Dr Amir Khan

And so if you're stressed or anxious up here in your brain, that then feeds down into your gut via the vagus nerve and vice versa because that stress and anxiety affects how much of these neurotransmitters your gut microbes are making.

So all of that then affects your digestion and that can lead to irritable bowel.

No, it's not dangerous.

It won't kill you.

It won't harm you.

But it is incredibly debilitating for a lot of people.

It can be really painful, particularly with the cramps.

It could also mean that their quality of life isn't what it can be because they're having to rush back and forth to the toilet and know where the toilet is all the time.

And that can be really annoying.

What can you do to treat it?

So the core treatment, I would say, is try and find your triggers because people will have certain food triggers or certain stress triggers and see if you can avoid them.

And that might involve making a food diary to correlate with your symptoms.

There's certain diets that people might be recommended to try and manage it.

I would say mainly, you know,

looking at how to get your gut microbes as healthy as possible and getting that variety of plants in.

But bearing in mind, certain plants might trigger people.

So just knowing what that could be for you as well.

But stress management, you know, out of that, breathing exercises, CBT, time in nature, all of those things that help with anxiety can help with irritable bowel as well.

And there is medication.

So if someone comes to me and they want medication, I will give them antispasmodic, so things that stop their gut from spasming so hard and causing those pains.