IBS Therapy for Sufferers of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Freephone 0800 619 00 60

 

Diarrhoea? Constipation? Sluggish bowel? Painful bloating? Excessive wind and flatulence? Abdominal discomfort? Hiatus hernia? Digestive problems? Acid reflux? Food intolerances? Haemorrhoids? Stress? Worry? Panic? Social phobia?

Do any of these symptoms sound familiar?
 
How often have you stayed off work, avoided social events or spent hours in the bathroom in pain and embarrassment?

Do you plan journeys and outings mindful of toilet accessibility?

Do you wish you could control your IBS?

Don’t be shy. You are not alone!

 

A Fellow IBS Sufferer

 

I started suffering from IBS in 1983, aged just 21, and was finally medically diagnosed as an IBS sufferer in 1989, aged 27. I had to endure the indignities and discomforts of two rather unpleasant sets of IBS tests under my then employer's BUPA scheme, once in 1989, and then again in 1993. The medical profession had little in the way of good advice to offer me at the time (see later below under ' Empathy and Sympathy for Your Situation). However, through decades of personal research combined with an element of trial and error, I have learned how to self-manage my IBS symptoms effectively. Now, as both a qualified clinical hypnotherapist and a member of the UK Register of IBS Therapists, I have been trained to use a medically-approved and award-winning system of IBS clinical hypnotherapy by some of the UK's leading experts and practitioners. I am absolutely confident that I can help you from a rare standpoint of hard-won personal experience. I know what it's like to suffer with IBS and I now know many ways to reduce the frequency and severity of your IBS symptoms. It is also my mission, as with all my IBS clients, to teach you how to become an effective self-manager of IBS, just like me. You will leave me feeling more in control and knowing that you are becoming your own expert in IBS.

 

 

 

 

What is IBS and How is Diagnosed?

 

IBS or Irritable Bowel Syndrome is thought to be suffered by as many as one in four or one in five of the population of the western world at some time in their lives. However, severe IBS sufferers are much lower in number and tend to have a lifelong relationship with it. Currently, it is incurable, but advances keep being made into better ways for it to be managed. IBS is also a medical condition with a functional-organic dichotomy, usually identified on the basis of diagnosis by deduction. In other words, your GP and/or consultant gastroenterologist will aim to rule out that you don’t have serious medical problems such as bowel cancer, Crohn’s disease, diverticulitis, ulcerative colitis, and so forth, through a series of often rather unpleasant tests, before finally deducing that the apparent absence of physical disease in your digestive system therefore qualifies you as an IBS sufferer.

Positive diagnosis of IBS is becoming more commonplace, but it still usually leaves the medical profession scratching its head as to what to suggest for the best. GPs may refer you to a Registered Dietitian and prescribe Imodium and anti-spasmodic drugs for diarrhoea, or bulking agents for those with constipation, but such things rarely offer sustainable or satisfactory solutions, particularly if they are not accompanied by a more holistic approach to IBS, including the management of food and drink triggers, emotional and stress triggers, as well as nutrition and lifestyle issues. It is even commonplace for GPs to issue low doses of antidepressants to help with their patients’ symptoms. But no matter how this may or may not help particular IBS sufferers, it hardly seems an ideal situation.

 

The NICE Advice for IBS

 

However, NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence), the research and advice organisation that advises the NHS, produced a research report on IBS in 2008 that gave the clear advice to the medical profession that clinical hypnotherapy should be considered as a primary care option for those IBS sufferers who do not respond to their healthcare after 12 months of medical diagnosis. Likewise, there are leading senior consultant gastroenterologists who are trying, often in vain, to get their GP colleagues and fellow consultant gastroenterologists to wake up to the great benefits of hypnotherapy for IBS sufferers. See more at the end of this web page about this, where it shows that expert medical opinion now believes that up to ninety percent of IBS sufferers can benefit from gut-directed hypnotherapy.

 

Why Come to Me?

 

As well as being a qualified member of the APHP (Association for Professional Hypnosis and Pysychotherapy) and a registered member of the CNHC (Complementary & Natural Healthcare Council - which is sponsored by the Department of Health), as an IBS hypnotherapy specialist, I make it my business to keep up with the latest developments in both medical advances and holistic treatment of IBS through a wide variety of sources, not least my membership of the Gut Trust, a UK medical research charity and support organisation dedicated to IBS (formerly known as ‘the IBS Network’). Likewise, I also have online access to the very latest IBS medical resources and research on an international basis through my membership of the IFFGD (International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders). Moreover, my formal training in IBS care includes personal tuition and mentoring by Michael Mahoney of the Guardian Medical Centre in Warrington who is a world-renowned IBS hypnotherapy expert, scientific reseacher and founder of the UK Register of IBS Therapists (the IBS Register). Michael Mahoney is also the creator of the OPSIM© structured methodology for IBS hypnotherapy that I use in my practice, which has received medical approval by doctors and consultants in both the NHS and private medical care (OPSIM© = Ongoing Progressive Sessions Improvement Methods). It is a gut-directed approach to hypnotherapy that is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

NB. Most hypnotherapists advertise that they deal with IBS sufferers, but most have no personal experience of the condition as I do, and most are not members of the IBS Register, the Gut Trust and the IFFGD. Of all the many issues and medical conditions which hypnotherapy can help, IBS is number one in my areas of specialist focus.

