In today's video, I'm going to share a complete guide to IBS and how to get relief. So stay tuned.
If you're new here, welcome. My name's Amanda Malachesky.
I'm a certified functional nutrition health coach and a digestive and allergy detective.
For weekly videos on how to successfully manage IBS and CIBO symptoms with diet and supplements,
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So you think you may have IBS or you've been recently diagnosed with IBS by your doctor. So
now what? Well, as an IBS and CIBO gut health coach, I have worked firsthand with many people
who are struggling with these very same issues, and I've helped them understand what's going on
in their gut, what to eat, and how to get back to a normal life. By the end of this video,
you'll understand what IBS is and you'll also know the five main steps that I teach my clients to get
through their IBS symptoms so that you can get back to the activities that are important to you.
So let's get started. First, let's briefly discuss exactly what IBS is. IBS stands for irritable
bowel syndrome. And since it's a syndrome, this basically means that there's no clear,
direct underlying cause in all cases. And although the perspective on this is changing a little bit.
I talked about that in my video a couple of weeks ago about SIBO updates, but the formal criteria
for IBS diagnosis is bowel changes that have gone on for four or more months. So either diarrhea or
constipation, along with abdominal pain. Usually if you've been diagnosed with IBS, your doctor
has ruled out other more serious conditions like Crohn's disease or celiac disease or
cancer, or any other manner of GI conditions. And when they can't determine what the cause is,
then they will say, okay, it looks like you have IBS. There are some conventional treatments for
IBS, but I've definitely heard some mixed results for these medications from my clients who have
been prescribed these medications by their doctors. So if the medications your doctor
prescribed you didn't help, or you're someone who would rather not use medications, what should you
do? Inside my online coaching program, I teach a Foundations First process for my clients to help
them get clarity on a couple of particular things that really move your symptoms towards resolution.
So here are the steps I recommend to move your IBS towards symptom resolution or remission.
Number one is to assess your potential underlying causes. Now not everyone can figure these out for
sure, but in a lot of cases, we can get a pretty good idea of what happened that started all of
this off for you. This is really important because it helps direct your plan of action towards the
things that are most likely to work. The most common underlying cause of IBS is actually a
SIBO infection. And in fact, it's estimated that up to 60% of IBS cases are caused by SIBO or
small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which is often triggered by an episode of food poisoning,
which you may or may not have actually realized that you had.
Some other common underlying causes of IBS include things like other kinds of infections,
besides SIBO like giardia or candida or parasites, for example. Food intolerances,
enzyme deficiencies, poor digestive function, or major life stressors and hormones. There can
certainly be other possible underlying causes, but this is just a short list of the most common
reasons that I see coming up in my clients. The second thing it's absolutely essential to handle
for your IBS relief is your stress level. No matter the underlying causes of your symptoms.
And this is because stress by its very nature stalls or slows down your digestive system.
When you're relaxed and happy, your digestive function is much better.
So handling stress relief can look like a lot of different things. It really depends
on what fits into your life. But some common options are certainly things like meditation,
time in nature, exercise, or the one I would like to recommend for people is just doing things that
you absolutely love where time becomes timeless. It can also include some behaviors around eating.
Things like chewing your food really well, or cultivating a sense of nourishment and happiness
around your food instead of anxiety and fear. And if you're someone who's feeling stressed
about eating or your food, hang tight, because I'm going to talk about food next. So I'm curious to
hear what kind of stress relief action you already take or would like to take to help improve your
digestion. Tell me in the comments below. So the third foundation for managing your
IBS naturally is to find the diet that minimizes your trigger events.
