We often meet patients in the clinic complaining, “My intestines are very ‘delicate’, go out for a meal even if you eat light will come back to the stomach, work and family pressure a little more, the stomach will be ‘goo’ protest, frequent diarrhea has become a daily compulsory course.” . In fact, this “delicate” intestine is the performance of irritable bowel syndrome.
What is irritable bowel syndrome?
Irritable bowel syndrome is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder. Patients are mostly young adults, with more women than men, and the age of onset is mainly between 20 and 40 years old. Symptoms include abdominal pain, diarrhea, changes in stool characteristics (such as mucus stools, watery stools or hard stools), and sometimes straining to defecate with a sense of urgency or incomplete evacuation. Some patients may have alternating diarrhea and constipation. It is not life-threatening, but it can affect people’s quality of life to varying degrees.
Why are the bowels “agitated”?
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a functional bowel disease characterized by abdominal pain or abdominal discomfort accompanied by changes in bowel habits, and the organic diseases that can cause these symptoms must be excluded by examination. The prevalence of this disease in China is about 5.67%, of which the diarrheal type accounts for about 65%.
The main manifestation of diarrheal irritable bowel syndrome is abdominal pain before stool, that is, diarrhea, and abdominal pain relief after diarrhea. Careful questioning of the medical history of patients with diarrheal irritable bowel syndrome reveals that this group of patients often has the following characteristics.
1, this category of patients before the diagnosis of diarrheal irritable bowel syndrome, in daily life is more likely to occur diarrhea. Also dining out, we eat the same table of dishes, others are safe and sound, while they are prone to diarrhea. Some patients usually have more formed stools at first glance, but when water is flushed, they are loose and unformed, which is called “insubstantial stools” in Chinese medicine.
Some patients also show that the stool sticks to the toilet wall and is difficult to flush out, which is called “stool sticking” in Chinese medicine. This is called “stool stagnation” in traditional Chinese medicine. The usual susceptibility to diarrhea or insubstantial stool is considered by Chinese medicine to be a manifestation of Spleen Qi deficiency and loss of healthy movement.
2, these patients are more sensitive to food or the temperature of the surrounding environment. Some patients will have diarrhea when they eat cold food, while others will have diarrhea when the temperature drops suddenly or when the temperature of the surrounding environment changes drastically (for example, entering an air-conditioned room from outdoors on a hot day). For this kind of diarrhea that occurs due to cold, Chinese medicine considers this to be a spleen-yang deficiency or a spleen-kidney-yang deficiency.
3, the onset of these patients is often related to emotional factors, or due to tension and anxiety, or depression due to work stress. Chinese medicine believes that emotional factors are mostly related to the liver, and that either depressed liver qi or hyperactive dry wood qi can cause liver wood qi to offend spleen earth, resulting in a loss of spleen health. Therefore, TCM believes that the underlying pathogenesis of diarrhea-type irritable bowel syndrome is a deficiency of spleen (yang) qi and disharmony between liver and spleen.
Who should be aware of the occurrence of irritable bowel syndrome?
Irritable bowel syndrome is a physical and mental disease, and the following four groups of people are most likely to have it.
1. Introverted people. They tend to be unsociable and like to carry the pressure on their own, and are prone to long-term negative emotions, which affects the plant nerve function, thus inhibiting the gastrointestinal function and slowing down the bowel movement.
2, high stress. Often can not eat, or irregular diet, lack of exercise, will trigger gastrointestinal nerve disorders.
3, people who have suffered major changes and setbacks. May suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, timid, sensitive, fragile, a little small stimulus may cause plant nerve dysfunction.
4, women. Modern women have to balance family and work, more stress, and therefore more likely to suffer from functional gastrointestinal disease.
How do we enrich the “delicate” intestines?
1, avoid the mouth
Gastric patients should pay attention to avoid mouth, do not eat too cold, too hot, too hard, too spicy, too sticky food, and avoid overeating, quit smoking and alcohol.
2, meditation
The occurrence and development of gastric disease, duodenal ulcer and other diseases, and human emotions, state of mind is closely related. Keep a happy spirit and emotional stability. Avoid tension, anxiety, irritation and other adverse emotional stimuli.
3.Exercise
Gastrointestinal patients should combine their physical signs, strengthen moderate exercise to improve the body’s ability to resist disease, reduce the recurrence of disease, and promote physical and mental health.
4, keep warm
People suffering from chronic gastritis should pay special attention to the warmth of the stomach, add clothes at the right time, and sleep well at night with bedding.
5.Adjustment
The autumn diet of gastric patients should be warm, soft, light, vegetarian, fresh, to achieve regular rationing, less food and more meals, so that the stomach often have food and stomach acid to neutralize.
Warm tip: If the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome appear, do not take a lot of anti-inflammatory drugs for a long time to aggravate the condition of digestive tract flora imbalance.