It is difficult for people who have never suffered from IBS - or who only relate to it in terms of their having had an occasional stomach upset - to understand how debilitating IBS can be. How it affects your life, your self-esteem, your sense of not being in control. It affects you not only physically but mentally.

If you are an IBS sufferer you may feel both isolated and embarrassed. The finer points of diarrhoea or constipation are not usually seen as acceptable topics for conversation. Yet IBS - of which these are two of the classic symptoms - affects huge numbers of people, with more female sufferers than male. The symptoms, which may also include abdominal pain and bloated stomach, can persist for years. Social activities or holding down a job can become difficult and sometimes impossible. Because of the restricted lifestyle and because there seems no answer, IBS often leads to anxiety or depression. 

So what causes IBS? The general consensus is that for many people IBS is very stress-related. In addition some sufferers are thought to have an especially sensitive digestive system, this sensitivity causing it to over-react to stress. This means the individual can end up in a vicious circle: the IBS causing stress that in turn just increases the IBS symptoms which cause more stress, and so on.. 

The pioneering approach used at my IBS Treatment Centre in the UK has a fourteen year track record of helping hundreds of IBS sufferers through a combined approach of gut directed hypnotherapy, relaxation techniques, identifying triggers for stress, some cognitive behavioural therapy, looking at how we can exacerbate stress by our view of how we ‘should’ be, and setting up programmes for change.  

This approach has evolved from the pioneering work of Dr Peter Whorwell, one of the UK’s foremost gastroenterologists who first devised gut directed hypnotherapy, which is now the treatment of choice for many gastroenterologists, especially for those patients with refractory IBS (where the symptoms do not respond to conventional medications).  

From its early days in 1984 research has consistently shown the approach can obtain relief for 70-80% of IBS sufferers. More importantly, follow-up studies show that for the overwhelming majority of people those improvements are long-lasting (rather than just offering temporary relief). 

Since then innovations and new developments have taken place that have proved a breakthrough for many IBS sufferers. These are utilised for those able to attend personally for sessions at the IBS Treatment Centre. For those who live too far from the Centre they are incorporated in the mail order IBS Journey To Health package that contains all those psychological and stress reduction elements proven most effective in treating IBS. 

Important! Your IBS should be confirmed by a medical practitioner before you use the IBS Help Package. It is important you have your symptoms thoroughly checked out to exclude other gut related disorders.