Does it seem irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has taken control of your life?

You’re in good company unfortunately as the stats don’t lie. Nearly one out of five Americans cope with this issue daily making it the most commonly diagnosed gastro-intestinal disorder going. It also ranks just behind the common cold when it comes to the reason why people miss work. It can be a serious quality of life issue causing many to seek help from their doctor only to find their treatment options may be somewhat limited.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome Defined: Not a disease so much as a collection of symptoms more commonly found in women than men. Simply put the bowel simply goes on the fritz. Sufferers may experience a range of symptoms from chills, severe abdominal cramping, gas, and possibly diarrhea alternating with constipation. Fortunately, this problem with the intestinal tract is more a quality of life issue than life threatening.

What causes it?
This is a condition that’s not well understood. Simply put the cause of IBS remains unknown. Which is to say, otherwise perfectly healthy adults can suddenly develop digestive issues without any underlying medical reason. With some stress or certain foods can trigger an attack. While many may find the attacks disabling, it’s not like a sign of worse things to come when it comes to your health. Your colon or digestive system isn’t generally at risk of more serious conditions say cancer or the like just because you have symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

Symptoms?
Like I said, it’s not usual to experience a range of symptoms from chills, to severe abdominal cramping and bloating, gas maybe daytime diarrhea alternating with constipation. These problems can range from inconvenient to debilitating for some. Some report the symptoms can worsen after eating certain foods, high fiber foods, food high in fats, or simply a big meal. And you may find that any discomfort you feel is lessened after a bowel movement.

Still an episode of any duration can leave you feeling extremely tired and drained. And if you’re tired of the annoying symptoms you might be wondering how is this condition conclusively diagnosed?

Diagnosis?
Bad news. Unfortunately there is no one test, scan or x-ray your doctor can order that tells them yay or nay. What may happen is your doctor may take your digestive tract issues and deduce it’s IBS. To conclude that they will be looking for persistent abdominal pain with symptoms occurring at least three times a month over a 90 day period.

How Is It Managed?
Management is a good way of looking at it since there is no magic bullet here. That is a pill everyone can take doesn’t exist. That’s right, there is no quick, easy cure for irritable bowel syndrome. Instead you will focus on symptom relief and learning how to manage it over time often by trial and error.

Okay so if we agree that an IBS flare-up can be triggered by something you eat, the trick is figure out what you are eating that your body is reacting to negatively and eliminate it from your diet. Of course this is easier said than done. An idea that can help is you might keep a food diary to track what you eat and then note how your system reacts. The idea is to relate specific foods to an IBS episode. And don’t stop when you’ve identified one dietary trigger. There are often likely to be more.

Beat Irritable Bowel Syndrome With a Diary

Here’s one way to go about this. Usually you will want to eliminate a food group, say dairy over a 14 day period. If things improve you’d want to continue avoiding such foods. If not, you can go back to including dairy products in your diet and try something else.

You can also try to include different things. On the plus side of diet, some find herbal teas make a difference. Others employ probiotics – think yogurt and that kind of thing in your personalized IBS diet.

Stress doesn’t help either. Many find if they can manage their stress the number of episodes either subsides in severity, frequency, or both. And a great way to manage your stress levels is through exercise.

Another management tool would be medications like Bentyl, Levsin, or Anaspaz. But who wants to be one drugs forever, right? Which is why some feel you are better off if you can manage things without the aid of pharmaceuticals.

Obviously, the key to long management is figuring out which of these management strategies works best for you. You may find more help for IBS.

Recent Irritable Bowel Syndrome News

More recent studies have found that taking a specific type of antibiotic such as rifaximin can provide long lasting relief from the symptoms of IBS. The thinking being the mere presence of too many bacteria in your gut is a cause of the problem. The goal of the study then was to eliminate the excess flora using an antibiotic that doesn’t affect any other part of your body. And it works. For some.

Advances like these are why you are going to want to keep tapping various IBS resources to stay on top of things.

• It’s not all in your head. And irritable bowel syndrome is not exclusively brought on by stress although stress may make the symptoms worse for some.

• This is what the medical community calls a “functional” disorder, in that your digestive tract isn’t functioning as it should. Yet don’t worry. This condition does not lead to cancer or the development of Crohns.

• Women more so then men will suffer from irritable bowel syndrome.

• Nearly twice as many sufferers complain about diarrhea as opposed to constipation. Both are common symptoms.

• Various medical tests can rule out other diseases as the cause of your symptoms but not specifically identify your problem as IBS.

• Some may correctly refer to this as spastic colon. But it would be incorrect to say you have colitis.

• Trust me on this. You are going to be better off in the long run by identifying the triggers and make the needed lifestyle changes rather than looking to prescription drugs for a solution.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for this condition. For most, once it has developed, it’s a life long condition. But that doesn’t mean you can’t minimize the flair ups and get a handle on your symptoms so that they are less disruptive. It won’t happen over night. But in partnership with your doctor you should be able to improve your quality of life, despite the irritable bowel syndrome, so you can live with this problem long term.