The shame, the embarrassment, the anxiety, the stress of
constantly having to scope out the nearest bathroom.
For approximately 40 million
Americans, that's a daily reality.
Worst of all, approximately 70 percent of IBS
patients suffer in silence because their too ashamed to
bring it up with their doctor.
Well today we're talking about one of the significant medical
breakthroughs in decades.
It's called IBS chek.
It's a simple blood test and could benefit
millions of IBS sufferers everywhere.
Joining me now is Dr. Mark Pimentel,
Gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in
L.A., and Ashley Walkley, one of the very first patients to
benefit from this discovery.
Good morning to both of you.
Good morning.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Doctor, let me start with you.
Really, again, I have to repeat this, 40 million
sufferers, 70 percent too ashamed to talk with their
doctor.
And I'm gonna be completely honest here.
When I first started dating my husband,
he's been an IBS sufferer since he was a little boy.
He didn't like to talk about it, he was
ashamed.
It's very common, isn't it?
Why?
Well, I mean doctors don't understand the disease or
haven't for so many decades and so often in medicine when you
have a patient in front of you, they're suffering and you want
to help them, but you don't know what to do.
You say it's stress or you say it's anxiety, and
then you tell the patient, you know live with it or maybe you
wanna take antidepressants or these are the types of things
that doctors do.
We want to help our patients but the answers
hadn't been there, and now they are.
So I think that's the new exciting things coming forward
now.
And, Ashley, when he ways live with it, that is, oh my
gosh, my husband would tell me that all the time because he'd
be in pain and I'd be like, you gotta do something.
Oh I've been living with it, I just live with
it.
I live in pain.
And I'd say "what, that's crazy".
It is, and it's you know, I lived with pain
for almost 8 years.
And I was fortunate enough that it
happened later in life, but.
What happened to you?
You know, I was stressed out, I was
working.
But I started actually, my symptoms started with
bloating and distention and loss of appetite.
Super fatigued because I wasn't hungry.
And then came the severe abdominal
cramping and then kind of erratic bowel movements and
unpredictable bowel movements that really kind of changed my
life.
And you don't know what's going on.
You go see a doctor and then what?
You know, I started out by, I didn't even
know what a gastroenterologist was.
Why would you?
I never had any type of stomach issues my
entire life.
I started seeing my primary care physician.
He wasn't alarmed.
A couple of months went by, living through
the pain, as you mentioned.
Go back to the primary care
physician, was given a basic antibiotic to treat any type of
typical stomach infection.
Had maybe a month or two of relief,
and then just kept getting worse and worse and worse.
They even told you you might Chron's.
As I kind of moved through the cycle,
and after having, you know, anemia, thyroid, all these other
things ruled out, and basic blood tests.
I finally sought the care of a
gastroenterologist.
And we did a number of invasive kind of tests
from endoscopies to colonoscopies, pill camera
endoscopies, abdomen CT scans, barium CT scan, and, you know, I
was misdiagnosed with Chron's at one point, and became, you know,
it's hard because you.
It's hard, and you still don't what's
going on.
And I still wasn't feeling well.
And you're not feeling well.
And I'll tell you, my husband, I think has had 2
endoscopies.
I think the poor man has had 3 colonoscopies.
I mean this is common.
Well, it's very common and I mean we see
patients 25 year old women, they come in the office, they've had
3 normal colonoscopies, cat scans.
All the things that Ashley described, and to go on
for 5 years with this diagnostic dilemma and continuously being
tested, and the expenditure of that.
These patients suffer a lot before they finally get an
answer.
And so, I mean, we hope that we can get an answer
quicker.
I think that's our goal.
And we have a breakthrough that is, and possibly will,
change lives.
So we're gonna talk about that.
Please stay right there because when we come
back Dr. Pimentel explains how he was able to achieve one of
the most important diagnostic breakthroughs to date, in IBS.
And Ashley is going to tell us her diagnosis with IBS chek,
and how it has effected her life for the better.
It's such a simple test.
Stay with us.
MUSIC Welcome back everyone.
We're talking about one of the most
significant medical breakthroughs in decades.