 

 

 

 

 

Empathy and Sympathy for Your Situation

 

But my relationship with IBS wasn’t always so rosy. I guess you might be like me in that I have had to suffer a lot of indignities relating to this condition. In my case, my IBS diagnosis included a very unpleasant day of exploratory tests and procedures in 1989 (which I mostly had to have all over again in 1993), which included: an upper GI endoscopy (sometimes called an EGD or esophagogastroduodenoscopy) to look at my oesophagus, stomach and duodenum; a flexisigmoidoscopy (similar to a colonoscopy) to look at my bowels from the inside; and not least a barium enema to look at my bowels via x-ray. Not exactly the best way to spend a day off work!

My road to self-management was exactly not helped by the advice I initially received in 1989 from a private healthcare consultant gastroenterologist who told me to eat lots of Kellogg's All Bran every morning, which was a particular problem for me when, as it later turned out, I discovered that I was rather intolerant of both wheat and lactose. Medical science often lags behind some of the excellent discoveries that can help IBS sufferers, and I have a few suggestions of my own that are of major importance and benefit to sufferers of both diarrhoea predominant IBS and constipation predominant IBS.

Nobody knows what causes the onset of IBS, and it appears that there are a multitude of possible causes from person to person. It clearly has strong psychological elements connected with stress and negative mind/gut communication, but can also stem from such things as food and drink intolerances, allergies, over use of antibiotics, surgery trauma, poor eating habits, poor nutrition, irregular hours, irregular lifestyle, eating too much junk food and processed food, drinking too much alcohol, and so forth. No two IBS patients are exactly the same, and so the NHS only issue general guidelines that still involve an element of trial and error through a careful process of experimentation and monitoring.

But I can help you quickly find the things that will work for you and help you identify your personal IBS triggers, which can be so different in their combinations from one person to another.

So if you have been medically diagnosed as an IBS sufferer, and have not yet found the relief you seek, then my IBS program is for you. Call me today for a FREE and CONFIDENTIAL telephone consultation on FREEPHONE 0800 619 00 60. I will be very pleased to hear from you, and will endeavour to answer whatever questions you may have.

Finally, if you wish to read more about the medical position on IBS, please see the following quotes:

 

IBS and Hypnotherapy: The Medical Position

 

BBC News, 18th March 2010: “Greater use of hypnotherapy to ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome would help sufferers and might save money, says a gastroenterologist. Dr Roland Valori, editor of Frontline Gastroenterology, said of the first 100 of his patients treated, symptoms improved significantly for nine in 10. He said that although previous research has shown hypnotherapy is effective for IBS sufferers, it is not widely used. This may be because doctors simply do not believe it works.”

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8572818.stm)

November 2005: “Peter Whorwell, Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology in the School of Medicine and Director of the South Manchester Functional Bowel Service, has discovered a way to treat Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using hypnotherapy ... Although it's labour-intensive, it could be an extremely effective treatment for the condition; and a less expensive alternative to new, costly drugs coming onto the market.”

(http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/ibs)

Professor Peter Whorwell states (November 2005): “IBS is ideal for treatment with hypnosis, as there is no structural damage to the body ... During the hypnotherapy, sufferers learn how to influence and gain control of their gut function, and then seem to be able to change the way the brain modulates their gut activity ... We’ve found it to help all the symptoms, whereas some of the drugs available reduce only a few ... As IBS can be a life-long condition it could clearly be a very valuable option for patients.”

(http://www.medicine.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/ibs)

“The judgement and experience of GDG clinicians together with the limited RCT evidence from the review suggest that gut directed hypnotherapy strategies provide people with IBS with benefits in a cost-effective manner. Currently hypnotherapy is used as a second line therapy option, usually for people with unresolved IBS symptoms, who have failed to respond to a combination of management strategies. It features on the patient care pathway as one of the psychological interventions that primary care clinicians should consider if symptoms persist ... The GDG therefore decided to include hypnotherapy in one of its top five research recommendations, with the potential for this intervention to be considered as a first line therapy option ... RECOMMENDATION: Referral for psychological interventions (cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT], hypnotherapy and/or psychological therapy) should be considered for people with IBS who do not respond to pharmacological treatments after 12 months and who develop a continuing symptom profile (described as refractory IBS).

(NICE Clinical practice guidelines for IBS in adults, February 2008, pp.458 & 464)

Full NICE IBS guidelines available at (http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG61)

Call me today for a FREE and CONFIDENTIAL telephone consultation on FREEPHONE 0800 619 00 60.