This morning, I heard a program on public radio in which the author of "The Second Brain" (the gut) was interviewed. In this conversation, he mentioned that nearly 90% of the information passed along the vagus nerve is from the gut to the brain, and approximately 10% is from the brain to the gut. He said that, with functional bowel disorders, one of the problems is that the messages from the gut to the brain through the vagus nerve are almost always reaching the conscious level in the brain, resulting in awareness of pain and discomfort in the gut.
This got me wondering again about electrial stimulation of the vagus nerve and its effect on IBS symptoms. Vagus nerve stimulation is now used for epilepsy, treatment-resistant depression, and bulimia. It is hard to imagine that some GI/chronic pain/neurology doctor has not tried this for severe IBS pain. Since spinal cord stimulation helps stop chronic pain elsewhere in the body by "scrambling" the signals sent to the brain, it seems that somehow the pain messages from the gut to the brain could be scambled too. I've found only one article in the medical literature on spinal cord simulation on a woman with severe IBS pain and diarrhea. It stopped the diarrhea immediately and dimished the pain; eventually, the woman needed additional management of the pain, though the diarrhea did not return. But, I've found nothing on vagus nerve stimulation and IBS.
Does anyone have a good relationship with a pain specialist or neurologist who might be able to answer this question?
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