How to Cope With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Video Transcript

"My name is Christine Marquette and I am a registered dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic and I am going to talk to you about how to cope with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a syndrome that has symptoms such as diarrhea, bloating, cramping, abdominal pain, and typically it is diagnosed when other things have been ruled out. A lot of times your doctor will do various blood tests, stool samples, may have a colonoscopy and if nothing else is found such as ulcerative colitis or cancer or anything like that you will be diagnosed with irritable bowel. There are several different treatment options available, medications that can be used include antispasmodics and anticolergenics such as Bentil. Also antidiarreals such as Imodium will often be used if you have IBS that involves diarrhea. Sometimes if you have IBS that actually involves constipation you will be prescribed fiber supplements and put on a high fiber diet. In addition often times people with IBS will also have anxiety or depression. It is unknown if they have the IBS because of the depression or if they developed depression because of the IBS, it is kind of a chicken and the egg thing with IBS and depression and anxiety. But generally speaking those are always comorbid so often the patient will be prescribed antidepressants as well. Antidepressants can often help because of the fact that the person is anxious. If it lowers their anxiety it often times will help relieve some of the nausea and stomach cramping that they have. For some people none of these measures work and it is primarily caused by their diet so in this case following an elimination diet can be helpful and it may help you to identify some trigger foods and once you identify those trigger foods you will eliminate them from your diet and it will often times relieve symptoms of IBS dramatically. Another thing to make sure you do when coping with IBS is to make sure that you have a good group of support around you, friends, family, other people who understand what you are going through. So those are just some basic tips on how to cope with IBS."