As both a family physician who now speciliazes in Integrative and Holistic Medicine with a focus on digestion, I’m always interested when I see conventional medical journals reviewing ‘complimentary and alternative therapies’ for a given illness. In a 2009 review article, meaning that the article looked at many different studies on the same topic (IBS in this case) and came up with a summary of all the studies it included. In this review by the conventional medicine community, probiotics, Hypnotherapy and cognitive-behavioural therapy as well as certain herbal formulas all got the ‘thumbs up.’ The authors do say that they didn’t find evidence of one probiotic working better than another, and since then there have been some other studies which DO guide what probiotics work best for ibs, one example is a strain of Bifidobacteria.
How well all these things work for a given person depends on many factors–because probiotics and herbal formulas are available over the counter and people often treat themselves without training in areas of natural medicine, people often will try one or more of these tings and conclude ‘they didn’t work’ but often it has to do with what preparations they get, how they take them, etc and often I’ll try some of these things again with a client and when done properly, they start seeing results for the first time, although they’re often skeptics to start with, having been disappointed in the past.
Hypnotherapy for IBS is very effective if the hypnotherapist has significant training in digestive disorders, which is often hard to find but they are out there! So, if you decide to give this option a try, make sure your therapist has experience with gut-direcgted hypnotherapy to get the best results, also considering these sessions are usually not cheap!
I talk about each of these things in detail in other posts and videos if you want to learn more;)
What’s been YOUR experience with talking to your family doctor or gastroenterologist about non-drug approaches to help beat IBS?
I want to know!!;) Please leave me a comment below and I’ll respond back;)
Reference: Shen, Yi-Hao A., and Richard Nahas. 2009. “Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.” Canadian Family Physician 55(2): 143–48.[button_1 text=”Learn About My IBS Relief Program” text_size=”20″ text_color=”#ffffff” text_font=”Montserrat;google” subtext_panel=”N” text_shadow_panel=”Y” text_shadow_vertical=”1″ text_shadow_color=”#080808″ styling_width=”98″ styling_height=”18″ styling_border_color=”#000000″ styling_border_size=”1″ styling_border_radius=”50″ styling_border_opacity=”100″ styling_gradient_start_color=”#40bf00″ styling_gradient_end_color=”#006600″ drop_shadow_panel=”Y” drop_shadow_vertical=”1″ drop_shadow_blur=”1″ drop_shadow_color=”#000000″ drop_shadow_opacity=”50″ inset_shadow_panel=”Y” inset_shadow_vertical=”1″ inset_shadow_color=”#ffffff” inset_shadow_opacity=”75″ align=”center” href=”http://askdrdani.com/ibs-relief/”/]
My gastroenterologist only considered drug approaches – which is why I stopped seeing her after the second appointment!
I hope this helps you Rebe!:) There is no good drug that is effective for all the symptoms of IBS, so it can be very frustrating, but there are lots of things you can do without drugs to improve symptoms and even get symptom free in some people!:)