Psychosomatic

According to Wikipedia, "A psychosomatic illness is one with physical manifestations and supposed psychological cause". Not entirely accurate for IBS but certainly a good enough description to be going on with. Another way of describing it is a functional disorder/disease meaning that there is nothing physically wrong with the digestive tract of the sufferer (as far as medical science is so far capable of detecting) other than a tendancy to be more sensitive to bloating and pain in the intestines, and faster or slower or spasming muscle contractions in the intestines (peristalses) as compared with 'normal' people. Symptoms are triggered both by certain foods groups/chemicals and emotional states.

I've blogged about IBS before - wishful thinking and a bit of a moan.

On the whole my IBS is much better than it was a couple of years ago through the elimination of certain foods groups and the use of hypnotherapy techniques. But ocassionally it blind-sides me and last night was one such episode.

The mind is a powerful thing and medical science is exploring the direct link between state of mind and physical health. IBS related anxiety attacks are still a bit of a chicken and egg situation for me. I don't know whether it's the IBS that sets off the anxiety or vice versa or whether the two are just so closely linked that it doesn't really matter.

Imagine waking up feeling very anxious and panicky, you're sweaty but cold, your heart is beating fast, your mouth dry and it's uncomfortable to swallow. All this for no discernable reason.

On top of that, because I am in a heightened emotional state, I get some of my IBS syptoms which in turn increases the anxiety. It's like a feedback loop between mind and body.

I used some of my hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques but it's always harder to get them to work in the middle of an attack. This resulted in a day off work as I felt too rough to face it. Thankfully the symptoms eventually subsided and I managed to sleep for a few hours. When I got up this afternoon I decided I needed to learn more about anxiety attacks and have spent a good few hours reading. I already understood that an anxiety attack could do me no harm but it's not that great to experience. Learning more about it has been an interesting experience.

I've learnt that the odd symptoms I get during some IBS attacks (uncontrollable shivering, sweaty palms and feet) are actually symptoms of the inappropriate fight/flight adrenaline response produced during an anxiety attack.

I've found out that my body has learned to provide me with a stress response too easily, sometimes causing (as per last night) a random response when there is no obvious anxiety trigger.

So I'm going to try and change this 'programming'. I've managed to get my IBS under control in the past with hypnotherapy so I'm hoping I can apply some of those same skills to eliminating this unnecessary anxiety.