Thoughts on Bowel Intelligance

Digestive health
1

These are some ideas I have come up with and I would like to here what you think.

I think a bowel is an intelligent organ. It seems to behave as if it is part of our brain.

Normally it sets up a rythmic action to pass waste from the small intestine but it can also increase the force of contractions if required. If it needs more assistance it sends a signal to the brain for more water and we are made to feel thirsty.

However, as with all complex intelligent devices the bowel programming can go wrong. It can become over sensitived and can over react to a situation. As with a hysterical child it needs to be calmed down gently and when better, needs re-educating on how to cope with a particular situation in the future.

To re-educate your bowel you must treat it with care and consideration for a long period of time so it has a chance to forget learnt bad behaviour of the past.

Your bowel has full communication with your brain.

1) It experiences shock and pain if you have a bad experience.

2) It can sense acidic or spicy food long before it has to actually deal with it.

3) It reacts aggressively, if given too much fat or oil to deal with, causing it to contract violently.

4) Some chemicals irritate the lining of the bowel causing the rythmic contractions to go out of sequence.

(antibiotics can cause problems by actually changing the bowel live chemistry.)

5) Even if you get depressed about something your bowel can become disfunctional and respond to negative signals from the brain.

6) The worst thing for us is the bowel has a memory.

It is for these reasons that medical examinations show there is nothing physically wrong with us when you have IBS.

To get better we need to change our habits, break the psychological cycle and de-stress ourselves.

Take life at an easier pace. Chill out and spend more time caring for ourselves. Eat little and often. Don't eat food which is to acid or contains too much spice. Alcohol is also bad news for your bowel.

Could you take it easy or are you a stress monster like me? If you completely de-stressed your life could you cope with the change.

Please give me you thoughts, you can say what you like as I will learn from it.

Best wishes

Robert

2

Your definitely right when you say stress has a lot to do with it. If I have an appointment anywhere even though I dont particularly feeled stressed my bowel plays up. All the time I am waiting its telling me I need to go even though I dont. As soon as I have had the appointment I feel fine and the urge has gone. The same if I am just going anywhere I need the toilet three or four times before I go out. Special times like holidays and days out I have to take enough immodiam to get me through, Is anyone else like this? I do meditation and try to eat the right things

I am dreading Christmas and visiting family. Its just not something you can talk about..

3

Very Interesting

4

joan51826,

I am exactly like you, I was really suprised when you came back with this information as you could be talking about me. However, as I feel like this every morning I never go anywhere until the afternoon. I don't take imodium because I have taken so many medicines for diabetes I am begining to wonder whether these substances aggravate the IBS condition. I just relax and watch a bit of morning television with a cup of slippery elm from the health shop.

The IBS is worst after I eat as if my bowel is complaining about the prospect of dealing with food again.

Lets home we all feel better for Christmas.

Robert

5

Think your right on the nose with what you've written here ,I've had same thinking to how it behaves .Stress in regards to every day or illness ,can make matters worse .

  Hardest thing ever. Is getting stress free life today ,it's not a new thing though .Keep a diary ,write it down see if a pattern emerges ,female menopausal women get IBS probs  at this time ,so I believe hormones play a part in its behavior also ,let's face it both men and women have hormones ,born with them .Good write up Robert .

6

You sure have some intelligent thinking and everything you say is very logical.  I have a very hard time managing stress.  I also have a difficult time trying to refocus away from what ails me.  The stomach cramping has me in its grip and I don't know how to break the cycle.  The other night I had a explosion on the toilet and now I haven't gone at all for 2 days.  Thats seems to be the cycle I am in and I am scared to take anything that will make me go even though I know stuff up there needs to come out and I am so uncomfortable, but I guess that is what IBS is.  Its just depressing and I look at other people and wonder does anyone else in this store (for example) have to worry where the bathroom is cause I sure need to know.  Thanks for your thoughts and I think you are absolutely right.

7

This is my first holiday season with IBS and yes I am dreading it cause I know I can no longer eat what I would like to eat.  No drinking of course, no yummy foods.  My family cooks italian with sauce and cheeses.  I used to eat that stuff no problem.  This came on for me all of a sudden 2 months ago.  It is just awful.  All I eat is boiled chicken, green veggies, yogurt, oatmeal.  Once in a while a cookie  Yippee A cookie.  My doctor says I am too concerned about what I eat.  He said eat what you like just no dairy if there is diahrea.  But now I am afraid to eat cause the pains and cramps are awful.  Sorry to rant but I guess that  is what this is all about, venting!  

8

Dear eilostnyc,

I feel very concerned for you, its not just what you cannot eat but the state of mind that this condition is putting you in, I was like this a few months back.

Remember, I have no medical training and you need to check this out with your GP before you try it. We are all different and so we respond differently to medication.

I decided to really look into this and improve my condition no matter what. Obviously I spend many hours on the internet exploring possibilities.

I decided on porridge and milled linseed four breakfast, salad for lunch and a vegetable stew for evening meal. If I want to I can add a little meat to the vegetable stew but I have to cook it for several hours to make it more digestable.

Now comes the bit I do not fully understand. I bought some tablets from the health food shop.

1) Advanced Acidophilus plus which is a probiotic capsule to ensure there is enough good bacteria in my gut in case my problem is just some biological imbalance in my gut.

2) L-Glutamine which is an amino acid which I have been told may repair the lining of my gut.

Any way, I have taken these capsules for 2 weeks and I do feel a lot better. It seems to be calming everything down slowly and therefore I can say it's working for me.

Please be careful if you make changes to your diet as I would hate to tell you about something which makes you feel even worse.

I also have some slippery elm before I go to bed which is supposed to coat the gut lining and improve the passing of stools in the morning.

First of all read up about these substances on the internet and see what the experts say about it.

I wish you a very happy Christmas and hope you feel better soon.

robert.

9

Thank you robert for the info.  I jotted down the various meds you mentioned and will research them on the internet.  I am taking a pretty expensive probiotic called Digestive Advantage which seems to be helping somewhat.  Yes my state of mind is not good.  I get obsessive about illnesses.  Its just my nature, when I am not feeling well I dwell on the illness, research it to death and worry that it will never leave.  Doc wants me to take antidepressants and I tried but felt even worse so I just don't know.  Thank you for the advice and I wish you a very Merry Christmas.  This year I won't be able to eat my favorite eggplant parmigian (My daughter makes it so delicious)  Its a shame but what can you do, its not worth the pain in the gut.  Take care