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ask me if I invented the term "insoluble fiber". I am not joking.
- H
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Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!
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crazy nuts!!!
But I am not surprised.
I have encountered similar reactions from gastroenterologists over the years with various common sense and fairly widely known treatment suggestions- calcium, the hypnotherapy of course, fennel, peppermint.
Many seem to be overworked, overbooked, and not apprised of some of the research - unless it crosses their desk via a drug rep. The GIs that seem open are usually ones from teaching hospitals connected to a university; many others who do local symposiums that I have attended in the past, just brushed over the research, if at all.
Thanks Heather, for continuing to help others help themselves! 
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My Journey and Success with the IBS Audio Program Hypnotherapy Program: www.helpforibs.com/messageboards/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=hypnotherapy&Number=224850
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It just freaks me out to realize that apparently nothing has changed in 10 years, judging by my recent encounters with specialists, any way. They've brewed up some kind of a mess here . . .
kem
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oh my god. wow. that is sad!!!!!
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stable IBS-A
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That's when I first saw doctors for IBS (though of course it was decades before I was actually properly diagnosed). And the comments, attitude, lack of tests, lack of treatments, lack of anything remotely helpful or reassuring, is frighteningly similar to the stories I still hear from people today.
I know there are great docs out there for IBS - I've met some and heard of many others - but there are still far, far, far too many who are exactly like the incompetent, ignorant, unsympathetic, and flat out awful docs (from pediatricians to internists to gastroenterologists) I dealt with almost 40 years ago.
I swear there is something peculiar about IBS and doctors that leads to horror stories I just don't hear about with, say, dermatologists or opthamologists. I really hope that is at least starting to change.
- H
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Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!
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Quote:
there is something peculiar about IBS and doctors that leads to horror stories I just don't hear about with, say, dermatologists or opthamologists.
When I think of the ibs patients I've met - they're too exhausted, too sick, and too humiliated to be able to question or educate the downright wrong doctors they come across. (Who could blame them?!) I think that's what's different between them and a dermatologist's patients. Add to that, there's no local networking going on between ibs patients (thanks to the embarrassment factor, I suppose), so there's no word-of-mouth effect keeping the bad docs office's any less full than the good ones. The bad and ignorant docs get no feedback. (I know when I left a horrible GI doc in the dust, I couldn't afford to give her a backward glance - let alone a piece of my mind - PRECISELY because my kid was worse than when I walked in there!) And where I live, the docs never even feel it when a disgruntled patient leaves because they've still got months of appts. booked. Ironically, the fact that ibs is so rampant assures that. So what's to stop them from just doing what they were taught in the seventies, and even feeling pretty good about themselves, too? Ya can't make this stuff up!
[So there's the amateur analysis of an ibs mom. ]
kem (daughter w/ibs-d dx)
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I hear ya -
I have had several internal med docs and several GI docs - a few were good and actually asked ME to do research for them because they did not have the time themselves and to report back!
Most tried everything under the sun, even off-label use of drugs for me - I have been on at least two drugs that are off the market now... scary.
One GI I had was from Mayo Clinic, now in UCLA and is very vested in IBS research and very well respected.
She presribed a very strong antibiotic - FLAGYL (as for a possible parasite infection, which I tested negative for, but told me to take it anyway) and a beta blocker (thought to control heart muscle rhythms and hoped it would also control intestinal muscle contractions) for me in 1993.
Fast forward to 2005, and I saw her at the DDW (Digestive Disease Week) Convention that Michael and I attended - she asked me what she did with me back then, and was appalled saying they never would do that now!
When we were at the IFFGD symposium, we had the GIs fill out info cards for us. From that we found out that GIs see between 30 - 50 IBS patients a month on average. I dont know if those were new or ongoing cases, but needless to say, IBS patients are a good part of their caseload.
I have presented IBS and hypnotherapy info at several hospital community service IBS info events, and though their power point presentation treatment charts always list hypnotherapy as a treatment, most of the time they dont actually suggest it in the real world.
The lecture glosses over it, and the same things are suggested - the questions people ask afterwards and the doctor's responses make me cringe.
When I present the info about the hypno, the nurses and patients are vastly interested; come up after to me with questions - because I have lived it - and my IBS was just as severe or more so than they are!
Over the years, we have had a few GIs routinely refer their patients for the hypotherapy program, but most rather keep their same protocol they've used for years. Even respected info medical websites still suggest pretty much the same mainstream stuff as a rule.
I do a lot of writing regarding IBS and came across some stats about CAM in both the US and EU - cant find it tonight, but basically, why do Americans and others spend so much money on CAM products to treat their conditons - it is because conventional medicine treatments do not always work! And people dont want to be on drugs forever either!
Some docs want to try new things and are open, others do not - just as it is with all walks of life and professions, I guess...
But I have met some very devoted and good docs and GI investigators too - there is hope!
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My Journey and Success with the IBS Audio Program Hypnotherapy Program: www.helpforibs.com/messageboards/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=hypnotherapy&Number=224850
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