IBS Psychology

IBS Psychology

One of the big features of IBS-Health.com is the attention to the often neglected psychological element of life with IBS.  Long term sufferers will suffer as a result of the symptoms without exception.   The following touches upon a few of these issue,  however the website deals with the issue far more conclusively.

Conditioning

The key psychological issue facing IBS sufferers is gradual conditioning generated by IBS.  Incremental steps towards conditioning are made daily and generate conditioned responses in the manner of  Pavlov’s dogs.  In the case of IBS the stimuli is the most powerful – fear.    With or without IBS,  as  a species certain places will be equated to certain reactions and emotions.

As an IBS sufferer,  you may equate a certain place where you had an incident, or a certain activity to needing the bathroom.  Whenever you step into that environment you are instantly filled with the same sense of anxiety, which often leads to a need for the bathroom.

Breaking a conditioned response is very difficult.  At present some clinical psychologists are known to try self hypnosis.  Hypnosis, sadly carries with it the stigma of fraudulent entertainment, however in this context it is used to try to condition a suffer or IBS or anxiety to relax, upon a given stimuli or condition.  This works for some, certainly not all and is always worth a try as the benefits outweigh the costs.

Avoidance

When IBS is at its worst, a sufferer can become prone to avoidance.  Avoidant personality disorder, is something featured on the site, and a condition that many sufferers will relate to.  The unwillingness to risk trusting your condition may lead to sufferers choosing to avoid social situations.  This ends up with a suffocated lifestyle.

For a deeper insight into this area please go to our website www-ibs-health.com

Life with IBS

The daily effects of IBS

How does IBS effect sufferers on a daily basis?  One of the fundamental issues with IBS and it’s treatment is its lowly status.  More often than not IBS is considered an irritant.  It is clearly not life threatening, and its effects do not generally cause any apparent lasting damage, so why do sufferers become so immersed in the condition.

Due to the generic use of IBS as a ‘stomach’ condition denoting digestive issues, the impact on severe sufferers is lost.  Those who do not suffer with the condition, or those who may have suffered with a mild case will not be able to empathise with the level of distress IBS can cause.  When suffering with a bout of colitis or severe IBS,  most decisions are made around the condition.   Sufferers have to plan where toilets are, and to be situated close to accessible facilities.

Most variations of IBS involve constant discomfort, manly through cramps and bloating.  Whichever form the symptoms take they provide a constant and uncomfortable reminder of the condition.  What those who do not suffer fail to comprehend is the constant nature of the complaint, this is not an infrequent bloating of stomach ache, this is more often than not a perpetual ache.

Moods can be effected, depression is not unknown amongst severe suffers.  To be unable to have control over your own bodily functions is a deeply unpleasant sensation.  Sufferers  have to eat heavily restricted diets and to have to be constantly  conscious of diet. 

The psychological effects of IBS are far too often ignored.  The chance is that many IBS sufferers will have experienced situations whereby they did not make it in time, and such events leave dark imprints in the memory which can take a very long time to erase.   Such feelings are often then combined with stress and anxiety.

Please do not mistake this blog for a ‘poor us’ article, there are thousands of conditions which are far worse.  This blog is simply trying to draw awareness to the fact that severe IBS can lead to a loss of freedom.  Freedom is something that we can often think of in quite narrow terms, however we can all become prisoners to our condition.

 IBS-Health.com

Why IBS?

Having lived with IBS throughout my life, I decided it was time to provide a website that truly helped with this deeply affecting disorder.   IBS has become a ridiculously broad term for digestive disorders.  Only really Crohn’s and Coeliacs and Colitis have been clearly defined in terms of symptoms and causality.   Almost all other digestive disorders have been lumped together as IBS.  Symptoms as disparate as diarrhoea and constipation have been grouped together under the misleading IBS banner.

This in turn increases the difficulty of finding the right treatment.  If no major or obvious disorder is discovered after thorough medical examination the likelihood is that the doctor will pull out the IBS card.   The digestive process is spectacularly complex and any one of hundreds of bodily functions could be at fault in creating your problems however not enough is known to be able to isolate your personal often unique problems. Too often the treatments offered could be likened to putting your ankle in plaster, to deal with a broken elbow.

Few of us are lucky enough to have a doctor who specializes in digestion and therefore most of us receive advice which whilst well intentioned is often wrong.   More and more information is being discovered regarding diet and digestion as there is a growing appreciation of the importance of the body’s core, its engine.  Despite the fact that physicians such as Dr. F.X. Mayr began preaching about the importance of diet in the late nineteenth century, it has only been in the last twenty years that the effects of diet on health and performance have been accepted en mass.

IBS-Health.com is a website and company that aims to seek solutions for the individual as opposed to suggesting that one cure suits all.  There are many principals which can be adopted by most people however the key feature of IBS-Health.com and its sister clinic site, is its dedication to helping and it’s recognition of the individual.

This will be the first of many posts on this subject, and we hope that our blogs and website and upcoming book will help as many people as possible.  

http://www.ibs-health.com/index.html