Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards

It seems to me that:

1) IBS is probably a bunch of what will eventually be shown to be different conditions, all lumped together now because we don't know enough to separate them out. So some people will find Heather's approach enough to experience great relief; some people will find the FODMAP approach enough; some will need different food restriction; some will get no relief from either; some will find hypno enough, some will need hypno and dietary changes; some will need drugs, either alone or in conjunction with other changes.

2) There are both food-related and emotion-related components to some IBS. To me this looks like a continuum. Some people's symptoms are 90% the result of emotion (a "nervous" tummy) and 10% the result of specific foods; other people's symptoms are 90% the result of food and 10% the result of emotion; and there's a wide range in between. For me, the EFI approach completely eliminates the food-related aspect of my IBS: if I eat the way EFI prescribes, I have no IBS symptoms so long as I'm not anxious - having a pleasant day at home, for example.

I don't obsess about my eating. I have found a way of eating that works for me so I do it. (Well, most of the time.) To put it as simply as possible, thanks to the EFI approach I'm no longer afraid of food.

The anxiety part, however, is still there. And the really awful thing is that the anxiety of the anxiety part is about my IBS. Put me in an extremely stressful situation with a bathroom nearby and my IBS is quiet. Put me in a mildly stressful situation without access to a bathroom and my IBS flares. And - through what I'm sure is a learned response - simply being in a situation without access to a bathroom has become a stressful situation.

I suspect that if I had found the EFI approach the instant I developed IBS, I would never have learned to be anxious about it, would have adjusted my diet, and gone on about my life without undue worry about where the restrooms are on this planet. But I lived with IBS for a number of years during which panic about restrooms was a reasonable response to an out of control gut. Now that I understand my IBS and know how to eat, my conscious mind knows that it's the fear about not finding a restroom that is causing me to need to find a restroom. So I just have to find a way to explain that to the subconscious that is kicking my gut into overdrive.

This is what I hope hypnosis will help me with. If, as a bonus, it also makes it possible for me to eat differently, hurrah! But I'll settle for being able to be stuck in a traffic jam without freaking out.

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[Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate. - Sandra Boynton]

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