One of the biggest shocks that I had when I was diagnosed with IBS is that my doctors couldn’t or wouldn’t help me.
It took me a long time to accept this fact as it seemed counter intuitive to me. I had health insurance through my job — I was diagnosed with IBS through this health system, and yet when it came time to offer me a path to health, there was almost dead silence.
I spent a great deal of time questioning why the doctors wouldn’t or couldn’t help me and today we’ll talk about why this is.
We’ll also discuss viable alternatives to doctors for when you want to heal your IBS, and yet you are confused as to where to go.
Find the full transcript for this episode at healingheribs.com/17.
Why Doctors Don’t Heal IBS
I would love to interview some doctors around this subject to truly hear from their perspective what it is that they are dealing with in their work and how IBS can often be left untreated, with no remedy, medicine or solution that is offered to patients.
From my experience and from conversations that I have had with doctors, general practitioners are just that, they are the primary care doctors that know a lot of information about a lot of different problems and conditions.
Your primary care doctor cannot be an expert in every area and that means that though they can diagnose IBS, they most likely are not so well versed in the latest research and understanding of IBS.
If you are lucky, you may be referred to a gastro doctor that might give you more information or possible solutions, but from my experience, that is also rare and if it happens, you are lucky. If you can meet with a gastro, the meeting most likely will be short and general, as in not specific to you.
What has been your experience been with doctors and your IBS? I would love to know.
Once I finally accepted that the medical system that I was in wasn’t going to help me, I was initially overwhelmed with the weight and confusion of knowing where to go and who to turn to for help. I didn’t know who to trust, and I didn’t know in what to invest my time and money in to help me solve this huge issue in my life.
Who To Turn to For Healing Your IBS
If your IBS is impacting your life in the way that it impacted mine, you are wanting relief and you are wanting a solution to this pain, to this condition that can take over every part of your life.
I was so confused and distraught. And what I needed was someone who had been through it themselves, and someone who could guide me on many different levels. I needed someone to calm me down, to show me that there was a way out.
I felt so alone. None of my friends had IBS, I had no one to turn to and no one to talk to.
I needed someone who could give me practical advice about what I should and shouldn’t be doing, based on the research and based on my individual circumstances —someone to save my precious time and energy so that I could focus on the big things that really mattered.
Most of all, I needed someone who could provide emotional support for me, and someone who could help give me some prospective. A caring professional to hold the reins for me as I was flailing about, who could empathize with my pain because they knew what it was, they had experienced it as well.
IBS is a syndrome that is majority women sufferers. It is a problem that requires emotional support as well as practical and logistical solutions. This is what I needed. I needed someone that could point me in the right direction, and could guide me in that direction, with patience and with care and this is likely what you need too.
Healing Her IBS
When I look back now at those first few years, and especially the first year in which I had IBS, I know with 100 percent certainty that if I had had someone like who I am now, to guide me and to support me, my healing process would have been absolutely a different story.
I know with certainty that who and what I needed was what I now have to offer other women who were in my shoes.
Some days I even visualize this scenario, going back in time to the height of my suffering, and attempting to skip through time and comfort that woman that I was and hold her hand and tell her to rest on me, to release her stress and to trust that eventually all would be well again.
And it’s hard for me to even put a monetary amount on how much I would have paid back then to have the kind of support that I now offer to women. The money that I spent on acupuncture, on supplements, on holistic doctors-none of it was wasted money. All those people helped me in ways that I can see now. But what I truly needed was a guide.
Someone to put the pieces together and someone that could look at my life from a different lens, because at that time in my life there was so much going on for me that I couldn’t truly see. I can see it now, and I am so skilled now at walking women through the path to change and healing.
This need of mine, and my desire to help women who desperately need it, is why I started this podcast and my business, Healing Her IBS.
If you are needing a guide like I had needed, go to healingheribs.com/program to fill out an application to work with me. We’ll have a call together so we can discuss what you are dealing with and how I can help you get better through my four-month intensive 1-1 program that is tailored to you and what you need the most to move you forward.
In this program, we look extensively at identifying your IBS triggers and then create a tailored toolkit for tough moments and long-term healing. We’ll go through your emotional and medical history and identify personal areas of growth, which might be a mixture of lifestyle factors, mindset or emotional blocks that need to be processed.
Together we will work on your routine and your stressors, incorporating stress management into your life. This intensive program covers nutrition, gut brain axis strategies and all the most important health choices you can change that will give you the most long-lasting solution to your IBS.
My work with you is tailored to where you are at and what you need the most, which is essential because everyone’s IBS is so diverse and individual. There are great options and practitioners out there that can help you, taking that first step towards asking for help and then committing to the process is the entire battle against IBS.
I hope you have enjoyed today’s episode and please share with any women you know who need support healing their IBS.
