Transcript of
IBS explained
THERE ARE AN ESTIMATED 6 MILLION IBS SUFFERERS IN THE UK.
IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR SYMPTOMS,
IT'S IMPORTANT TO SEE YOUR GP TO CONFIRM THE DIAGNOSIS
Irritable bowel syndrome affects both men and women.
It tends to affect more women than men.
It tends to affect younger women rather than older women.
But really, it's no respecter of age and sex.
It can affect anybody.
We might say that we can all be predisposed
to getting irritable bowel syndrome at certain times of our lives.
Particularly stressful times of our lives.
It's difficult to define exactly what causes of irritable bowel syndrome are
because irritable bowel syndrome is a medically unexplained illness.
It's an illness, if you like, without an obvious medical cause.
There's no infection, no food allergy
but there are factors that seem to bring irritable bowel syndrome on.
These include stress, what's happening in your life,
and they include certain foods.
Often when people ask me about
the factors that bring on irritable bowel syndrome,
I will say at it's foot and mood.
That's easy to remember.
The symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome include constipation, diarrhoea,
alternating constipation and diarrhoea.
Abdominal pain, usually low down in the abdomen.
Bloating, feeling of distension.
Flatulence, belching even.
A gurgling in the stomach.
These are the cardinal symptoms of irritable bowel
but many people with irritable bowel have a lot of other symptoms.
They have backache,
they have a feeling that they want to pass water very frequently.
They may have breathlessness, they may have headaches.
They may have dizziness.
So irritable bowel syndrome overlaps
with a lot of other medically unexplained illnesses.
There are things you can do, of course.
But they tend to be symptomatic relief.
There are tablets you can take for spasms in the bowel, for pain.
There are bowel regulators you can take for diarrhoea like Loperamide.
There are treatments for constipation, there are treatments for bloating.
You can get these from your doctor or you can get advice from your doctor.
You can find out by use of a food diary
which foods are more likely to upset you.
I work for a charity that used to be caught the IBS Network,
now called the Gut Trust.
And we have a website that has
a very comprehensive self-management programme.
WWW.THEGUTTRUST.ORG
If people log on to the Gut Trust, become a member, go to the website,
they can find out all the details of what irritable bowel syndrome is,
how to recognise it,
what symptoms you can expect and how to manage these symptoms.
I find that's a very helpful tool
to encourage patients to learn about their own condition
and that's the important thing.
NHS CHOICES
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.NHS.UK
