The Importance of a Good Ending
This week I left The IBS Network. I had been involved with the charity for 25 years as medical adviser, editor of Gut Reaction, volunteer CEO and chair of trustees. … Continue reading
The Fallacies and Fallibilities of IBS Research.
It might seem strange for me to be writing this. After all, I have spent such a large part of my life engaged in research into bowel function, you might … Continue reading
Is there ever one cause or cure for IBS?
Is it human nature? Do there always need to be a single ’cause’ for illness? Can we just not get our heads around anything more complicated? Is it part … Continue reading
Decoding the symptoms of your IBS
One of the first lessons people learn when they attend self help groups for IBS is that everybody’s symptoms are different. Some people have diarrhoea and abdominal pain that … Continue reading
Life and the Colon ‘in the fast lane’.
Yesterday I got an email from Beppe. He had been to America and wanted me to know that his bowel problems were now cured. He wanted his experience to be … Continue reading
Motivational Interviewing; a change of attitude.
So many people with IBS complain that their doctor never listens to them. This is not just because the doctor does not have enough time or they engage with the … Continue reading
The healing power of poetry
In New Jersey even bridges are named after poets. Extending over the Delaware River, the Walt Whitman Bridge connects two distinct cultural communities. To the north is Philadelphia, the proud … Continue reading
Escaping from the tyranny of what happened: a message of hope.
Over a hundred years ago, Joseph Breuer and Sigmund Freud wrote that ‘hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences’. Hysteria, as a medical diagnosis, has gone out of fashion, outlawed by the … Continue reading
Bing: the art of the grudge.
*Bing could never make a decision. He was forever caught between what he wanted to do and what he felt he ought to do. A rebel at heart, he desired … Continue reading
Taming the stubborn bowel; a constipated person’s guide to defaecation.
The colon is an obstinate beast. It likes to have its own way and will not work to your order. The more you try to bend it to your … Continue reading
The Sensitive Gut 