My IBS is not your IBS

I often see and hear people asking questions like:

1)     I have IBS, can you eat <insert particular food here>?

2)     Does this (insert therapeutic diet> work for IBS?

3)     If you have IBS, can you recommend a probiotic that works?

4)     Do you feel this medication my GP recommended helped your IBS?

These questions break my heart because these people are not likely to get the help they need, regardless of the answer. This is because IBS is a diagnosis of exclusion. Essentially, a series of tests (if you are lucky) are run that rule out any pathological or structural issues (commonly coeliac and Inflammatory Bowel Disease), leaving you with a diagnosis of IBS. In short, IBS means we could not find anything wrong so we diagnose you with IBS.

I am not sure that an IBS diagnosis is really helpful as a result, to be quite honest.

The cause of IBS and, therefore, the treatment for IBS is not known, at least not yet.  This also means that how you suffer from IBS differs from how I suffered from IBS. As a result of differing symptoms and history, we cannot expect the treatment to be the same.

Absolutely there will overlap in what works, but each person needs to evaluate and assess their own symptoms, treatments and progress.

At The Gut Clinic, we evaluate four main areas to understand what combination of treatment options needs to be considered:

·        Stress

·        Food

·        Gut Function

·        Gut Structure

Other areas, such as thyroid health, may need to be considered in certain cases. With most cases of IBS, the work is around finding out the combination of these 4 areas that have gone awry in creating your IBS. We must rectify what has gone wrong in these areas to alleviate your IBS symptoms.

At The Gut Clinic, we customise the treatment for IBS based on your current symptoms, history, and goals. We have some favourite treatment options and tests, but we still create a customised treatment plan for each person. Because, every person’s IBS is different.