Imagine you're running for president of your high school,

and you have to get up in front of your entire student body

and give a speech.

And days before that speech, you start writing it down,

you're trying to figure out what it is.

Maybe you're like Paris from Gilmore girls and you've got to give a great big

speech to really motivate the student body.

What you notice is that weeks prior, your stomach is just not well.

Every time you eat, you feel like you're bloated, you have this urgency to run to the bathroom, you've got lots and lots of gas, or you're very, very constipated, and then it's speech day. and you've given this speech even though you haven't gone to the bathroom in days and it's finally Friday evening and things are better and that stress has now gone away and then Saturday morning suddenly you're like oh my god I've got

a run to the bathroom I've got diarrhea and this has been going on for quite some time

this has been going on for every single exam you've taken every single speech you've given, every public setting, life stressors,

emotional distress. Anytime something happens, you notice a change in your bowel habits,

and you notice that every time you change the consistency of your bowel habits and you feel better. If any of these apply to you ladies and

gentlemen you probably have irritable bowel syndrome or your patients have

irritable bowel syndrome which is a functional disorder of the GI track

characterized by chronic abdominal pain, altered bowel habits, bloating, discomfort, and gas.

Now the prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome or IBS in North America is

about 10 to 15 percent of the population. However, some would actually say that the

prevalence is as high as 25 percent in those over 50. But if you would ask a GI attending like myself, it turns

out that most of our consults that we get for in the office are for patients who have IBS. And some studies

have even shown that in the United States

IBS accounts for almost 50% of all the referrals going to GIs.

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