T’aint in Yoor head…the medical deities Always say that for alot of diseases they can’y beat into submission with Drugs.
Alternative medicine has achieved spectacular victories:but it requires a patient change his lifestyle;not an easy way out for sure. Diet,supplements are the key.
Everyone,please check out Rbt Cohen’s website:
http://www.notmilk.com/
and Andrew Saul’s
http://doctoryourself.com/colitis.html

While I, a woman have SBS(short bowel syndrome)(only 12 inches of small intestine after a bowel resection). I live with the same symptoms as a person with IBS. In reading this article, I have to wonder if this is happening to my husband who is extremely Bi-Polar. He has been suffering from IBS for as long as he can remember. With the mood swings from depression to homicideal episodes. When his anziety (manic) is high, his IBS just rages. He’s mentally so down on himself at these times, the depression time is when it hits the hardest.
Thanks for the interesting article, we need to discuss this with his primary Dr as well as his phychiatrist. In connecting with the two, we may have the answer to all the tests that have came up negitave so far.

I appreciate your writing on this topic, which is important to many with pain and IBS. But your use of the pejorative phrase “it’s all in your head” – however well meaning in the context of the story – followed immediately by “Well, maybe it is” tends to reinforce the misconception shared by many that IBS is not a ‘real’ disorder but is, instead, as IBS suffers continue to hear over and over again, ‘all in your head.’ It would have been accurate and just as catchy to say, “Well, its not – but it is, at least in part, in your brain.”

Working with IBS patients has been my specialty are for the past 6 years. I must say, it’s in the gut, not in the head for most true IBS patients. I’ve been using a blood test called a Mediator Release Test to help identify trigger foods and chemicals. (Do you know ANYBODY with IBS that hasn’t identified that diet plays a role?)

Then, based on blood-test results, an individualized diet is set up. I’ve seen amazing results.

The president of the company I work with was an IBS cripple prior to finding out his triggers – that’s why he went to work for the company. He figured others shouldn’t have to suffer for 35 years, as he had, when there are better answers than trial and error. (He’s happy to share his story with anybody willing to listen. Does he still have IBS? Yes – Are symptoms controlled now – yes also.)

I’ve seen many lives restored, anxiety reduced, headaches relieved, etc. etc. As an RD since 1982, it’s the most exciting and rewarding work I’ve done since starting in the nutrition field.
There is so much research to show that it’s not “all in your head” – but there is certainly a relationship between mediators that can cross the blood-brain barrier and symptoms, so, yes, some of it is “in the head.”

Always happy to talk, privately if needed, with anybody. Would love to spread the word about the most effective diet therapy I’ve ever worked with!

Irritable bowel syndrome, commonly referred to as IBS, is believed to be caused by the dysfunction of the muscles that control the gastrointestinal tract. It is also said that these muscle dysfunctions could be caused by the nerves which control the related organs of this tract.

The nervous control of the gastrointestinal tract is extremely complex. A system of nerves runs the full length of the gastrointestinal tract from the esophagus to the anus in the muscular walls of the organs. These nerves communicate with the nerves traveling to and from the spinal cord. Nerves within the spinal cord travel to and from the brain. Therefore, abnormal function of the nervous system in IBS may occur in a gastrointestinal muscular organ, the spinal cord, or the brain. The nervous system controlling the gastrointestinal organs, as with most other organs, contains sensory and motor nerves. Theses nerves continuously sense what is happening within the organs and relay this information to nerves in the organ’s wall. From there, information can be relayed to the spinal cord and brain. This information is received and processed in the organ’s wall, the spinal cord, or the brain. Then, based on this sensory input and the way the input is processed, responses are sent to the organ over the motor nerves. The most common motor responses in the intestine are contraction or relaxation of the muscle of the organ and secretion of fluid and/or mucus into the organ.

An IBS cartoon for you

http://pastexpiry.blogspot.com/2009/03/cartoon-irritable-bowel-syndrome-ibs.html
Past Expiry Cartoon LINK

I think that IBS can be best understood as emanating from cumulatively experienced neural responses to chronic stress, including neural responses in the CNS and neurohormone response (e.g. cortisol for negative feedback response to the initial generation of CRH and ACTH production). It is well founded in the research that environmental stress induces immediate alterations in brain activity and neurohormone response. Cumulatively and chronically experienced stress also produces later and chronic mind-body changes. The research on brain activity of later adult survivors with PTSD having histories of early childhood abuse provide a window to support this view.

So it is in one’s head (the neural response) and also in one’s body. It is also a response to prior stressful environmental experience, including those invoiving social interactions. Please reference the research of Bruce Naliboff and Doug Drossman. Doug Drossman on UNC has done a good deal of research with IBS patients, those having active symptoms and histories of child abuse and those with active symptoms without histories of child abuse. He was able to document different brain activity in both respective populations of patients to experimentally induced distress. The impact of prior stress, including those involving stress-filled social interactions, should not be underestimated.