The Mystery of IBS and My Path to Freedom

By Larissa Sawicki

The author of this book has discovered a unique approach to solve the mystery of irritable bowel syndrome disorder and other functional gastrointestinal maladies. Her knowledge will serve a reader as an eye-opener. Current books about IBS basically duplicate the same information in the narrow spectrum of already known theories and ideas that still do not fully resolve the IBS issue. The book includes discussions of results from the newest studies in medical science, orthomolecular science, microbiology, cognitive psychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive neuroscience, neurocardiology, psychoneuroendocrinology, neuropsychology, psychoanalysis and quantum physics. This book contains information about a multitude of remarkable scientific discoveries concerning wellness in general and an integrated understanding of the human mind and body.This is the second edition of "The Mystery of IBS and My Path to Freedom." After receiving valuable insightful and constructive critiques to the first edition, the author decided to include to the second edition valuable and even life-saving advices.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Larissa Sawicki
• Release date: Mar 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9780985866723

Larissa Sawicki

Larissa Sawicki is a passionate holistic health educator, motivational speaker, and entrepreneur. She is the owner of Natural Health Education, which provides educational workshops and consultations on health related topics. Larissa is a medical science researcher who holds a Master’s degree in Social Studies and a Diploma in Medical Office Administration. She also spent time professionally teaching. After completion of philosophy/cognitive science coursework through Yale University and being certified as a trainer in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Larissa dedicates much energy to counseling people on the interrelatedness of the mind and the body, the effects of unconscious stress on health, and the means to overcome emotional distress that causes physical harm. She firmly believes in the interconnectedness of all people, and the capability of each individual to improve overall personal and community well-being. Most recently, Larissa successfully completed the LevelI-A Practitioner Training in the newest principles and practices of the FasterEFT (Faster Emotionally Focused Transformation) with Robert G. Smith and Skills to Changes Institute, Inc. She believes that FasterEFT is a unique method to release stress, restrictive beliefs and emotional issues to experience true emotional freedom, peace and well-being. Larissa currently resides in New Jersey. You can learn more about Larissa and her health related activities and innovations at her website: www.ExclusiveHealthConsulting.com.

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Though only my name appears on the cover of this book, my extended support group has contributed their efforts to its production. This book would not have been possible without the invaluable help of Cathy Farro. I am grateful for her talented editing and deep devotion to this project. I would like to offer my special thanks to Kerrie McLoughlin for her editing work on my second edition of this book. I was amazingly fortunate to have the assistance of my former co-worker Ray Lipski with the design of the book’s cover page. Ray actualized the cover exactly the way I had envisioned it. I also gratefully acknowledge the helpful input and assistance of Nada Sirafimovic, Karen Wilczewski and Janine Knapp.

I want to express special gratitude to Professor Lic. Ac. Yingzhe Li and Lic. Ac. Carman San Paolo for their wholehearted dedication to my various alternative treatments and their consistent offering of their expertise. I am thankful to my former colleague Ghassan Sadat, M.D., for our motivational discussions of health related issues. I wish to acknowledge the writers and researchers whose work I mentioned in my book.

I take this opportunity also to express appreciation to my true friends, Kim Johnson, Emery Coppola and Johnson George, whose moral support and encouragement have contributed so much to this work. I also owe my gratitude to all of those people who value my health-related advice.

I am heartily thankful to my daughter Mira. Her unwavering faith in my abilities helped me to overcome my self-imposed limitations.

I am grateful, too, for this life opportunity to challenge myself and to turn my weaknesses into strengths by accomplishing something I never even imagined.

Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who brought emotional pain and joy to my life experience. Learning through those experiences is what has shaped me to be the person I am today.

"I cannot teach anybody anything.

I can only make them think."

- Socrates

INTRODUCTION

This book is dedicated to the memory of my lovely father, Polyakov Gennadiy, M.D., who passed away in 2007. He was a talented ophthalmologist (eye surgeon) who successfully helped many people regain their eyesight after blindness. With limited technology available to him, he was able to restore patients’ eyesight at his own expense, making them whole again.

Although I did not follow in my father’s footsteps into conventional medicine, I have devoted much time over many years toward gaining valuable insights into the issue of health and have been certified as a trainer in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I have learned many truths and health secrets, and, in keeping with my father’s legacy, I want to share them with you. I have always been compelled to follow my father's path and focus on the positive intention to help sick people get well.

