The Ibs Healing Plan: Natural Ways to Beat Your Symptoms

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is truly an unpleasant condition to be afflicted with. "The IBS Healing Plan: Natural Ways to Beat Your Symptoms" is a guide for sufferers seeking to determine whether they have the affliction, and how to treat it without (or in tandem with) costly medicines or invasive surgery. Promoting five key areas for fighting the symptoms such as monitoring one's diet, vitamin supplements, managing stress in everyday life, and describing the pros and cons of a variety therapies to help sufferers, "The IBS Healing Plan" is a thorough guide on the subject, and a worthy addition to community library health collections.

The IBS Healing Plan: Natural Ways to Beat Your Symptoms by Theresa Cheung is a fully comprehensive guide for people dealing with IBS and it includes very many ways to treat IBS. The book explains exactly what IBS is and how it is diagnosed. The most interesting sections include how diet affects IBS, stress and IBS and ways to manage stress, and daily living with IBS and all the embarrassing things that go with it. The book discusses traditional ways to treat IBS- from digestive aids and over the counter medicines to prescription drugs- and non traditional ways to treat IBS- including vitamins, herbs, acupuncture, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, stretching exercises and more. I found the A to Z of IBS symptoms to include many symptoms which a person would not think was related to IBS and it is very interesting all of the ways to treat each symptom. I really enjoyed the personal stories about people dealing with IBS on a daily basis. This book was very well researched and very in-depth at covering all aspects on IBS. I definitely recommend this book to anyone with IBS.

About two years ago, I started to experience some of the classic symptoms of IBS. It began with some minor abdominal bloating, which I initially mistook for weight gain. Gradually the bloating worsened, until my midsection was at time so distended that I looked pregnant. After roughly six months of intermittent bloating came the constipation, which sent me on a weeklong binge of fiber and internet research. A week later, I was fairly certain that I was suffering from IBS. Rather than visit the doctor (who, I was certain, would just advise me to eat more fiber), I resolved to work up a treatment plan and try to tackle the issue on my own. A year later, and I am mostly IBS-free. Though I occasionally experience minor bloating, it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. Since IBS research is still in its infancy - and my plan can always stand to be tweaked - I'm always on the lookout for new ideas and information. Thus, when I saw that Library Thing was offering up Theresa Cheung's THE IBS HEALING PLAN: NATURAL WAYS TO BEAT YOUR SYMPTOMS via their Early Reviewer program, I jumped at the chance to read an advance copy. Overall, THE IBS TREATMENT PLAN is a short but useful guide to managing your IBS symptoms. Cheung begins with a brief description of IBS, and then spends much of the rest of the book outlining various types of treatments. She covers all the bases, including food and diet; vitamins and supplements; stress and stress management; exercise and fitness, with a focus on yoga; prescription medications; and alternative therapies such as massage, aromatherapy, reflexology, acupuncture/acupressure, and heat therapy. Her list is comprehensive, though it might be a bit too comprehensive: while I'm all in favor of giving IBS sufferers all the info they need to tailor their own unique treatment plan - after all, IBS symptoms and remedies are as varied as those who suffer from IBS - not all remedies are created equal. For example, fiber is a necessary component of a healthy diet whether you suffer from IBS or not; thus, the first factor an IBS sufferer should examine is her fiber intake. The benefits of grapefruit seed, on the other hand, are a bit more questionable. To her credit, Cheung is quick to provide caveats for the more "fringe" remedies. In many cases, she'll offer a brief summary of the research on these non-traditional remedies, or preface the discussion with a non-committal "People think..." or "It is suspected..." And yet, by placing all these remedies on equal footing, I'm afraid that she might give readers the impression that all are equally valid and effective. Furthermore, she rarely cites any research for the more tried and true IBS remedies, which only confuses the issue and makes the less-proven remedies seem superior to the more widely accepted (and researched) ones. This might have been avoided by presenting the remedies in a ranked list (by efficacy or abundance of supporting evidence, for example), rat

I was an early reviewer for this book and I think that it is an excellent reference guide to many alternative methods of treating or managing IBS. If you are an IBS sufferer then you can benefit from owning this book. If your relatives would read it it could help them to understand the severity of the illness and the impact it has on your everyday life. I highly recommend this book to any IBS sufferers.

The book is well organised, with important information repeated in the chapters that call for warnings or caveats, so you can dip into and out of it. There's lots of information about herbs and spices and what they can be used for, as well as tips on foods that trigger or ease symptoms for people. Popular drugs as well as stress reduction techniques and tips on how to live with IBS are included. I appreciate that the author provided an extensive reference section at the end, citing the studies and papers that are mentioned in the text. All the advice is tempered by "it works for some people, you have to find what works for you", but there are so many tips that you'll be sure to find something.