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Irritable bowel syndrome can be cured (in a sense) and there are people who have irritable bowel syndrome for a period throughout their life and they get better and it never comes back. But the majority of people tend to have some flares from time to time, but if they're on the right medications, they're on the right diet, and they understand how to control their triggers (whether it be lifestyle or dietary) they're able to manage their symptoms very, very well.
Irritable bowel syndrome can be cured (in a sense) and there are people who have irritable bowel syndrome for a period throughout their life and they get better and it never comes back. But the majority of people tend to have some flares from time to time, but if they're on the right medications, they're on the right diet, and they understand how to control their triggers (whether it be lifestyle or dietary) they're able to manage their symptoms very, very well.
The treatment of IBS has really come a long way. Initially, IBS was a symptom-based treatment, meaning if you had abdominal pain, you get pain medications, anti spasm medications. If you had diarrhea, you can get antidiarrheals such as Imodium or Lomotil. If you had constipation, you would get laxatives. It was very much a symptom-driven treatment. In recent years, we have learned a lot about irritable bowel syndrome and we have some very, very exciting new treatments. One in particular is antibiotics - Rifaximin, which is a very specific type of antibiotic that is not absorbed in the digestive track, seems to help patients with irritable bowel syndrome - specifically those with overgrowth of bacteria in their small intestine. The term for that is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, abbreviated as SIBO. You may have seen this online and it is a very common cause of bacterial overgrowth and is treated with antibiotics and the results are really remarkable in those patients that respond. Other treatments for irritable bowel syndrome include SSRIs or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. It's a fancy term for basically antidepressants, but you'll learn that you don't have to be depressed. These medications seem to work on the digestive tract (the nerves of the digestive tract) and they help reduce the pain and the cramping and the bloating. Essentially what these medications do is they balance the nervous system of the digestive track and they have been shown to be very, very effective. Now you may go to your doctor and they may recommend these medications. If you're a good doctor, don't worry - they don't think you're nuts or crazy. It's just that these medications tend to help balance and restore the balance of the nervous system of the gut and they're tremendously helpful.
There are a number of treatments for irritable bowel syndrome. There's a symptom-based treatments, which is if you have abdominal pain, we use pain medications and anti-spasm medications - those are very helpful. There are medications for diarrhea such as antidiarrheals. Constipation medications such as the over the counter ones, but now we have very effective IBS-C, meaning constipation predominant irritable bowel syndrome medications that not only help you have a bowel movement, but target the underlying causes of why people get pain and bloating and cramping and those are very effective. Then, antibiotics have been shown to be very helpful in a large subset of patients with irritable bowel syndrome. In particular, those who have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, namely overgrowth of bacteria in their intestines. Medications such as Rifaximin have been very effective in treating patients with irritable bowel syndrome. The last category of medications are antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications in the subset of patients who tend to have a very much stress and anxiety driven nature to their symptoms. In the right population, those medications can be extremely helpful.
An endoscopy is basically a procedure where a camera at the end of a tube is placed through the mouth down into the esophagus, stomach, and in the beginning portions of the small intestine to look for abnormalities. A colonoscopy is when it's done through the large intestine.
Prognosis for IBS is very good. Patients can have a short duration of symptoms and then be fine for many, many years. Then, there are those patients who have mild symptoms and then they're better for a long time and then they get symptoms again. It's really, really variable. Untreated irritable bowel syndrome can affect quality of life in many people and it can be one of the main causes of missed work. So it's very important that if you have irritable bowel syndrome - find a doctor, find a specialist, get treated because you can lead a very, very normal life with irritable bowel syndrome with all the new advances in the field.
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