The Good Gut Guide: Help for IBS, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's Disease, Diverticulitis, Food Allergies and Other Gut Problems. Stephanie Zinser
never suspected that this was the beginning of a decade’s worth of increasingly serious illness that I would face virtually alone, unaided and only vaguely informed. It wasn’t the doctors’ fault – they told me what, medically, I needed to know. And there were support groups, although I tended to notice only the people who suffered far worse than I did. Because of this, I shied away from associating with them – as if the seriousness of their illnesses might somehow be contagious.
Things that go wrong with your guts cause great embarrassment and this in turn makes them frightening. You don’t automatically know who to talk to or what words to use, and when you do seek medical help the resulting procedures can be embarrassing as well as uncomfortable.
For some reason bowel and intestinal disorders have always been viewed as older people’s afflictions, despite the fact that most cases of ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn’s disease and IBS start during a person’s mid-twenties (or younger) – when many people are single, embarking on relationships, starting families or juggling demanding careers and busy social lives. I’m not sure why this false image has so stubbornly persisted, although I believe it is slowly changing.
As a health writer, I am regularly bombarded by information about new treatments – not just from orthodox medicine, but also from the herbal, dietary and complementary sides. My personal view is that the key to a ‘golden cure’ is not the preserve of any one of these camps. The answer to bowel illnesses is probably (and quite unsatisfactorily for those of us who like things neat and tidy) a complicated mixture of several elements, the proportions and exact ingredients of which we simply cannot isolate today. It’s up to us to look carefully at every possibility, to try whatever we feel may be right for us, and work toward the best possible outcome – good gut health.
And that’s why I’ve written this book – to provide the appropriate information so that the reader can play an active role in achieving good gut health. It isn’t a book that features only a couple of gut problems in great detail. Neither is it a medical encyclopaedia that covers a whole raft of illnesses on a basic level. It is a user-friendly book for anyone who has ever experienced gut problems – and one that discusses them in a way that people understand.
This book looks at all types of intestinal symptoms – like diarrhoea, wind, constipation, nausea, abdominal pain and more – and offers practical solutions for dealing with them. Not just medical solutions, but self-help – including dietary and lifestyle tips, herbal help and a whole range of complementary therapies, from flower remedies to Ayurveda (an ancient Indian system of medicine). This approach is vital. People today are more proactive in choosing their healthcare than ever before and it is important to me that this book strongly reflects the diverse range of options now available.
Having looked at symptoms, the book then homes in on the diseases that are the key culprits of gut trouble and explains, simply but in detail, what these diseases are, what causes them, who they typically affect, what the risk factors are, how to prevent them and what medical treatments are available. Again, I have included practical advice for the patient in terms of self-help, dietary management, alternative treatments and prevention.
Lastly, the book focuses on the person behind the illness. It looks at the effect that chronic or embarrassing illnesses can have on our daily lives, our personalities and our relationships. It offers advice on the practicalities of living a normal life and coping with depression, hospitals, illness and surgery. There is also a large resource section at the back of the book for anyone who wants access to support groups, medical agencies and further information.
having trouble with your guts?
What it means and what you can do about it
Anything unusual that happens to our guts – like rampant diarrhoea or sudden bleeding – is disturbing. However, such occurrences are not the only reason we visit our doctor with a gut-related problem. Some common conditions like constipation are often mild, but they may gradually worsen until we become concerned enough to seek medical advice. You can just as easily need to see your doctor for a chronic problem as an acute one.
There are hundreds of medical problems – serious as well as minor ones – that cause ‘gut-related’ symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation or mild stomach pains. This makes symptoms tricky to assess. How do we know when they are serious enough to warrant medical advice? Very few people get a thrill from visiting their doctor to be told that they are making a fuss but, on the other hand, what would happen if we ignored something serious?
Most digestive problems, whether serious or commonplace, don’t present just one symptom. Usually we notice a couple, perhaps more. Here’s an example: George notices that he’s constipated, and occasionally sees flecks of bright red blood on the toilet paper; Sally feels a lot of discomfort when she goes to the toilet, especially when she is straining, and is also irritated by anal itching. George and Sally each have piles. They have the same condition, but they have differing symptoms. George’s main problems are constipation and bleeding, Sally’s are discomfort and itching. This is another reason why it is sometimes difficult to tell what is causing a particular health problem.
Analysing your symptoms in an almost detached way is part of the answer. For this reason, Section 1 focuses on the common symptoms like diarrhoea, constipation, bleeding, and wind and bloating. Very few of us wake up and think, ‘I think I’ve got inflammatory bowel disease.’ More likely we’ll say, ‘This diarrhoea is getting me down, I wonder what’s causing it and how I can stop it.’ This section explains what can cause these symptoms and offers a variety of practical ways we can help relieve them.
Section 1 also discusses how we can get the best from our doctors – by knowing what to ask, how to ask and what to expect from medical consultations, and describes the major tests that are used by doctors to explore and identify gut problems.
First, let’s go back to the classroom. It is easier to understand why things go wrong – and how we are affected – if we know a little about the anatomy of the gut.
The digestive system starts at our mouth and ends up at the other end – the anus. When people talk about ‘guts’ they can mean pretty much anything, from the throat to the stomach to the intestines, although generally, most people think of the stomach and the small and large intestines when they say ‘gut’. Vagueness may be okay when we’re chatting with friends, but there’s little room for it in the doctor’s office. Being specific helps our doctors understand what we’re talking about. We might think we’re being fairly exact when we say ‘abdominal’, but a doctor could easily wonder whether we mean the stomach, the small intestines or the large bowel (colon and rectum). And should he ask which it is, it helps to know what he’s talking about.
A few minutes spent looking at the drawing overleaf should help. This shows the whole digestive system, its various parts and their medical names. The other diagrams provide a little more detail about the lining of the intestines. There are different layers, each of which performs different functions. The whole of the digestive system is hugely vascular (that is, rich in blood vessels). A staggering quantity of blood passes through it – some 40 per cent of our blood supply is diverted through the digestive system after a meal, so that the blood can absorb the goodness our food delivers to our bodies. That’s why it isn’t a good idea to embark on strenuous exercise soon after eating – it puts too many demands on our body systems.
