12/04/2010

Hypnotherapy at the forefront of IBS awareness month

This April has been named IBS awareness month - a month that aims to increase awareness of the condition of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), which affects an estimated six million people in the UK alone.

IBS is a debilitating condition, with symptoms including stomach pain, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea and vomiting. Many sufferers also feel considerable fatigue or depression given their frequent or even constant discomfort.

Unfortunately, there is no identifiable biological cause of IBS - so there is no simple, satisfactory treatment to offer hope to the millions of sufferers. Although dietary and lifestyle chances can work for many people, in others the symptoms persist even further. Prescribed medication can also be effective in some cases but again, the effects are far from universal.

Recently though, hypnotherapy has been identified as one of the more effective methods of helping IBS sufferers. Last month, The Therapy Lounge reported that Dr Roland Vaori, a gastroenterologist at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital revealed that he had had been using hypnotherapy as an IBS treatment for twenty years and had "never looked back."

Dr Vaori claimed, in his comments on the launch of new medical journal Frontline Gastroenterology, that in his experience nine out of ten IBS sufferers have seen significant improvement in their symptoms thanks to hypnotherapy. A remarkable four out of ten said that their condition had even cleared up completely.

The role of mental treatments such as hypnotherapy in treating IBS has been supported by others in the medical community. The Daily Express, writing on IBS treatments for IBS awareness month, has interviewed both an NHS hypnotherapist and the head of The Gut Trust, the national IBS charity.

Dr Nick Read of the Gut Trust said: "This is a disease of the whole person. The emotional area of the brain often shows increased activity in IBS sufferers...IBS is so response to confidence and belief."

NHS hypnotherapist Helen Bremner says that she has seen great successes by helping people sort our their anxieties from the past, leading to the end of their physical symptoms.

"People are sceptical at first" she told The Express, "but after just a few sessions they're socialising and doing all the things they couldn't do before, such as walks in the country where there is no loo."