My passion to help people in pain has helped me overcome my indecisiveness to publish this book. Although I had never considered becoming an author, I decided to write this book as a way to share my knowledge about health and what I have learned while researching IBS.

I believe that a lack of knowledge is a blindness of mind. As my father helped many people regain their vision after blindness, my positive intention is to contribute to understanding and promoting a pain-free life.

The answers will gradually be revealed, through a steady accumulation of evidence, to arouse your curiosity about this healing path. Some chapters may not seem connected to IBS disorder at all; however, I hope coming along with me will open your eyes to new ideas and concepts. You will reach the same conclusions as I have and, with the knowledge you have gained and my methods, it will put you on the path to freedom from suffering.

This is the second edition of The Mystery of IBS and My Path to Freedom. After receiving valuable insightful and constructive critiques to the first edition, I decided to include to the second edition valuable and even life-saving advices.

CHAPTER 1: THE MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS

Irritable Bowel Syndrome is an extremely common gastrointestinal disorder that continues to be the number one complaint that drives patients to the doctor. Nearly 60 million people suffer from Irritable Bowel Syndrome in the United States. The Oxford Journals website Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine: eCAM notes that IBS has been classified as the second most common cause of illness related work absenteeism aside from the common cold.¹

IBS is the acronym for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The term is loosely used to cover several other conditions involving chronic pelvic pain, such as spastic colon, mucous colitis, spastic colitis, nervous stomach, and irritable colon. The Rome III diagnostic criteria system was developed to subcategorize IBS according to predominant symptoms. Irritable Bowel Syndrome was divided into three subtypes to facilitate better understanding of the condition. These subtypes are IBS with diarrhea, IBS with constipation, and IBS with both constipation and diarrhea.

According to The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, produced by Merck & Co., one of the ten largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, the cause of IBS is unknown. No anatomic source has been discovered in laboratory tests, x-rays, or biopsies. It is most commonly believed that Irritable Bowel Syndrome is due to abnormalities of the immune system or occurs as a consequence of uncoordinated contractions of the muscles that move food through the gastrointestinal tract. Even though IBS is considered a functional gastrointestinal disorder, no final conclusion has been made as to its cause or treatment.² Studies have estimated the toll for caring for IBS sufferers at more than $21.5 billion each year in the United States alone.³

IBS sufferers most likely have undergone enough medical examinations and laboratory tests to rule out a specific disease and to understand that the cause of IBS cannot be physically pinpointed. It is simply a label given to certain symptoms. The majority of IBS sufferers have experienced pain for years while their doctors are unable to help eliminate their misery and fail to identify any specific cause. Many people with disabilities of various kinds find that medicine cannot bring them significant help. The medical literature reveals that an increasing number of IBS patients undergo abdominal and pelvic surgery, misinterpreting symptoms as indicators of a surgically remediable disease. Sadly, these patients often respond poorly to surgical intervention and generally experience worsening of their symptoms.

I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome eight years ago, but now realize that I had been suffering from it for much longer. At the time of my diagnosis, doctors had no clue as to what spastic colon was or why they had detected no abnormalities. The lack of physical evidence tends to result in the perception that it is all in the head. My own family members at times have been skeptical and not very supportive. Consequently, some people do not believe IBS is real.

Most of us understandably put complete trust in our doctors, and unreservedly accept their diagnoses and treatment regimens. I was one of those patients who never questioned my doctor's choice of treatments. Mainstream medicine, also referred to as conventional medicine, was the only medical approach I knew. When I was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, my physician prescribed the medication that was available at that time for my condition. A year or so after I started taking the medication, it was withdrawn from the market. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alleged a relationship between the drug and increased risk of heart attack and stroke. I felt lost, hopeless and unable to cope with the pain on my own without help from a pharmaceutical pill.

Some medical practitioners advise IBS patients to accept their symptoms as unchangeable health imperfections and to continue living as best they can, saving their energy to concentrate on the parts of life that seem to be going well. Researchers concluded that, Adjusting to living with IBS may entail considerable coping effort and, because medical treatments are largely ineffective, people with IBS must learn to manage the condition themselves.⁴ That is much easier said than done. It is difficult to live in distress, particularly with the unpredictability of IBS symptoms. In addition to physical torture, this illness drains finances, ruins personal relationships and gets in the way of career advancement. Eventually, IBS and the depression that often accompanies it force many people to withdraw and become inhibited from participating in everyday activities.