IBS symptoms are often triggered by food sensitivities or intolerances. And though you
may not want to change your diet, no one really wants to stop eating the things that they enjoy,
I like to frame the process like this. You're going to do a targeted elimination for a period
of a couple of weeks. If that elimination process doesn't produce any meaningful results for you,
you don't have to keep using it. You want to focus on something else. If it does work for you, you're
going to carefully reintroduce foods so that you can identify which specific foods that you removed
were responsible for triggering your symptoms. And then you're only going to continue to avoid the
foods that are actually causing symptoms for you. Basically, you're going to do some targeted work
so that you really clearly understand your triggers. And this gives you more control over
your bowels. It allows you to have some choice in the matter because you understand what is likely
to cause symptoms. The most common food reactions for people with IBS are to foods called FODMAPs,
which are fermentable carbohydrates present normally in collection of natural foods. Other
food categories that might be aggravating for people with IBS include things like histamine
foods, high oxalate foods, the trifecta of gluten, dairy, and sugar. Sometimes alcohol. It could
really be anything, but these are some of the most common. In many cases, dealing with the underlying
causes of your IBS symptoms can actually heal these food intolerances. And in fact, for me,
this is what actually happened. With several of the foods that I had been sensitive to for years,
when I finally cleared my SIBO infection, I was able to tolerate several foods
that I had been avoiding for a long time. These include things like gluten free bread,
chocolate, and eggs. Have faith that with healing these issues, you can actually get back to a more
normal diet. The fourth foundation to manage your IBS naturally is to support your basic digestive
function. And there are three primary tools to do this, but there are many possibilities, but the
three main ones to address first and foremost are probiotics, stomach acid, and digestive enzymes.
And these three tools when used appropriately and if appropriate for you
can actually help encourage and support the digestive function that you already have.
Not everyone needs all three of these, but it's worth trialing them because they are the most
likely support to be beneficial. One of my recent clients resolved persistent, ongoing
multiple times a day diarrhea just by using probiotics consistently and doggedly with the
method that I teach inside my program. And it's been fantastic to watch her succeed with that.
I've also seen some pretty dramatic results at times with things like stomach acid support or
digestive enzymes, there are many other digestive function supports that are
possible to be helpful for you, but we want to just focus on basics and foundations first,
before moving on to more complex options. I do have a video about how to increase your stomach
acid and also one about how to use digestive enzymes properly. So check those videos out
if those are topics you're interested in. I will leave links for those below this video.
Finally, once you've gotten clear on the stress relief practices, the foods to
avoid to avoid triggers and the digestive supports that make the most sense for you,
then you have a foundation from which to work on deeper underlying causes, things like SIBO
or other kinds of gut infections that you might have found on SIBO or stool testing.
And this is one of the reasons that I very much recommend people use both the SIBO test
and the GI MAP stool test, because it gives us a lot more information about potential
underlying causes, especially if their symptoms have been chronic without relief.
We often find things that have been overlooked previously by other practitioners. Like my client,
Steve, who had chronic constipation and really severe hemorrhages for which he'd had surgeries.
We found an H pylori infection on his GI MAP that his acupuncturist, his gastroenterologist,
and his regular doctor had failed to identify previously. Once he treated that infection,
everything got dramatically better. So that's the basic approach. You're going
to assess your situation well. You'll address stress. You will figure out as best you can,
which foods are aggravating your symptoms and which digestive supports are missing to help
enhance the digestion that you have right now. And then you'll move on to dealing with the underlying
causes that you suspect or know about. The challenge is how do you know how and when to do
these different things. I find that this is often missing ingredient and it's the piece that leaves
people really confused about what to do and when. This is often the key missing ingredient that
my clients come into my practice with, as maybe they've been given instructions by their doctor
or they've been reading things on the internet and they're not sure how to proceed.
So if you're feeling a little bit lost with all of this and navigating how to move forward to
resolve your IBS symptoms, I want to encourage you to download my free guide called the Roadmap
to Gut Recovery, which shares the strategy tools I share with my clients to help them find their
personalized plan for calm digestion. You can grab your free copy at confluencenutrition.com/roadmap.
And I will definitely be leaving a link for that below this video. If you like this video,
please click like and consider subscribing, so you don't miss any of my future videos.
And also be sure to share this video with anyone who you know, who might be struggling
with similar things and could use to help. I will look forward to seeing you all next time.