Transcripts
DR. TARR:
IBS is defined as a problem
lasting over three months; abdominal pain is
usually relieved by having a bowel movement, and
in addition there's altered stool frequency, that
is to say, people have several bowel movements a
day followed by several days of no bowel
movements, not just daily bowel movements with
stool forms. Specifically, there are hard
stools alternating with looser stools, and then the
stools become hard again.
Mucus, which frequently frightens
people when they see it in the toilet, is
actually one of the components of irritable bowel
syndrome and does not suggests colitis. There's
also bloating and distension that people
perceive.
And it's these criteria that go
into this somewhat harder to nail down disorder
of irritable bowel syndrome. There's no single
test that one can do for irritable bowel
syndrome.
One can look at several common
precipitants of irritable bowel syndrome to try
to treat it. Sometimes dietary intolerances
contribute to it. That is to say to say lactose
intolerance as the most common, probably followed
by fructose intolerance. And even though people
might not have full-blown, massive diarrhea
following the injection of lactose, they may have
a little bit of distension of their colon and
that triggers a reaction.
Motility disorders are probably
an extreme form of irritable bowel syndrome or
are clearly a different category, and I will
briefly mention those which are harder to
diagnose and harder to treat than irritable bowel
syndrome.
