Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: Heather, Please I have some questions..

Hi - body mass does mean weight, but I've never seen anything to suggest that being over (or under) weight makes one more prone to developing IBS. I'd say as a general rule here that if your body weight is far enough from healthy to cause you problems, you're likely going to have more IBS flares, simply because IBS does tie into your overall health. The better your overall health, the easier it will be to keep your IBS stable. Things that come along and affect how you're doing physically (from menstrual cramps to the flu or a cold) will make it more likely that your IBS will flare. But, I don't think the study meant that if you're a few pounds overweight and you lose that weight, your IBS will disappear.

Do a search for menstrual cramps and IBS - lots of good advice has come up about that in the past.

It is not typical for IBS to waken someone from a sound sleep, especially just with pain and no bowel dysfuction. While this can happen, if it's happening to you more than once in a blue moon I'd see a doc. This could be a big red flag for inflammatory bowel diseases, celiac, and other GI problems.

Emotions can certainly trigger IBS symptoms, but I haven't seen any studies that show IBS can develop from emotional stress. I have, however, heard from a number of folks who developed IBS in the midst of a really stressful time in their lives, so I do think there's a real possibility for this. My guess is that eventually some study will show that severe emotional trauma could lead to the development of IBS.

IBS seems to have a genetic component, but it's not strictly an "inherit it or else" type of deal. Many people with IBS have others in their family who have the disorder as well. But it's not like if you have IBS, then your children will too.

The whole brain/gut dynamic that underlies IBS is really complicated, and both physical and emotional elements play a role. How much of each element is involved seems to vary from person to person - a lot. Some folks come down quite heavily on the side of IBS being part and parcel of emotional trauma, fear, anxiety, panic, insecurity, etc. Whether IBS led to these emotions or vice versa is not always clear, and there seem to be people in both categories here. Then are the folks who have just about no emotional component to the development of their IBS, who had their symptoms arise from a clearly physical cause (dysentery, abdominal surgery) and who have no history of emotional problems in their life, before or after IBS. There's also a group of what I like to call mystery patients, who just develop IBS one day for no discernible reason at all, and who have no emotional OR physical elements they can point to as possible causes of the disorder.

Obviously, they still need to do a lot of research on IBS!

Best,
Heather

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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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