April is I.B.S awareness month

I work with many clients to help them to manage their symptoms of IBS, and I am keen to hi-light how common this condition is and how hypnotherapy can help.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) can be a chronic condition that can be lifelong, and/or or reoccurring and affects about  10-20% of the UK population. Symptoms can include stomach cramps, bloating, nausea, wind, diarrhoea or recurring constipation. The problem with IBS is that it’s generally diagnosed by elimination- by what it ISN’T rather than what it IS. Symptoms vary and can be seen in other bowel-related conditions, so tests are carried out to rule out cancer or conditions such as Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s Disease, and the tests can be invasive and take time. When these have been ruled out, and nothing else seems to be the cause of the symptoms, patients are often advised that they have IBS.

Unfortunately there is no real cure, as symptoms vary so much between individuals. Dietary advice is often conflicting and confusing, and it can take a significant period if time to exclude foods which aggravate the symptoms- and sometimes dietary changes don’t help at all. Anti-spasmodic and anti-depressant medication is sometimes used too but unfortunately there is no one-size-fits-all approach to IBS.

IBS can unfortunately lead on to other conditions such as anxiety and depression as suffers struggle to deal with the symptoms.

The great news is that hypnotherapy is great at helping relieve the symptoms of IBS!

In February 2008, the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE), which gives guidance to the NHS on effective treatments, published guidance for GPs and consultants saying there was good evidence that hypnotherapy was an effective IBS treatment and that it could be recommended for chronic IBS. (1)

In the UK, research conducted by Professor Whorwell in Manchester demonstrated high levels of effectiveness, helping all the symptoms of IBS with those improvements sustained over long periods of time. (2)  In the United States, hypnotherapy for IBS is listed as a treatment for IBS on the highly regarded Empirically Validated Treatments List – which is similar in its level of regard to the NICE guidelines in the UK.

Solution Focused Hypnotherapy is a modern, research-based combination of psychotherapy and hypnosis, aimed at encouraging clients to focus on how they want things to be. It’s great for people who have IBS, because one of the keys to dealing with IBS is to lower the sensitivity to stress and also reduce the perception of the bowel pain.  Hypnotherapy is really effective in lowering stress and anxiety levels and also helping with pain reduction. It’s very effective because IBS is defined by it’s symptoms, so if hypnotherapy can remove the symptoms then the IBS will be reduced, which is so helpful for my clients.

References:

1. NICE guidance www.nice.org,UK/ CG061

2. Issa B, Whorwell PJ (2011). “Will hypnotherapy help my patients?”