‘To boldly go where no man has gone before.’ Exploring the gas clouds of inner space with the IBS voyager.
Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 American science fiction film, starring Stephen Boyd, Raquel Welch and Donald Pleasance as the crew of the submarine/spaceship, Proteus, that is able to shrink to … Continue reading
IBS: is it a case of too much medicine?
50 years ago, we hadn’t heard of the Irritable Bowel Syndrome. That’s not to say it didn’t exist. Unexplained illnesses affecting the bowels had been known every since the beginning … Continue reading
Faecal Microbial Transplant for IBS: is the future orange, brown or colourless?
Who would have thought it? How could anybody seriously suggest treating IBS with an inoculum of somebody else’s faeces? As a society, we are so aversive to the whole idea … Continue reading
Bugs, trauma and brain architecture: an association awaiting an explanation.
Ever since its characterisation some ten or more years ago, scientists have speculated that specific changes in the colonic microbiome could account for IBS, but until recently there have been … Continue reading
Therapy for IBS: How I try to help.
I enjoy my work. In reality, I hardly think of it as work. It is more like reading a novel or seeing a play; a privileged access to the lives … Continue reading
Emma and Peggy: a family matter.
Emma was always close to her mother – too close you might say. The only girl in a family of four, abandoned by their father, Reg, while they were still … Continue reading
It’s not just the symptoms.
It is not just the symptoms of being ill: the pain, nausea, bowel upset, bloating, breathlessness, that are so distressing. It is also what they mean. This includes the fear … Continue reading
The way we are. How much do we pick up from Mum and Dad?
When we are young, our parents are part of us – just mum and dad. We don’t recognise their otherness until much later. We are so close that we pick … Continue reading
Stress and inflammation: the missing link for IBS?
Is IBS all in the mind or all in the gut? Is it mainly the effect of stress or might infection, inflammation or disturbances in the colonic micro-biome be major … Continue reading
I’m not mad. I’ve got IBS.
Is what we call IBS the name given to any one of a number of different unexplained gut disorders or is it a combination of defects in many functional components … Continue reading
The Sensitive Gut 