Dr Emeran Mayer in the New England Journal of Medicine reported a case study of a woman with IBS who worried that she might soil her clothes when she went out, so spent a long time in the bathroom, and felt anxious and fatiqued as a result of the things she felt she needed to do to ensure her safety. Anxiety and stress can trigger bouts of IBS so working on these worries can be very beneficial.

His report shows that getting a doctor's diagnosis of IBS is very helpful to be sure that there is no underlying disease. Once you have that diagnosis, then you know that there is no physical damage.

In these circumstances, hypnosis and cognitive behavioural therapy have been shown to work, starting on the anxiety and the worries so that you start to feel that you are in control once again. If you have been avoiding going out for fears of embarrassment as a result of IBS, then cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy is well worth a try.

Tried, tested, and successful. Recommended by NICE.

IBS is the most common gastrointestinal diagnosis. The symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome are similar to those of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. A study by Dr Mark Pimentel and colleagues  set out to see whether overgrowth is associated with irritable bowel syndrome and whether treatment of overgrowth reduces patient's intestinal complaints.

They found that after treatment with antibiotics, half of IBS sufferers from both IBS and overgrowth, the IBS symptoms disappeared. The overgrowth test can be done in doctors' surgeries.