IBS – What’s the Go? What Can I Do?

Irritable bowel syndrome, IBS, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, wind, farts… so many terms! So many symptoms! So many attempts to manage and treat it. And, in all honesty – affecting so many more of you than what you actually think! So what is the deal with IBS, and is there really anything that we can do about it?

 

IBS is a diagnosis that is made after someone generally presents with a collection of symptoms affecting the gastro system that, after investigation, has no indefinable physical cause. This doesn’t mean that it is not real. It doesn’t mean that it is all in your head, and it MOST CERTAINLY does not mean that there is nothing that we can do about it.

 

What are the symptoms of IBS?

People with symptoms of IBS may experience things like:

- Diarrhoea, constipation or a combination of both

- Unexplained and sudden abdominal cramping

- Significant bloating

- A feeling of never being able to empty bowels completely

- Nausea, vomiting

- Reflux and heart burn

- Sharp stabbing pains in the abdomen

 

What is the cause?

In all honesty, we do not actually know. Many people have tried to explain it, and find a single solution or cure, but ultimately we have not been able to. But there are some things we do know, and knowing these things means that we can provide some relief to people experiencing these problems.

 

Your gut is MUCH more than just a tube that allows you to absorb the food that you eat so that it can live. It is a VERY complex structural network made up of intricate pathways connecting muscles to nerves, to hormones, to enzymes, all working intricately together to function the best way that it can, to help you thrive. BUT knowing how complex this is allows us to understand just how easy something can break down and not function properly giving us experiences like IBS symptoms.

 

Your gut communicates to your brain through these muscles and nerves to adapt to stressors and environments that we expose it to. One of the main issues we think underlying in people with IBS is an inappropriate response to what we would generally think of as a normal stimulus in someone’s gut. And this is most likely at the cellular level. Someone without IBS would come across something in their gut, and the complex network would make necessary adjustments to deal with this. In someone with IBS the gut comes into contact with something – whatever it is – and it mounts an inappropriate to it – leading to symptoms like those described above.

 

This inappropriate response then affects our natural microbiome as the environment is not suitable for the healthy forest of microbes to grow. This creates a dysbiosis – or an uneven growth of bacteria and other microbes – which further stresses the system, which then mounts an inappropriate response, fuelling an absolute vicious cycle.

 

What can we do?

At Longevity Health Supplements we have a philosophy of taking a person-centred approach – listening to your specific problems to formulate a treatment or management plan to help relieve your symptoms,

and prevent them from coming back. Just because we cannot identify a problem, doesn’t mean there is not a problem, and we work with you on two levels:

 

Firstly, we make you feel better. We have access to a huge range of practitioner level interventions that I can prescribe specifically to help relieve your discomfort. We can look at inflammation, your nervous system, your gut microbiome, your mental wellbeing, and your physical health to target systems to improve they way you feel, and manage symptoms.

 

Secondly, we try and improve your body’s function to prevent symptoms from occurring. Looking at helping your cells function appropriately again is the best thing we can do. This just makes sense. We do not know what is wrong, BUT we know that something is wrong. So looking at fixing our absolute basic building block of ourselves has to be the solution. We have tried this method and honed it for the last couple of years with great results, and we cannot wait to bring it to you, helping you create a happier and healthy life.

What can you do now?

If you are looking for a quick and easy option to try in the first instance, while you are deciding how you would like to pursue fixing your problems we would suggest giving Theronomic – Tribioitc Gut Shield a go! Even if you have tried probiotics in the past and they have not provided you the relief you hope for do not discredit these – these are unlike anything you have seen before. Check out our blog on Microbiome Modulation to see why these are just so much different!