Lois bounded into my office last week with a whole host of issues. She’d been anxious since childhood, and had a hard time sleeping. Her digestion was a mess, with lots of bloating, nausea, and abdominal discomfort, and an alternation of constipation and diarrhea. She had just been diagnosed with IBS by her doctor and was frustrated because he didn’t have any suggestions for her besides anti-anxiety medication.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome, otherwise known as IBS, is a functional digestive disorder that is diagnosed by exclusion. But many times it ends up as a waste can diagnosis, since there’s not a whole lot Western medicine can do for it.

By the time Lois, and my other patients with IBS, find their way to my office, they’re pretty desperate, and ready to try anything. So we explore their individual cases in depth, look for root causes, and treat them using acupuncture, herbs, supplements and lifestyle interventions.

In my experience there are 3 main root causes of IBS. In simple cases, there may be just one of these at play, but usually either 2 or all 3 of them are contributing to the issue. These root causes are 1. Nervous system dysregulation, 2. Food sensitivities, 3. Dysbiosis.

1. Dysregulation of the Nervous System

Your doctor may say “it’s just stress”, but it’s so much more than this, and I promise you it’s not all in your head. It’s in how your brain is connected to the rest of your body through your nervous system. Your nervous system has 2 branches: Sympathetic, otherwise known as fight or flight, and Parasympathetic, or rest and digest.

Someone with a healthy nervous system can easily flip back and forth between these 2 systems when needed. When you’ve got a big presentation at work, or someone swerves in front of you on the road, you need your sympathetic system online to give you energy and help you focus. But when it’s time to sleep or eat, it’s important that your parasympathetic mode is activated so that you can digest your food and your body can repair itself.

When your body loses its ability to switch into rest and digest mode, you’re never fully digesting your food, leading to all the symptoms of IBS. If it goes untreated, you could become severely dehydrated or malnourished by losing fluids and nutrients through your stool. That’s why it’s so important to address this.

I have found acupuncture to be really amazing for activating the parasympathetic nervous system. If you’d like to learn more treatments for this, sign up for our free 6-part email series on managing anxiety.

2. Food Sensitivities and Leaky Gut

Food sensitivities and food allergies are two different things. A food allergy is an immediate reaction that your immune system has to a particular food. That reaction could be hives, vomiting, a swelling of the throat, or anaphylactic shock. It is mediated by the IgE antibodies in your immune system. This can be very serious, or even life threatening, so if you have this condition, you probably know about it.

Food sensitivities, on the other hand, are mediated by IgG and IgA antibodies. These build much slower in your system, so instead of having a severe, immediate reaction to a food, you have slow building, chronic sensitivity. This is where symptoms like IBS, eczema, headaches and joint pain show up. Yes, there are tests you can run to find out if your immune system is making these antibodies against particular foods, but they are controversial. Many times these tests will come back positive to dozens of foods, and you may not be sensitive to all of them.

Often, what is actually happening is that particles of these foods are entering your bloodstream without being broken down fully. This happens because of intestinal hyperpermeability – otherwise known as leaky gut.

Here’s what I recommend instead. Embark on a month-long elimination diet, removing common inflammatory foods from your diet. These include wheat, dairy and sugar, and possibly corn, soy, eggs, or others, depending on your situation. The types of foods that tend to cause these reactions usually contain complex protein structures like gluten or casein that the body has a hard time breaking down. When the month is over, start by introducing one food back at a time. You should be able to pinpoint the food or foods that are causing your issues.

Once you have found your culprits, just remove those foods from your diet, while at the same time employing a protocol to heal your gut lining. Once that has been healed, you should be able to reintroduce the foods you were once struggling to digest without a problem.

This is a big project, and I recommend working with a practitioner who specializes in gut healing.

3. Dysbiosis in the Intestines

Again, this is a very large topic, too big for this one article. But if you have been working on your nervous system, have experimented with an elimination diet, and are still struggling with IBS, you’re probably dealing with some kind of dysbiosis in your intestines.

Dysbiosis could be many things. In some cases there could be foreign pathogens hiding out in your digestive tract, like parasites or protozoa. You could have a lack of beneficial bacteria in your large intestine, and/or an overgrowth of unhealthy bacteria. Or some of the healthy bacteria from your large intestine could have migrated into your small intestine, where they eat your food and wreak havoc on your digestion. This condition is known as Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO).

There’s no way to know what exactly is going on unless you test. There is a breath test for SIBO that can detect the hydrogen or methane gas released by organisms in your small intestine (both bacteria and archaea), and DNA PCR stool tests can pick up fragments of pathogens in your large intestine.

Once again, I recommend working with a practitioner who has access to these tests and specializes in interpreting them. This approach involves individualized protocols of herbs, supplements, diet and lifestyle recommendations, and you can expect it to take 6-12 months to completely heal your symptoms. 

If you’ve been suffering with IBS and any other related health symptoms like rashes and skin conditions, anxiety or depression, headaches or body pain, or even hormonal imbalances, this is a good place to start. But don’t do it on your own. Finding a practitioner or two who you really resonate with can make the difference between yo-yoing symptoms that never resolve, and actually improving your health.

Author:
Dr. Elizabeth Willams, DACM, LAc is an acupuncturist, herbalist and Doctor of Chinese Medicine in Greenville, South Carolina, specializing in women’s health, gut health, and psycho-emotional issues. She’s passionate about helping people feel their best and sharing her wealth of knowledge with the community. Elizabeth is the owner of Dragonfly Acupuncture & Massage on Wade Hampton Boulevard. Appointments can be made by calling 864-451-4313 or scheduled online.