By far the most common reason patients visit gastroenterologists is for help with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, also known as spastic colon. Although the condition is not dangerous, nor does it lead to anything serious, IBS is a real challenge to treat effectively. In fact, conventional medical textbooks advise doctors to tell their patients that the condition is incurable, and many patients have come to believe that the best they can expect from conventional medicine is only limited relief. All doctors, including myself, hesitate to use the word “cure.” But at WholeHealth Chicago, we’ve found that a more integrated medical “toolbox” has dramatically improved our success rate.
Category: Digestion
The essence of good gut health is essentially how well you’re digesting, absorbing, and using the food you eat and how efficiently you’re getting rid of what could potentially harm you.
Heartburn
Because conventional physicians are becoming more skilled at diagnosing and treating heartburn, a condition in which stomach acid splashes upward into the esophagus, this common problem is undergoing some name changes. Strictly speaking, when you used to feel as though Mount St. Helens was erupting beneath your breastbone, it was called “heartburn.” After doctors developed gastroscopes to actually see the irritated esophagus, your heartburn grew into the more respectable “reflux esophagitis,” or “reflux” for short.
Flatulence
Benjamin Franklin wrote a whole pamphlet on the subject. He suggested that if people added to their diet certain perfumes and flowers, they would soon be breaking wind as delectable as summer breezes. Of course, two hundred years later, our intestinal air is, well, as succulent as ever. Most of us, like it or not, do have our own ‘factory-installed’ Whoopie Cushions. The flowers didn’t work and flatulence prevails. Certainly one of those health issues in the realm of the genuinely annoying rather than medically serious, flatulence can still cause considerable discomfort, noise, and embarrassment. (Unless you’re about eight years old, in which case, expect considerable popularity among your peers.)
Diarrhea
It’s best to have a positive mental attitude when struggling with a bout of simple diarrhea. It may be comforting, while you’re sitting there, to realize how none of the Beautiful People has ever been spared the experience. Believe me, the likes of Oprah, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, and Tom Cruise have all been there, just like you. Be philosophical and accept your body is doing its job. Your intestines are simply struggling to deal with the water you were told not to drink, the leftovers that tasted a little funny while you were eating them, or the virus which recently arrived in your neighborhood. Of course, any episode lasting more than a week, or accompanied by fever, severe cramps, or bleeding needs medical attention. As do episodes of recurrent diarrhea.
Constipation
Just the way lots of people seem perpetually dissatisfied with their weight, some days everyone’s complaining about their bowels. It’s not the frequency, I tell them, or the failure to experience a daily movement that’s most important, but, rather, the comfort and ease of passage of your stool. If your passage is a struggle (and by this I mean a dried, hard movement with a lot of uncomfortable straining or a dependence on laxatives), then, yes, you are “officially” constipated. Hopefully, our WholeHealth Chicago suggestions will bring you relief.
Candida Overgrowth Syndrome
At least once a week, a patient comes in, saying, “You’re the fourth [or seventh or tenth] doctor I’ve seen. I feel simply terrible but am always told that my tests are normal, and there’s nothing wrong with me. Recently I read about yeast overgrowth, and the symptoms seem to fit my case exactly. The doctors, however, all tell me there’s no such illness.”
Your Colonoscopy
Yes, yours.
If you’re under 50, you have my blessing to press the DELETE button and move on to your next message. Readers in their mid-40s might want to keep reading. Your time is coming.
The Night Shift and Breast Cancer
For years, doctors have puzzled over why women who work the night shift are more likely to get breast cancer. Now they think they’ve come up with an explanation, and it has to do with melatonin–the same melatonin sold to promote sleep.
A Natural Heartburn Treatment
Among the many distasteful TV commercials for prescription drugs, my least favorite are the ones for people with heartburn. Although some people do have a legitimate problem with the valve between their esophagus and stomach, most heartburn is simple overindulgence.
Digestive Enzymes
I’m frequently asked if it’s helpful to take supplemental digestive enzymes. The answer is an unequivocal “sometimes.”