Complaints & connections · borters.ch
The gut is not diseased but over-sensitive — the symptoms are real, and much can be specifically calmed.
Also known as: irritable bowel syndrome · IBS
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Irritable bowel syndrome is not a second-class diagnosis of exclusion but a condition in its own right with clear marks: abdominal pain related to passing stool, together with a changed frequency or form of stool, over months. The bowel is not damaged — it is oversensitive. The same stretching that others do not notice, it reports as pain, and the conversation between gut and brain is more sensitive in both directions. It often begins after a gut infection or in a demanding phase of life. Forms with diarrhoea, with constipation and alternating are distinguished. Only a few tests are needed: blood count, inflammation markers, coeliac antibodies, and with diarrhoea faecal calprotectin to separate off inflammatory bowel disease. Everything else follows the alarm signs. What helps is well studied: soluble fibre, a time-limited FODMAP exclusion with reintroduction, peppermint oil in a gastro-resistant form, movement, and where the burden is heavy, gut-directed psychotherapy or hypnotherapy — the latter among the most effective measures there are.
The overshooting reflex when eating, the strengthened serotonin answer and the oversensitivity of the gut wall are the three processes behind the picture — and each has levers of its own.
Weight loss, night-time diarrhoea that wakes from sleep, blood, fever, falling behind in growth in children or a raised calprotectin in the stool: these are the points at which the search goes on.
Both rest on a raised sensitivity of the digestive tract and often occur together. Anyone with both gains most when sleep, stress and eating rhythm are tackled together.
Varied plants (veg, legumes, whole grains) feed a broad microbiome.
Can promote diversity and provides live cultures.
Psyllium husk and oats help, coarse bran often makes it worse. Increase slowly and drink plenty — otherwise it bloats more at first.
Leave out for four to six weeks, then reintroduce group by group to find your own limit. Staying strict long-term harms the gut flora and is not the aim — best done with a dietitian.
It sounds unusual but is one of the best-supported measures — in about half, symptoms improve markedly and for years.
Giardia mimics irritable bowel for weeks. It belongs on the short list before the diagnosis is made.
The commonest confusion of all: if the symptoms worsen around the bleeding or opening the bowels hurts then, this question belongs on the table.
A large part begins after a bacterial gut infection. Remembering the diarrhoea is already half the explanation.
Pour hot water over a teaspoon of dried leaves, cover and steep for ten minutes, drink after eating.
Filled to hand warmth, wrapped in a cloth, applied for 20 to 30 minutes.
Lightly crush a teaspoon of the seeds, pour over hot water, cover and steep for ten minutes.
Some single-celled organisms are as common in people without complaints as in those with them. Finding them does not end the search, and treating them often does not end the complaints.
It breaks down quickly in the sample and only shows if the laboratory looks for it specially. Whether it causes the complaints is not settled in every case.
Antispasmodics relax the gut muscle; remedies for diarrhoea or constipation act on transit. They treat the symptom of the moment. What changes the course is food, sleep and the link between gut and nervous system.
About ten in a hundred people are affected, women roughly twice as often as men. The course comes in waves over years; the symptoms change, they do not worsen in the sense of a progressive disease.
Relaxes the smooth muscle of the gut wall and is among the better-studied plant remedies for pain and cramping. Without the coating it lands in the stomach and causes heartburn.
On alarm, digestion is the first thing set aside. So the gut feeling is not a metaphor but a description — and the gut speaks up before a thought is finished.
It eases afterwards or changes with frequency and form. Exactly this link separates it from other abdominal pain.
Flat in the morning, tight by evening — and gone again overnight. A very typical pattern, and reassuring, because it argues against a serious cause.
Post-infectious irritable bowel is common and has a better outlook — in many it recedes over months to years.
Gut and brain are closely linked. That does not make the symptoms imagined; it explains why relaxation methods work so well.
Blood in the stool, unintended weight loss, fever, anaemia, symptoms that wake you from sleep, onset after the age of fifty, bowel cancer in the family. That needs investigating, not experimenting.
The single most important hint of worms in the blood. They are raised with worms that travel through tissue — not with giardia, threadworms and amoebae, which stay in the bowel. A normal value therefore rules nothing out.
Over ninety per cent of the body’s serotonin lies in the wall of the gut. It steers movement and sensitivity at once — which is why drugs that actually come from psychiatry work here through the gut and not through the mood.
Released with fatty food and strengthening the contraction of the bowel. That explains why with a sensitive bowel the complaints are often tied to the meal.
Drives the housekeeping wave between meals, which only runs on an empty stomach. Gaps between meals are therefore a measure in their own right, not just a side condition.
The link between head and belly runs in both directions. That is no hint that the complaints are imagined — it is the explanation of why they are stronger in certain weeks.
Enteric-coated capsules are among the best-studied plant options in irritable bowel; they relax the bowel muscle.
Soluble fibre that works with both stool forms — start slowly and drink plenty with it.
The effect depends on the strain and the person; a four-week trial shows whether it does anything for you.
The gut-brain axis is no empty phrase here — methods that lower stress are among the most effective measures.
Traditionally used as a tea for cramps; the warmth plays its part. For irritable bowel, peppermint oil capsules are better studied than any tea.
Traditionally calms the belly and the head at once — with irritable bowel that is no bad combination, because the two hang together.
Mild as a tea, distinctly more effective as an enteric-coated capsule. With reflux both are the wrong choice: mint relaxes the muscle at the stomach entrance.
In enteric-coated capsules it is the best-studied oil in irritable bowel — not taken openly.
Complaints with no visible finding are read in TCM as a disturbed sphere, not as organ damage.
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