Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a diagnosis given by doctors to people who have continuous and/or recurring pain in their colon. Symptoms vary between cases, although all people usually have a marked change in bowel function (diarrhea or constipation), cramping, gassiness and/or bloating. It is the most common disease diagnosed by gastroenterologists (doctors who specialize in medical treatment of disorders of the stomach and intestines), and one of the most common disorders seen at the Optimal Health Center. Sometimes irritable bowel syndrome is referred to as spastic colon, mucous colitis, spastic colitis, nervous stomach, or irritable colon. The exact cause of IBS is unknown in mainstream medical literature. I speculate it is related to stress, diet, hormonal imbalances, an overgrowth of normally healthy intestinal flora and/or an overly sensitive nervous system and liver.

The colon is stimulated by nerves and hormones. People with IBS have a sensitive colon which spasms with only mild stimulation that would not affect a healthy colon. There are a variety of ways the spasms are triggered: the wrong food for your metabolic type, food allergies, caffeine, stress, hormones, environmental allergies, supplements, or an overgrowth of organisms in the intestinal tract such as Candida albicans and Blastocyst hominis. While doctors may prescribe medication or laxatives to stop symptoms, this only suppresses the body’s efforts to clear out the causal irritation and does not address the true cause, thus driving the biochemical imbalance deeper into the body.

You to Can Heal

I find that people have a hard time changing their diets, or even believing that their diet has anything to do with how they feel in their bodies. When healing from Irritable Bowel Syndrome changing the foods you eat is a major factor. A favorite analogy is, “You don’t put soda pop in your car and expect it to run, do you
" And yet, we all put similar stuff in our bodies day-after-day and year-after-year, and expect them to run without complaint. One of the programs I recommend are tune-ups, of sorts. By starting off with ten days of changing your lifestyle, you bring your body to a better place. This ten-day experience provides the inspiration to keep going for the whole 35-day program that is laid out in my CD-Rom book, Ten Days to Optimal Health. After this program, you have a new standard of what it feels like to feel great in your body. From here, you are able to experiment with your favorite foods. In this way, you allow your own body to tell you how it feels when you eat bread or ice cream or her favorite food.