Calming Techniques for Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The stomach can have an incredible impact on quality of life. Chronic disease sufferers are in a constant battle for relief of symptoms. Living a normal life can be difficult when an unpredictable stomach is thrown into the mix.

Conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, colitis, and Crohn's disease are all common and incredibly uncomfortable conditions. Dealing with these conditions means dealing with symptoms of incontinence, abdominal cramping, nausea, diarrhea, loss of appetite, low grade fever, and numerous other symptoms.

Although there are lots of medications that can help to alleviate these symptoms, finding ways to prevent them or treat them without the use of medication is ideal. Many anti inflammatory medicines can be harsh on your stomach, so even though they provide relief in the short term, the long term effects may not be so favorable.

Maintaining a happy gut

For those of us that dislike taking medications for gastrointestinal ailments, you’re in luck. There are numerous techniques and lifestyle changes you can practice that will work in conjunction with one another to maintain a happy and healthy gut. Some of the techniques are obvious, but many of us don’t take them serious enough to change. In the US alone, almost 2 million people suffer from IBD, making it a relatively common occurrence.

Maintaining a healthy gut is done by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Healthy lifestyles include eating at regular intervals and not sporadically throughout the day. Three meals a day at roughly the same time each day, or small meals at the same time each day, will help keep your gut regular. Avoiding excess caffeine, alcohol, and other carbonated and/or fizzy drinks will also help keep you regular. Caffeine and alcohol can be tough on your stomach and the sugar in most fizzy drinks can be rough on the lining of your stomach as well. Unsweetened fizzy drinks can cause gas and other discomfort, so they should be avoided whenever possible.

In some cases, people who eat regularly and avoid the foods and drinks that cause upset stomachs still have issues with their symptoms. Some people are sensitive to a classification of foods known as FODMAP. FODMAP stands for: Fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. Most of those ingredients can be found in lactose and wheat, making it easy (relatively) to cut them out of your diet to see if there is a noticeable difference in your symptoms. Of course, speak with your doctor before trying these changes or any others.

If cutting out all of the above doesn’t work, you might try cutting out foods that create excess gas in your stomach. Foods such as onions, beans, and milk cause excess gas to build up in your stomach which can cause discomfort to some sensitive individuals. Most people are able to tolerate these foods without discomfort because they body is able to absorb and release the excess gas buildup, whereas others find the gas gets trapped and causes severe discomfort. If cutting out the gas causing food makes a difference, you might want to think about keeping them out of your diet in the future.

Read on to learn more about how to calm your stomach with IBD.