I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of a future wrought with pain. Following a brief episode of depression, however, I became angry that nobody could help me. This anger motivated me to fight this frustrating disorder on my own, searching all available sources of information. I realized that a victim mentality was unproductive and would block my capabilities and judgment in finding the path to freedom from living with IBS.

The importance of being in tune with one’s instincts and having confidence in one’s ability to make the right decisions was emphasized by American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Self Reliance. Emerson indicates that conformance is not always necessary or beneficial, and that individuals should act according to their nature and principles.

Slowly, from a small ray of hope I began to foster my own self-reliance to meet my needs for a healthier lifestyle and emotional well-being. Motivated by Emerson's words, I persistently searched for information, not only for practical advice to cope with the illness, but also to comprehend the difference between the two primary medical philosophies that guide the practices of allopathic (conventional) medicine and alternative (holistic) medicine.

It quickly became clear to me that maintaining health depends upon believing in a system that we accept and trust as the foundation for further actions. With my new mind set I was willing to learn and to look for a philosophy of wellness that might direct me to medical approaches other than conventional ones that focus on forcing a change with chemical drugs, and to select options other than treatment with insufficiently tested medicine. To avoid the harmful effects of pharmaceutical drugs, many people seek alternatives and choose mainstream conventional medicine mostly for diagnosis and the general understanding of a health problem.

CHAPTER 2: COMMON MISCONCEPTION

In the time of our modern, busy and interconnected lives, we are still plagued by countless medical misconceptions. I asked myself the question: Why do we suffer from epidemic chronic illnesses, including IBS? After reading a lot of research and looking at the data, I have learned that toxicity and deficiencies are the underlying factors in today’s widespread illnesses that cause chronic inflammation. The conditions of IBS, inflammatory bowel illness, congestive bowel toxicity, leaky gut syndrome and Candida/yeast overgrowth are only a few of the health maladies that represent these problems. To resolve those issues I knew that I had to go through six steps of the scientific method to find the sources from which toxicity in my body has been obtained, find an explanation for deficiencies in my organs, construct a hypothesis, choose a wise solution to test my hypothesis after I form it, then take that information to analyze and draw my conclusion about the causes of IBS disorder.

Mainstream medical communities concluded that the primary contributing factors to IBS are poor diet, food allergies, chemical sensitivities, parasites, Candida-yeast overgrowth, gluten intolerance, and an imbalance or deficiency of neurotransmitters. By addressing these issues, some symptomatic relief can be achieved. Nevertheless, my personal research revealed that some of these problems are the byproduct of a real cause. Featured next are my views regarding possible contributors to the development of IBS. Although my opinion is subjective and is based on my experiences with IBS symptoms, which vary from person to person, the explanation I present may be useful to others with similar problems.

It is important to focus on the fundamentals of self-healing with the goal of improving digestion, the absorption of nutrients, and removal of waste products from every part of the body to maintain optimal wellness. An awareness of health issues, such as the tendency to misinterpret an insufficient amount of stomach acid as heartburn, may provide guidance in understanding and addressing health related issues.

Some people with low stomach acid have no IBS related symptoms and believe they digest food properly. However, hydrochloric acid (HCL) creates a special environment in the stomach that is critical for overall health. The acidic environment is supposed to destroy harmful pathogenic bacteria. Hydrochloric acid also contributes to breaking down proteins into amino acids and converting pepsinogen into pepsin in the stomach. A depleted amount of hydrochloric acid makes it possible for pathogens to invade the stomach and impede the proper digestion of proteins. The secretion of HCL in the stomach also provides the blood with a continual alkaline buffer, which keeps up the alkaline secretions of major digestive glands.

Gastric cells that produce hydrochloric acid can be damaged by over consumption of toxic substances, an overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori, infection, and other factors. In general, I believe that infectious intruders and poor absorption are the main causes of gastrointestinal disorders. Moreover, the mineral zinc and Vitamins B1 and B6 are needed to produce sufficient stomach acid. We often assume that we get these nutrients from our diet, but an insufficient amount of stomach acid prevents proper absorption of nutrients from both food and supplements. Poor absorption thwarts our efforts to supply our bodies with nutrients. As we age, we become deficient in most vital chemicals, including hydrochloric acid. The decrease in our absorption of minerals due to intestinal inflammation and insufficient production of digestive juices leads to health deterioration.

