Have your bowels been irritable lately? A tale of IBS gone, or even a cure for IBS?

A cure for IBS / Irritable Bowel Syndrome?


Don’t be put off by the title, there are no graphic descriptions about recalcitrant bowels, or emergency runs to the lavatory!

This is a personal story my friend would like to share with her fellow sufferers of IBS in the hope that it will be useful to someone, and alleviate, or even cure the suffering she has experienced for many years and knows so well.

Now if you’re like my friend, afflicted with IBS, you might have travelled from doctor to doctor, to herbalist, to quack, to find a remedy for your affliction, and in the process spent the equivalent of a ticket for a suite on QE II, upper deck no less, for a round the world cruise.
Or at least, the funds, which would get you into a small Castello on the Cinque Terre coast.

Her remedy will not cost you a penny, in fact it could safe you enough dosh to buy you a ticket on Branson’s inaugural spaceflight, if and when it takes off. And then at least you won’t have to worry about butterflies……..

Now, if your condition has the same underlying cause, and or your constitution is of a similar makeup, then this might just be the answer for you, or at least some help, or then again even just worth a trial.

To establish a loose connection at least, between my friend’s and anyone else’s condition, we have to digress somewhat into a healing system which recognizes and deals with the whole body/mind/spirit continuum; Traditional Chinese Medicine.

TCM describes various ‘patterns of disharmony’ which are the underlying causes for ailments and afflictions.
In the case of this friend, lets call her Annie, her pattern appears to be a case of internal heat. And this heat is mostly in the lower Triple Energizer, the area of the digestive visceral organs, and here apparently the intestinal tract is mostly affected.

This manifests in a tongue which is slightly red, and has a yellow coating.
Other diagnostic means TCM doctors employ is the palpation of the pulse. There are a myriad of pulse types describing various patterns of disharmony and invading evils causing illness.
But this diagnostic method is obviously beyond our ability to employ, so suffice to say that if your tongue has a yellow coating this may, note the rider, may, indicate that your pattern has similarities to Annie’s.
Other influences which may play a part are the Six Pernicious Influences, also called the Six Evils: Cold, Fire/Heat, Wind, Dryness, Dampness and Summer Heat.
These can be literal or more metaphysical concepts.

As we are not giving medical advice here, this is just a little background information to give some understanding to the workings, or cause of this disability and why Annie’s remedy worked for her.

Now Annie is an avid tea drinker and her favourite drink has long been Kukicha, a tea which almost entirely is constituted of just twigs from the Camellia sinensis tea bush. Hers is the roasted variety and I must say, it is the most delicious of beverages, has an irresistible aroma and a most palatable taste to match.

This is a great drink, is healthy, contains no caffeine to speak of, aids digestion and alkalises the blood in the process.
Her only downfall to all these benefits is that she loves to imbibe her Kukicha hot, piping hot, several cups of it.
Now I can empathize with anyone having a penchant for this drink, as it is deliciously irresistible, at least to us.

Now, this got us thinking, and the course of action devised was that my friend would try and give up her piping hot cuppas and see if it makes a difference to her IBS.

Now several years later of being completely restraint and disciplined, and having gone on the wagon of (exceedingly hot) Kukicha and food, her IBS has all but packed up and scuttled off to oblivion.

Now of course the same would also apply to any piping hot beverage or food; tea, milk, coffee, porridge, even just water, if it is too hot it will introduce heat into a body susceptible to such a pernicious extraneous influence!

Of course Kukicha in itself has a mildly warming energy, and hence this should be borne in mind and taken with care by people who are afflicted with IBS and or are subject to internal heat.

The gist of her cure is that she now refrains from imbibing anything hot; drinks, food; whatever passes her lips is either cold, or at least cool enough, that for any restaurant serving such tepid tucker it would earn them an ‘Avoid at all costs’ from even the most benevolent and mild mannered of food critics.

This might sound a tad eccentric, alas, it is a very small price to pay for the freedom from such an insidious affliction, which apparently can not only prove highly embarrassing, but be exceedingly painful and debilitating!

And now her drink is mostly cold water, not cold juice, or soft drinks, just plain cold water, cheap and mostly free from your local municipal water supply.

Of course she has a water filter removing the unwanted additives of mostly fluoride and chlorine. The take on these is that they are (very) detrimental to your health, but that will be another subject to explore some other time.

Other things to strictly avoid are foods that have ‘hot energies’. Into this category fall the following foods and herbs:

Dried Ginger, fresh Ginger, Cinnamon, Lemongrass, Chilly, Nutmeg, Capsicum

It might also be helpful to avoid:

Garlic, Vinegar, Pepper, Acidic Foods and Fruits, Soybean Oil, Pepper

This might be a starting point for experimentation and hopefully a lasting cure, at least for some unfortunate sufferers of this apparently mostly intractable affliction.

We now enjoy our Kukicha cold from the fridge; as it is the “heat”, literal and of the ‘energy’ type, which is causing the bowels to display these patterns of distress and discomfort.

Any feedback and experience with this simple method, pro and con, is very welcome.

Note:
This is not medical advice and is just an account of one person’s successful method, which has cured her affliction of IBS.