnosis of IBS should be confirmed by a qualified medical practitioner.

A number of diseases of the gut, such as inflammation, cancer, and infection, can mimic some or all of the IBS symptoms. Certain medical tests are helpful in making this diagnosis, including blood, urine and stool exams, x-rays of the intestinal tract and a lighted tube exam of the lower intestine. This exam is called an endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy.

Additional tests often are required depending on the specific circumstances in each case. If the proper medical history is obtained and if other diseases are ruled out, a firm diagnosis of IBS then can usually be made.

Treatment

The treatment of IBS is directed to both the gut and the psyche. The diet may also require review, in order to identify those foods that aggravate the symptoms in order for them to be avoided.

Current medical thinking about diet has changed a great deal in recent years. There is good evidence to suggest that, where tolerated, a high roughage and bran diet is helpful. This diet can result in larger, softer stools which seem to reduce the pressures generated in the colon.

As many people have already discovered, the simple act of eating may, at times, activate the colon. This action is a normal reflex, although in IBS patients it tends to be exaggerated. It is sometimes helpful to eat smaller, more frequent meals to block this reflex.

Physical exercise, too, is helpful. During exercise, the bowel typically quiets down. If exercise is used regularly and if physical fitness or conditioning develops, the bowel may tend to relax even during non-exercise periods. The invigorating effects of conditioning, of course, extend far beyond the intestine and can be recommended for general health maintenance.

As important as anything else in controlling IBS, it is important to learn stress-reducing techniques, or at least learn how to control the body's response to stress, as the brain can exert controlling effects over many organs in the body, including the intestine.

Patients with IBS can be assured that nothing serious is wrong with the bowel. Prevention and treatment may involve a simple change in certain daily habits, reduction of stressful situations, eating better and exercising regularly.

Perhaps the most important aspect of treatment is reassurance. For most patients, just knowing that there is nothing seriously wrong is the best treatment of all, especially if they can learn to deal with their symptoms on their own.
What happens during the treatment?
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I have received specialist training in treating IBS using hypnotherapy and am a member of the UK Register of IBS Therapists. I combine all my skills and experience to produce a treatment that is tailored to your needs. So that I can help you to treat your IBS in the quickest and most effortless ways possible.

I use the OPSIM (Gut-Specific) method of treatment, which will normally require 5 one hour sessions with daily practice at home between the sessions. The 5 sessions are spread out over a three month period.

Over the course of the treatment:
You will become familiar with the hypnotherapy process, allowing you to learn that it is safe and very pleasant, and that you are in complete control at all times. You will begin the process of reducing anxiety and developing calming thoughts, which in turn reduces the negative thought patterns which trigger your IBS.

We will address the thoughts which create and stimulate the symptoms of IBS and teach you ways to control the speed of the peristalsis (movement of your digestive system) allowing a more normal bowel movement. You will also learn ways to reduce or eliminate pain and discomfort caused by the IBS.

You will release old un-resourceful thought patterns that may have been triggering or maintaining your IBS symptoms and develop new enhancing positive thought patterns.

Before booking it is very important that you have had your symptoms diagnosed by a medical practitioner or Doctor, as many of the symptoms of IBS can also be symptoms of more serious conditions.