Irritable Bowel Syndrome
NATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOMOEOPATHY 2004 Mar / Apr VOL VI NO 2.
Dr Manu Kothari
Dr Lopa Mehta
The most commonly diagnosed, the least sensibly defined, and therefore, so poorly yet expensively treated GI illness is IBS, to be read as the Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It more than proves what a wag said long ago: When doctors do not know about the cause, course and cure of an illness, they end up getting high marks and money by giving the illness a high sounding name. Just as this piece is being penned, there is a box in The Times of India, Mumbai, April 16, that medical jargon is a potent source of confusion for more than 50 % of the Americans. Modern medicine has turned into a Tower of Babel with towering toys called gadgets housed in towers called 5-star-hospitals with towering fees that already have wrecked the economy of USA, UK, Canada and Australia. India is fast catching up.
The Oxford Handbook of General Practice, 2002, sums up IBS succinctly: "Relapsing and remitting condition of unknown cause. Extremely common (Lifetime prevalence > 20%, though 75% never consult a GP), Female:Male::2.5:1. Can start at any age. Diagnosis of exclusion with no confirmatory test and no cure..... (Despite all treatments). > 50% still have symptoms after 5 years."
The 1998, latest Taber’s Medical Dictionary is eloquent on treatment: "A number of medications are used in treating IBS, but evidence that any therapy is effective is lacking. Even so, an individual patient may benefit from a particular medicine because of the placebo effect.... Alternative therapy, including psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, imagery and biofeedback alone or in combination may be effective in some patients" The italicized words in the last sentence gives to the medico try out anything or everything, yet assuring the patient that "Well, nothing may work." It’s a situation of the blind leading the deaf. Homoeopathy should raise cudgels with Taber’s Dictionary for failing to mention the Hahnemannian option for IBS.
There are a number of positive features of IBS. It’s a "benign" condition that allows the patient to survive and the doctors and drug makers to thrive. The therapy, like in dermatology, is external (psychotherapy, mud baths), internal and eternal. The moment the doctor diagnoses IBS, the patient has the double satisfaction of
(a) having been able to purchase a diagnosis for whose "management"
the sky is the limit, and
(b) the feeling that the fault lies, not with the patient, but with the
irritability of the bowels. "A cause and effect link between stress and IBS
has not been proved." This magisterial assurance from Taber’s
disburdens the patient of the guilt of being stupid enough to be stressed out to
the point of expressing herself or himself ("summarization"- or is it
visceralization?) through an irresponsible lower end. IBS may well earn a place
in Guinness’ Book of World Records of mostest, highest etc as the most common
yet the most benign of human ailments.
Pardon our ignorance of Homoeopathy’s wisdom on the bane of bowels.
(Editor: We do hope that this issue will atleast convince Dr Manu Kothari and Dr
Lopa Mehta of the relative efficacy of Homoeopathy-IBS).
No allopathic text has even hinted that it is not the irritability that is the problem, but the recurrent plea that the bowels make to humankind: NOT to botch up and bacterialize all water resources, to degrade all foodstuffs with processing, preservation and suffocative packing, to foul up all air with emission from the ass of tin-toys called Mercedez and Maruti, to freeze food to death and then whip it by warming at time of serving.
The bowels make a plea to all our stars - cricketers, the Big B, and Khans of all sorts - not to promote colas whose chief role is to irritate not only the bowel but the whole GI tract. The CEO of Coca Cola reportedly declared in Hyderabad, some months ago, "Our real enemy is not Pepsi Cola, but the Indian habit of drinking water." If big business is so bloody blind, why should the big bowels lag behind in protesting loudly and irrepressibly?
The universality and the eternal incurability of IBS, cancer, coronary, arthritis, stroke is a welcome bonanza for medical establishments of all hues, machine/drug manufactured, and above all the researchers. Nobody is willing to tell them that most problems are not only beyond science but beyond technology as well, so a reprint of this article in 4004 AD will be as much relevant as it is today.
Long live IBS!