Not enough stomach acid causes several of the same symptoms as too much stomach acid. Both conditions can cause belching, bloating and a backup of sourness from the stomach into the esophagus. Furthermore, symptoms of heartburn and pain in the stomach often result from indigestion, caused by an insufficient amount of hydrochloric acid production. Overeating on a regular basis leads to stomach distension and a weakening of the stomach muscle. This condition also is characterized by a reduction of gastric juice, which in turn leads to improper digestion. When food is not properly digested, it ferments in our stomachs. Acid and gas from this fermentation travel upwards from the stomach creating the sensation of heartburn. An insufficient amount of gastric acid, our original stomach acid, causes fermentation acid to develop. Stress also impairs the production of hydrochloric acid in our stomachs.

Many of my friends and relatives take over the counter digestive aids to relieve their IBS symptoms. However, we become our own worst enemies with regard to health when we self-medicate based on media advertisements and a lack of information. Although most of us know the side effects of multiple prescription drugs, poor diet, eating too much, and eating unhealthy foods, only a few are willing to change how and what they eat. Rather than changing eating habits, heartburn medication is sought for relief. Unfortunately, while antacids effectively neutralize stomach acid, they interfere with proper digestion and block the absorption of nutrients.

There are safe, natural options available to eliminate the discomfort from heartburn. I treat heartburn with water rather than medication. If the discomfort is especially persistent, then drinking chamomile or ginger tea is a good solution. Some herbal supplements bring relief from heartburn sensations. I know from personal experience that slippery elm, marshmallow, fenugreek and flax seed are excellent remedies. Clinical studies have shown that chamomile, marshmallow, licorice, slippery elm, calendula, wild yam and St. John’s wort protect the stomach from its own acid and also reduce inflammation and infection of the stomach lining. Malic acid and tartaric acid in carrots and apples are also known to balance stomach acid. Another option is to combine apple juice and carrot juice with herbs to make a very tasty tea. Biological sulfur MSM (Methyl-Sulfonyl-Methane) is a nutritional food supplement that helps bring excess stomach acid production under control. Eating half-cooked potatoes also brings tremendous relief from heartburn.

In addition to heartburn from gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), conditions resulting from a deficiency of hydrochloric acid and poor absorption include dermatitis, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis, food allergies, bacterial dysbiosis, overgrowth of Candida albicans, and IBS.

To keep an acidic stomach environment, I do not drink fluids while eating a big meal. Instead, I drink water or tea 30 minutes before a meal or one hour following a meal. Rather than diluting my stomach acid by drinking liquids with my meal, I let the saliva in my mouth naturally assist digestion. Saliva is a natural digestive aid containing essential enzymes. The digestion of starch begins during chewing due to saliva. The intake of sugary drinks with food causes fermentation in the stomach and slows digestion. Consuming raw vegetables with each meal is another option for supplying natural moisture to the mix of the food and highly acidic stomach secretions to form chime. If you must have fluids while eating, a sour or bitter drink is the better choice. The best option would be to drink only lukewarm water with your meal, because cold drinks hamper digestion.

Bile also plays a significant role in gastrointestinal health. When partly digested food in the stomach enters the small intestine, it first combines with bile and pancreatic juices, then with intestinal juices. A reduced secretion of bile diminishes the ability of pancreatic enzymes to digest carbohydrates, proteins and fats. The small intestine is not able to properly absorb nutrients and, as a result, undernourishment and food cravings occur. The absorption of life-essential fats, calcium and fat-soluble vitamins A, E, D and K requires the presence of bile in the intestines. The gallbladder contracts and ejects bile when acidic foods, and most protein foods, enter the small intestine from the stomach. Fats are the best triggers for bile ejection.

Sufficient stomach acid and ample bile flow are essential to maintaining good digestion and the absorption of food; it also supports the intestinal tract with waste elimination. Partially digested food tends to ferment and rot in the intestines, and attracts large amounts of harmful bacteria. The excretions produced by