Irritable Bowel Syndrome

IBS Solutions: Treatment, Research and Training

We Know How Irritable Bowel Syndrome Feels 

Through treating many patients with IBS, we understand the impact that IBS has on your life. IBS sufferers experience constant pain, irregular bowel movements, and persistent discomfort. For many, it produces anxiety or irritability, with some sufferers becoming ‘depressed’ because there is seemingly no end to their suffering. Many sufferers are told, “it is all just stress.” While stress generally makes any symptom or illness worse, we recognise that that IBS is far more than just stress. 

What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?

When medically assessed, eliminating a range of possible diagnoses makes a diagnosis of IBS. This means that after a range of tests patients are told what they don’t have.

While it may be reassuring that you don’t have a serious or life-threatening condition, the end result is that your IBS diagnosis leaves you with few treatment options, and many patients are told that they will just have to live with it. 

Our experience is that once the cause is identified and treated, there is an end to IBS. 

Is IBS a 'Real' Condition?

After treating many patients with IBS, we now understand that IBS is not a single illness or condition. This realisation has helped us to understand IBS far better. Let’s face it ‘Irritable Bowel Syndrome’ is a rather broad term, covering just about any bowel symptom a person can have. There are agreed diagnostic criteria called the ‘Rome 2 Criteria’, but in practice any bowel discomfort for which there seems to be no cause tends to be diagnosed by health care practitioners as IBS. 

Rather than being a single condition, it is a collection of varying bowel symptoms caused by a variety of factors. This is why the questions we ask in our questionnaire are so vast – we need to get a clear picture of why a person has the symptoms that they do. When we determine which category of IBS you have, treatment is then straight-forward.

Is My IBS All In My Mind?

  Stress does make IBS worse and so it is correct that stress can trigger IBS symptoms, or make them worse, but we find that there is usually an underlying physiological cause.

Many IBS sufferers are told that their IBS is caused by stress and are recommended to use some relaxation therapies. Reducing stress levels by using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or a similar therapy may reduce the symptoms, but does not address the underlying cause. In most people there is a definite physical cause of their IBS. 

What Causes IBS?

We have identified over a dozen causes of IBS. Here are some of the most common ones: 

Post-parasitic

There has been a case of traveller’s diarrhoea or food poisoning years before followed by ongoing bowel problems. In other cases the patient ate some ‘dodgy’ seafood or drank suspect water. This patient will have underlying gut parasites. This may not always show clearly in a stool pathology test. 

Gallbladder

Many patients have sluggish gallbladders. Symptoms of this may be nausea, constipation or diarrhoea, with flatulence and an inability to digest oily or spicy foods. Patients with these symptoms who have had an abdominal ultrasound may have been told they do not have gall stones. However, ultrasounds do not detect these sluggish or malfunctioning gallbladder problems. 

Dysbiosis

Many people with IBS take some form of probiotic, which often helps their symptoms. This means that the bacteria in the gut is out of balance, which is called ‘dysbiosis.’

There are a variety of causes of dysbiosis, which include taking antibiotics, the oral contraceptive pill, or a period of stress. A person with dysbiosis may have too much ‘candida’ in their bowel and this can cause sugar cravings, frequent hunger, dizziness and headaches, (low blood sugar-type symptoms) flatulence and fatigue. Sweet food and refined foods usually aggravate these symptoms. 

Do Probiotics Help IBS?

These supplements are popularly used to treat IBS. While probiotics are a useful treatment, they only help IBS where there is a candida dysbiosis (overgrowth of candida yeast in the gut), which occurs in about 25% of patients. For IBS sufferers without a candida overgrowth, probiotics are not the primary treatment for IBS and will offer only limited relief. 

What Tests Do You Do?

Stool samples to test for gut parasites, other pathogens gut flora balance.

Blood tests – may reveal eosinophils.

Urinary Indicans Test – may reveal pathogenic bacteria overgrowth.

Hair Mineral Analysis – may reveal other toxicities. 

How Do You Treat IBS?

Once we understand the causes behind the symptoms, treatment is generally straightforward. Because there is a range of causes of IBS, there are a variety of different medicines that we prescribe. There is no ‘one size fits all’ or single solution when treating IBS.  

Treatment consists of:

• Homeopathic medicines
• Herbal medicines
• Dietary modification
• Mineral supplementation
• Chelation therapy

The treatment period varies, but usually takes between three and nine months.

If there is no improvement in your symptoms after six weeks, specialised pathology show more about the likely cause of your IBS. We will then modify your treatment plan. Your response to our treatment at the 2nd consultation is essential for us to evaluate your progress. 

How Long Do I Need to Take Medicine For?

Once the cause of your IBS has been correctly treated, it is not necessary to keep taking any medicine.  

How Successful Is This Treatment?

We expect the majority of patients to become symptom-free by the conclusion of treatment.  

However, if you suffer from an additional health problem, like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, your treatment will be more involved, over a longer period of time.  

Distance Consultations

Of course our preference is to meet you face-to-face, at least for your first consultation. However, we realise with distance this is not possible for many patients, especially those resident outside Australia. This is why we are able to offer our services via distance. The certainty of our treatment protocols permits us to reliably offer distance consultations.