IBS For Dummies

by Carolyn Dean, L. Christine Wheeler

Spot the triggers and handle IBS at home or work

Get control of your symptoms and improve your quality of life

Are you or a loved one suffering from IBS? This plain-English, reassuring guide explains all aspects of this frustrating condition and helps you find the right doctor and treatment plan. You get up-to-date information on the latest tests, healthy nutrition guidelines, diet and exercise plans, and the newest medicines and therapies to bring you much-needed relief.

Discover how to
* Get an accurate diagnosis
* Recognize the warning signs
* Reduce your stress
* Weigh treatment pros and cons
* Adopt an IBS-friendly diet
* Help children with IBS

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Reference

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Dr. Carolyn Dean MD ND is the author of over 50 books including best seller The Magnesium Miracle and other noted publications including IBS for Dummies, Hormone Balance, Death by Modern Medicine, and 110+ published eBooks to date. Dr. Dean is committed to helping anyone understand more about nutrients, their requirements in the body, and ways to promote health and vitality in a proactive manner.

In 2015, Dr. Carolyn Dean MD ND launched the RnA ReSet brand based on nutrient protocols she built through 40+ years of experience in private healthcare practice. Dr. Dean’s career as a medical doctor and naturopath resulted in a collection of unique, proprietary formulations that support precise applications while remaining safe for everyday use.

Dr. Dean continues to provide her leadership and vision for enabling people to take control of their own health. This includes her 45+ years of educational resources including guidebooks, presentations, and a history of other audio, video, and written assets for anyone wanting to learn more about nutrients and their health.

Reviews

[Lilly Schwartz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely worth a read, even if you think you know everything there is to know about the topic. I consider myself quite knowledgeable having suffered for 5 years. I've done a lot of research and tried a lot of things, most of which didn't work. Especially great is that it refers the reader to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet), which is ultimately what helped me the most. Although most advice was known to me already this book still had some things left to teach me, for example that 5-HTP can help and that biofeedback seems to have an impact as well! The only thing that was missing for me was a bigger focus on gut bacteria and probiotics, since knowledge about this was what finally turned my ibs into a manageable condition.

[Hezekiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only useful sections for me were the practical tips for day to day living with IBS, because the sections about medical treatment are from 2005 and no longer current.

I found the naturopathic sections very problematic because of my history of eating disorder (orthrorexia). There was lots of use of the word "toxin" and much fearmongering about MSG (with the racist term "Chinese restaurant syndrome"), GM food, sugar, dental fillings, vaccine preservatives (which save lives by preventing vaccine contamination and sepsis), and combination vaccines. They mentioned thiomersal by name ("thimerosal") despite that it hadn't been used in vaccines for decades. They expressed belief that live virus vaccines (which contain a modified weakened virus, or a manufactured virus containing only the surface proteins) or combination vaccines can trigger long-term inflammation in people *without* autoimmune disorders or immunocompromization from the immune system being "overwhelmed"—a claim that is not supported by science or immunology.

There was even a positive reference to Andrew Wakefield's now retracted and thoroughly discredited Lancet paper that galvanized the "vaccines cause autism" movement, though the authors mainly focused on "vaccines cause colitis" and "thimerosal is toxic." I do not excuse this because though the paper wasn't retracted by the Lancet until 2010, when this book was published Wakefield had already been exposed for the serious ethical and conflict-of-interest problems with the paper.

The authors used the word "chemicals" in a vague sense of "substance that I think is harmful in any amount without regard to how toxicology and biochemistry work," and valorized what would today be called "clean eating" as inherently superior.

This book spurred me to learn about the metallurgy and chemistry of dental fillings, and the history of MSG being maligned. In summary: dental fillings do not cause detectable mercury levels after 72 hours, removing them causes much higher acute exposure than receiving one, and the mercury and other metals form a structure that holds the mixture together. Re: MSG: the letter to a medical journal that got titled "Chinese restaurant syndrome" was revealed by the letter writer himself as a hoax as soon as it was published, but the hoax had already caught on due to bolstering Sinophobia in society. MSG is naturally occurring in mushrooms, tomatoes, many cheeses, and exists in cuisines all around the world, including those of western Europe and the Mediterranean. If tomato sauce and mushrooms don't give you symptoms, MSG is not the cause of the symptoms.

[Barbara Harper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though I gleaned some helpful bits of information from this book, I was greatly frustrated with it. For one thing, all advice having to do with stress or relaxation was New-Agey. For another, the book is overly internally cross referenced. You could hardly read a page without seeing, "We say more about this in Chapter Whatever" or "we discussed this in the last chapter." One time the reference was across the page! I have never read a "For Dummies" book before--maybe they are all this way, I don't know. The authors said this book was designed to be able to drop in at your point of interest or questions rather than having to read it all the way through. Maybe that's why some of the same information is scattered throughout. I wanted and needed the whole overview, so I read the whole book start to finish. But I had to put it down for long periods in-between because I was so frustrated with it.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am trying to get the upper hand on years of suffering with IBS and this book is one of the best I have found so far. Already I have tried some recommendations that are definitely helping.

However, this edition was published in 2006 and some of the information is really outdated. I understand a new updated edition will be published in 2023. I look forward to reading it.

[colleen clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative

Really liked it! Very informative, learned alot! Now I just have to do the work to see results! Thank you!

[Tori Farmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative. Sometimes a little over whelming.

[Ida Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

:( - very good info

[Kristina Forsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was great, it talked about all the different tests that could be done to lead the doctor to lean more towards IBS rather than other similar diseases. They also talked about what you can do to avoid your triggers (the things that cause your IBS flare up). They talked about how to make your children (if you have any) comfortable if they have IBS. It talked about dealing with IBS in the work place. It talked about just about everything you as a patient or possible patient might want to know. I happen to actually have IBS, I was diagnosed after the doctor did a colonoscopy on me, but I personally was sedated for it (meaning I wasn't awake).

[Kathy Steinemann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting information, but some of what I consider a bit "off the wall".

[Kahri Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again I love the "Dummies" book. I know what that says about myself. Love the fact that it's not all Western medicine.

[Kathi Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a start at understanding IBS and actually it working on your body! Aside from one small problem, my gut is doing great!