House Call: How to Cure Irritable Bowel Syndrome in a Few Days

so many times I get asked questions in my newsletters on Facebook on Twitter with patients when I go give lectures and I thought I'd do something new which is have Q&A with dr. Hyman once a week so I invite you to send your questions to share your thoughts to ask me whatever you want about your health issues and concerns and I'll try to answer them and I'll do it from the perspective of functional medicine which is a whole new framework of thinking welcome to my weekly house call your chance to ask me your questions so this week's question is I have irritable bowel syndrome what do I do about it what causes it and do I take drugs well irritable bowel syndrome is a huge problem it affects 60 70 million people it's one of the most common reasons for visits to the doctor and yet most doctors have no clue how to treat it or what's really causing it that's where functional medicine comes in functional medicine is not a new treatment or test or modality it's a whole new way of thinking about solving the puzzle of chronic symptoms and diseases and irritable bowel is a fantastic model for how functional medicine works now what is it anyway well herbal bowel is when you have symptoms of bloating or gas distension constipation diarrhea where your bowel is just irritable and when you look in there with like a scope you don't really see anything so they call it functional bowel disease but it really causes a lot of misery for a lot of people and the causes even though the symptoms may be the same the causes can be different so in functional medicine we talk about the root cause it's getting to the root cause we have allergens microbes imbalance in the bugs in your system toxins poor diet stress all of which can trigger symptoms and in any two or three or four or five people with irritable bowel each one of them may have differents causes for the exact same symptoms so let's go through what they could be and then what we can do to find out what your symptoms are caused by and then what you can do to fix this thing once and for all because it's fixable it really is and it's extraordinary how simple it is once you know the right thing to do there's a funny joke I always tell about this patient lightest appendix out and the doctor sends him a bill for $1,000 in the patient goes wow that's such a lot of money for such a simple operation and the doctor is like you're right so you send some another bill one dollar for taking out your appendix nine hundred and ninety nine dollars for knowing what needs to be taken out so functional medicine is sort of like that we know exactly what to do and how to take things out so the first thing that can happen is that foods can irritate your colon irritate your bowel they're called food sensitivities it's not a true allergy like a peanut allergy or shellfish allergy but it's a sensitivity and they're very common the most common cause is gluten that's the protein found in wheat barley rye oats spelt very common reaction even if you don't have celiac disease which is full-blown reaction to gluten dairy another big problem and that can be caused by the lactose which causes bloating and gas but it may just be the casein and other proteins in the dairy that are causing irritation and inflammation in your gut and there are many many other foods like soy corn eggs other foods that can also be irritants and I talked a lot about this in my book the ultra simple diet where I give people a comprehensive elimination diet so you can connect the dots whether what you're eating is causing your symptoms most people don't connect those dots very well so first thing is allergens or sensitivities there's some tests that you can do also food sensitivity testing gluten testing that may be useful and I talked a lot about that and many of my books you can go online and find my how to work with your doctor to get what you need guide it's free and you can actually download it and figure out what tests you need the second thing is the ecosystem in your gut you have an enormous ecosystem of bugs in there 500 species of bugs there's a hundred trillion bacterial cells in there that's ten times as many as your own cells in fact there's a hundred times as much bacterial DNA in you as your own DNA it's really really ten percent human and these bugs have to be in if you have bad bugs or an overgrowth of yeast if you have parasites if you have worms which we see sometimes you can get symptoms and they're common and also if you have bugs in the wrong spot you can have a problem most of the bacteria are in your large intestine but sometimes they kind of move up and they go into the small intestine that's not very good because that should be sterile and when you eat food that's starchy bread cereal pasta rice or sugary the bacterium they're fermented like beer you know like a apple cider blows up and the plastic container gets almost to explosion sighs that's what happens in your gut the bacteria ferment the sugars in the food reading and you blow up that's what he gets bloating right after meals we call that post prandial bloating or bloating after you eat and that's a very common sign of or symptom of bacterial overgrowth we call that C Bo si Bo small intestinal bacterial overgrowth very common and a very easy thing to treat if you use the right modality the other thing that can happen is you get yeast overgrowth which is common in your gut but it's sort of like a garden when the weeds overtake it well that's what happens if you have too much yeast because you've taken lots of antibiotics you've been on steroids you've been on the birth control pill you've taken acid blocking drugs you eat a lot of sugar you're diabetic all these things tend to cause overgrowth of yeast and that can be treated with any fungus it can be any fungal herbs or any fungal medication now I'm not a big fan of medication but sometimes for irritable bowel a good non absorbed antibiotic called zai Faxon will clear out the SIBO so you don't have a bloat and in any fungal like nystatin or diflucan will clear out the yeast and you can kind of reboot it's almost like hitting the reset button on your computer your reboot your gut and then you start over and then we we focus on also looking at other things if that doesn't work parasites or worms that may require some stool testing and we do extensive tools testing and functional medicine to look at the ecosystem and they're not just you know whether you have an infection or not but are things in balance do you have enough of the good bacteria whether you have worms or parasites or you or other bad bugs we can tell all that and and that can be very helpful but it's not always necessary because something's just treating it you'll get better and then we use other things to help reset the system because you can get rid of the bad stuff but then you have to put in the good stuff and so what is the good stuff well enzymes digestive enzymes can be very helpful and those help break down the food while your guts healing you may need those for two or three months we re inoculate with healthy bacteria probiotics Bifidobacterium bacillus other strains of bacteria and they help to repopulate the healthy gut flora and allow your digestion to work you can also use for rich foods like kimchi or sauerkraut sometimes yogurt if you're not dairy allergic me so these are all foods that have natural bacteria in them that can help your gut flora stay healthy and then we use things to repair the gut so we remove the bad stuff we replace the things that are missing like enzymes we re inoculate with healthy bacteria and we repair the gut with the right nutrients vitamin A and zinc and fish oil and glutamine and evening primrose oil all these wonderful nutrients that help repair the gut we use herbs like corset and turmeric things that just help reduce inflammation and heal a leaky gut and a leaky gut just means that your gut lining is sort of interrupted it's sort of broken normally the cells are stuck together like this but they kind of come apart like Legos and then food proteins and bacteria leak in they start pissing off your immune system you get inflammation and not only do you have your little bowel but it can cause joint pain fatigue cognitive problems depression allergies congestion you name it pretty much you can get a rash as eczema all which can be caused by this gut issue so in functional medicine the gut is one of the most important things to focus on and to get working well because that's the seat of your health now if you want one more about this I've written many blogs on the gut encourage you to link to them below they're linked here in the NSF blog I encourage you to sign up for our weekly house call I encourage you to join me on Facebook and Twitter and stay connected share your comments share your questions submit your questions and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you you

Channel: Mark Hyman, MD

Views: 737,435

Keywords: Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Disease Or Medical Condition), Health

Id: gFNTo6qPC2k

Length: 9min 8sec (548 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 16 2013