Know important 4 features of Irritable Bowel Syndrome:
Irritable Bowel syndrome-IBS Awareness Month- April.
Do you have the ABCs of Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
- Abdominal Cramping
- Bloating
- Cramping
- Diarrhoea
April is an IBS awareness month. IBS is a long time functional gastrointestinal disorder with symptoms of abdominal pain, bloating, altered bowel habits like diarrhoea/constipation or both. It can affect any age. The patient generally feels better after passing stool. There may be mucus in stool but without blood. There may be the urgency of stool in which patient feels the urge to pass stool immediately.
The common causes are an infection and lactose intolerance.
Generally, diagnosis is made by detailed history and examination by the treating doctor and the minimal test is required for making a diagnosis
Investigation:- stool examination and investigation required as per history
Treatment:- diet modification with avoidance of milk/ fatty meal and eating vegetables and fruits help a lot. Especially if the patient has constipation he requires lots of fibre diet.
Treatment of infection if suspected, especially deworming must be done. If Patient is giving a history of these symptoms after consuming food outside, he must be given antibiotics.
However, sometimes we need to give probiotics as till the time patient reaches to diagnosis he must have consumed many antibiotics already and his good bacteria of the colon is no more to protect the intestine.
patients having constipation may require stool softener or husk.
And sometimes patients require a short course of SSRI but it’s not over the counter drug and should be prescribed by the doctor only. So basically, the treatment depends on case to case basis, depending on the clinical situation.
Remember IBS Can Be Cured!
**one important aspect of diagnosis of IBS is identifying alarming signs which are weight loss, blood in stool, reduced appetite and fever (if these features are present, most likely it’s NOT Irritable Bowel Syndrome)