Lawrence Bodner - IBS Is BS: A Clear Understanding and Treatment for Your IBS in Laymans Language

IBS is BS

A Clear Understanding and Treatment for Your IBS in Laymans Language

L AWRENCE B ODNER

Copyright 2016 Lawrence Bodner.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The information, ideas, and suggestions in this book are not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. Before following any suggestions contained in this book, you should consult your personal physician. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-3446-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-3448-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-3447-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016912091

Archway Publishing rev. date: 08/24/2016

CONTENTS

Lawrence Bodner offers a wonderful description of his journey from illness to health. Although one might consider this to be a one-off or single-case report, its personally relevant to the eleven percent of Americans who suffer with Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

While the scientific descriptions and remedies may seem trite, no one else has devised a common-sense language or step-by-step playbook for the over-the-counter treatment of IBS and its ilk.

I have spent my career as a neuropsychiatrist struggling to assess and assist patients with treatment-refractory illness. A fair portion of my patients experience conditions with direct relevance to the topic at hand in this treatise. In order of relative importance to brain disease, I list some common factors here:

• Concussion
• Substance abuse
• Sleep disorders
• Epilepsy and other conditions associated with abnormal EEG
• Adverse effects of medications
• Personality (temperament) factors
• Autoimmune and other immune-based dysfunctions
• Obesity (adipokines)
• Pharmacogenomic adversities
• Nutrition
• Metabolism
• Gastrointestinal infection
• Learning disabilities or giftedness (in particular those children with regulatory disorders of childhood)
• Tick-borne illnesses
• Environmental poisoning

The gravity of the situationthe avoidable suffering and the impact of GI health on the other portions of the bodyshould motivate us to carefully consider Mr. Bodners notions. This book will be a fast read and contains good advice for how a person might choose to help with his or her own health. Neuropsychiatric illness and chronic pain afflict over half of America. It appears that many so-called chronic illnesses (for example hypertension, asthma, diabetes, stroke, and dementia) are also related to diet and gastrointestinal dysfunction.

Helping ourselves means that others dont need to afflict our autonomyits liberating for all involved.

Steven Best, M.D.

Neuropsychiatrist

It is often said that everyone has a story to be told, but how many people do, in fact, tell their story? Those who chose to write are usually driven by passion. I equate the art of writing to that of an equation because an equation has two parts: the writer on one side and the potential reader on the other side. So what gives the writer the impetus to write? On the writers side of the equation, the writer is driven by his or her passion to tell the story bottled up inside his or her brain and psyche. More often than not, the writers desire to get his or her message or story out is driven by his or her passion to communicate with the public. The readers side of the equation is his or her desire to educate, entertain, and improve himself or herself and gain knowledge. This book meets all of these criteria.

The subject of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not pleasant, and those people who suffer from this condition certainly do not have a desire to make their condition public. Even though there are in excess of seventy million sufferers in the United States, a fair majority of those members of this detested club suffer in silence.

Part of my character is the possession of the quest for knowledgeparticularly in the areas of science and medicine. Human beings who do not have medical issues or illnesses never give them a second thought and often take their lives for granted, living free of pain and unencumbered by illness.

Through my lifelong study of science and medicine, I have been able to deduce a reasonable explanation for IBS and an effective treatment modality. As laymen we have a very warped conception that medicine has all of the answers, but when you look at all of the illnesses and medical conditions that exist without us having a knowledge of a cause or an answer to effect a resolution, then you can grasp the gravity of the situation.

When dealing with experiences of life, we must employee open minds and not always accept the status quo or the pat answer of thats how it is, and thats what current medicine says it is. The pain, discomfort, and a compromised life of suffering will drive the IBS sufferer to seek all means to achieve a resolution.

I owe endless thanks to my wife and my friends for their encouragement and advice in fostering my drive to get my advisory book into the hands of the general public. My wife, Fran, has always been supportive, and through her diligence, creativity, and culinary attributes she has made my highly restrictive and difficult diet reflect reasonable normalcy and variety. Considering that I have been a type 1 diabetic for forty-seven years, have suffered from IBS for the past fifteen years, and became gluten and lactose intolerant five years ago, my wife, Fran, afforded me a varied and broad diet that circumvented my severe restrictions. Her superior culinary artistic creativity has always afforded me a life of gastronomic pleasures.

In addition, I would like to acknowledge my dear friends who provided me with encouragement to fulfill my dream of getting my IBS message out to help the millions of sufferers of IBS. My dear friend Steven R. Best, MD, a neuropsychiatrist, advised me to go the route of extensive research in order to prove and satisfy my theories. Dr. Best advised against the standard research protocols of double-blind controlled studies because of their prohibitive costs and time involvement. The implications of pharmaceutical intervention and research at this juncture was not an option. During my research, it was Dr. Best who advised me to refer to research and medical publications in veterinary medicine that became of particular importance in my theoretical development.

It was Dr. Best who initially enlightened me about the brain-gut axis and how the role of psychiatric disorders and psychological influences on the body can play a role in irritable bowel syndrome development.