We're rejoined by the doctor who was
part of the research team that made that discovery, Dr. Mark
Pimentel from Cedars-Sinai, and one of his patients, she's doing
very well today, Ashley Walkley.
Welcome back.
Thanks.
Doctor, let's talk about the new
developments for the IBS and what we've learned.
Well, what we know now is that IBS often
starts from an infection.
So if you eat at a restaurant and you
get food poisoning, that's the starting point.
And it took about 10 years to figure this
out.
That there's a particular toxin on this food poisoning
that then causes antibodies to form in your bloodstream against
you.
It's like autoimmunity.
So IBS we now think is an
autoimmune disease and we can measure these antibodies.
And then it causes damage to the
nerves of the gut and then the gut doesn't behave correctly.
Bacteria starts to build up which means that IBS is a real
disease.
So we've actually proven it's a real disease for
the first time.
And there is a test now, available for people
like Ashley, and my husband.
It's quite simple.
Let's talk about that.
Yeh.
Today we're talking about IBS chek.
It's a test that measures the 2
antibodies that are really relevant to the cause of IBS.
And when they're positive, you can be identified in 24 hours.
As opposed to 5 years or 6 years, that Ashley suffered
through.
And we're talking about patience who again, have gone
through years of not knowing.
They just have to go in a little check, as opposed to a
colonoscopy, endoscopies, CT scan, and the list goes on.
Exactly, I mean imagine the suffering that Ashley went
through with all these tests.
Could have all been avoided with one test.
And we now have that test.
Is the awareness there for GI's and even internal medicine,
family practice?
Are they aware of this?
Well everything takes time.
So it's a new test.
Gastroenterologists are probably aware of it.
But the primary care physician community, they
need to know.
And now's the time to learn about it.
IBS is known as the invisible illness.
So obviously, you meeting Dr.
Pimentel, I can only imagine, has really changed your life.
You know, meeting Dr. Pimentel and having been under his care
for the last couple of years, has really been a game changer
for me.
I feel like I finally have answers and it was one
blood test.
And now that I have this diagnosis through this
simple blood test, I'm actually able to build a treatment plan
to manage the long term symptoms.
And now have a true understanding of what the
disease is all about.
And, that it's real and not in my head.
Because I think for so long, many IBS sufferers do feel like
their suffering in silence.
People like, "you look great", and it's like yeh, I've dropped
15 pounds because I can't eat.
You know, they don't understand that there are long term side
effects and managing those can be debilitating.
The exhaustion, the fear of food, the constant
pain.
You know, knowing, I mean, I remember laughing on my way to
work, like I know where every restroom was, like between my
home and my office.
You know, it can be embarrassing.
Of course it can.
Think about dating, social situations, public
places, airplanes, traveling.
I mean everything is a conscious
decision and it all relates back to food and how you're feeling.
It's physically, emotionally, and spiritually, extremely
draining.
It takes a toll on you.
And, you know, I'm grateful for the work and the research
team that did all this blood test because it really provided
the answers and the longevity of me to be able to have a path.
You know, doctor, I don't even have IBS.
I hear this and I'm just so happy for her.
I mean it's changed her life.
I know it's just amazing because a
blood test saves all the time and money that had.
Imagine 6 years of trying to figure it out
and this blood test within 24 hours.
Your doctor orders it.
You can go to Quest or Commonwealth Laboratories, and
you get a result and you know what you have and you can get to
the treatment right away.
So again, a prescription from your
doctor.
You go to Quest Diagnostic, you take a simple
blood test and within 24 hours you find out.
As opposed to waiting, I don't know how many
years, and what have you spent out-of-pocket Ashley?
I would say over the last 7 years, I've
probably spent in the neighborhood of like 20 to 25
thousand out-of-pocket, after insurance, for different
testing, medications, and treatments.
Big game changer here.
Yeh.
Thank you so much for sharing your story.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
You're gorgeous and keep on as strong as you are.
Doctor, for our viewers out there who'd
like more information on IBS check, where do they go?
The best place to look is
IBSchek.com.
All the information is there.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate your time.
And of course, if you'd like to log on that website, once again
it's IBSchek.com, simple blood test.
Or, go to our website thebalancingact.com.
MUSIC