The reason you may be interested in managing your symptoms more effectively, without having to rely on your doctor’s assistance, whenever you go through another flare-up may be the fact that you are one of 20 million Americans who suffer from symptoms of indigestion, altered bowel habits or abdominal pain and discomfort and you have already seen different physicians for your problem, have tried different medications, and have explored different dietary change and despite all these efforts, you have been unable to get a real handle on your symptoms. Chances are that you have been told your symptoms are in your head, that you are not suffering from a real and serious disease like heart disease or asthma, and that you will have to learn to live with it. However, despite all these frustrations, you are probably still hoping that somebody will come up with some magic pill that will finally allow you to get rid of your symptoms once and for all.

The bad news is that it is unlikely that we will have such a magic pill available, at least not in the short term. However, many research centers have accumulated and published evidence which clearly demonstrates that patients can change the way they understand and respond to their symptoms in a way that is beneficial to their well being. A patient can acquire these skills in several different ways, including prolonged individual sessions (sometimes referred to as cognitive-behavioral therapy), or short and concentrated group sessions. In general, high quality programs are only offered at academic centers that have a research interest in optimizing these treatment programs. The UCLA Neuroenteric Disease Program has provided sessions for small groups in the form of an IBS Class with great success over the past 2 years.

You have experienced your symptoms long enough that you should be the ultimate expert on what is good and bad for you, what makes your symptoms worse and what you need to do to prevent an attack of symptoms at the wrong time. However, chances are that even though you have tried just about everything, and have experimented with changes in your diet, you have never really been able to figure out exactly what triggers the symptoms or what makes them better. Some things work some times, but not at other times. In the IBS class we teach you the most pertinent facts about your disease, including the factors that make symptoms worse, and we train you in skills required to control your symptoms. The goal is to make you the real expert on your disease, to teach you more about it than any of your previous doctors may have known about it. With the IBS class, we want to put you back into the driver’s seat, empowering you to prevent your symptoms from running your life.

How much benefit you will get out of this class will largely depend on your ability and willingness to accept a model of your disease and its treatment that is somewhat different from traditional concepts. For example, if you have an ulcer, you go to your doctor, he or she performs a test to unequivocally confirm the presence of the ulcer, gives you a pill or pills which you will have to take for a few weeks, and that will take care of the problem. Even though the symptoms from functional dyspepsia may be indistinguishable from the ulcer symptoms, the scenario from your first visit to a doctor is quite different: First, your doctor will make the diagnosis not by finding a lesion in your stomach that is responsible for your symptoms, but by ruling out that there is anything detectable. Second, your doctor will give you a medication that he or she knows is not very effective. Then, if the symptoms do not go away, it is likely that he or she will tell you that nothing is seriously wrong with you, and that you will have to live with your symptoms.

With any of the educational treatment programs for IBS or other functional gastrointestinal disorders you will have to do most of the work yourself. Even though it is likely that there will be more effective medications in the future, the most important step to getting your symptoms under control has to do with your understanding of how your digestive system and your nervous system interact, how both systems respond to stressors occurring in your environment or within your body and how you can influence these interactions by learning simple techniques that will mobilize chemicals in your body which are more powerful than any drug currently available. However, this approach will require motivation, and the willingness to practice the things we teach you on a regular basis.

The class, which is taught by Emeran Mayer, MD and Heidi Raeen, MFCC, is divided up into five consecutive 2-hour sessions. The contents of each session are a combination of theoretical information about the biological aspects of your disease and of practical information of how to implement this theoretical knowledge into your daily life.

Regarding the theoretical aspects of your disease, here are just a few topics that you will learn about:

• The biological mechanisms underlying your disease. Symptoms arise from alterations in the bidirectional interaction between the digestive and nervous systems. At the neurobiological level, most of the symptoms, including alterations in energy level and sleep are explainable as chemical imbalances within the nervous system.
• The biochemistry of the stress response and how it relates to your symptoms. The basic biochemical mechanisms within the nervous system that underlie a person’s response to stress have been well characterized. Chronic stressors, regardless if they arise from the external environment or are related to the symptoms of the disease itself, can change the basic mechanisms of the biological stress response, with the end results being depression and anxiety.
• Currently available medications, how they work and how to use them. The putative mechanisms of commonly described medications, and the evolving targets for new drug development will be discussed. How can you custom tailor your own drug combination for your particular problem?
• Everything you need to know about food and diet as it relates to your disease. Is there anything real to such popular concepts as food allergies, yeast infections, special diets? How can you develop a diet that is best for your particular problem?

Regarding the practical aspects of managing your disease, you will learn how to:

• Improve your coping skills
• Deal more effectively with stress
• Learn and practice simple techniques that will allow you to normalize the biochemical imbalances in your nervous system

The class is a unique opportunity to get first hand experience and research information hot “off the press.” The time dedicated to this effort by the instructors is considerably more than what you could ever expect in brief traditional physician visits. Should you be interested in participating, please call (310) 312-9276.