IBS is characterized by a combination of many symptoms. Several names for these common disorders have appeared over the years. These include nervous indigestion, functional dyspepsia, irritable colon, spastic colon, colitis, functional bowel disease, and mucous colitis. There is increasing evidence that supports the view that IBS is a disorder of brain-gut function. The brains ability to control motor activities of the intestines/gut is impaired. There is an imbalance between the stomach, intestines, brain functionality, and autonomic nervous systems.

Many respondents in a survey of married or cohabiting people with IBS stated they had difficulties in their personal relationships, and 45% stated that IBS interfered with their sex life. A few of these IBS symptoms that can be related to other conditions include blood in the stool, weight loss, fever, diarrhea that wakes you up at night, pain that causes loss of sleep or an abnormal physical exam. Your doctor may order tests to rule out other medical conditions by requesting that the patient keeps track of any symptoms that may occur over a special time period.

Symptoms that your doctor may request you to take note of include: feeling of relief upon defecation; more than three bowel movements per day or less than three bowel movements per week; lumpy, hard stools or loose, watery stools; straining during stool passage or a rushing to have a bowel movement; presence in the stool of a white mucus; bloated feeling/abdominal fullness or swelling. If these symptoms seem to fluctuate in severity or frequency due to increased stress levels, then your doctor may have greater cause to suspect that you are really having IBS.

Your doctor may decide to order some diagnostic testing to confirm their diagnosis. Some of these tests may include blood tests, which would give your doctor your complete blood count and an erythrocyte sedimentation rate. After the blood tests have been completed and the results gathered, then you may also have to undergo a stool test. This will allow your doctor to see what you have seen in your stool. Your stool will also be checked for hidden/occult blood because this can't be seen by the patient. These tests results will then be forwarded to your doctor.

After that, your doctor may order a colonoscopy or a sigmoidoscopy. These tests give the medical professional a view of your GI tract to check for any abnormalities. A sigmoidoscopy looks at the rectal area and the sigmoid section of the large intestine, while a colonoscopy gives a complete view of the large bowel. A barium enema may be necessary as well. This is an x-ray of the bowel, one taken after the bowel has been distended by a barium-containing liquid and air. These tests can help your doctor in his/her diagnosis of IBS and they are a vital part of the diagnostic process.

Testing is essential in determining the cause and treatment for your IBS symptoms. Some supplementary tests may be useful as well. These include psychological tests for depression and anxiety to pinpoint the cause to your IBS symptoms. These tests can help the doctor determine the right treatment plan for you. IBS is a therapeutic challenge as it is not only characterized by a multitude of symptoms, some of them with severe consequences for affected patients, but is also caused by a multitude of factors. The efficacy of plant medicine for IBS has been proven in studies.

Due to factors such as climate, environment, society, economy, and diet, spectrum of disease has changed a lot. Functional disorders of immune system, environmental diseases, tumor, drug induced diseases, injury, excess nutrient or nutritional diseases and senile diseases increase greatly, meaning that diseases changed from treatment types to prevention types. Existing chemicals cannot fully meet the need of the community. Chemical drugs have poor efficacy or side effects and drug resistance of some drugs become more and more serious.

Under these circumstances, people begin to train their eyes to natural medicine. Several studies suggest that the efficacy of this highly specialized treatment could be due to its complex composition of a multitude of standardized herbal extracts. The plant extracts in plant medicine are a rich source of bioactive compounds containing antioxidant and antispasmolytic properties. They include medicinal plants of differing chemistry that are active against IBS as well as assisting the immune terrain of the patient. For those suffering from IBS, plant medicine is indispensable. To learn more, please go to .