there are many people who have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease who also have irritable bowel syndrome at the same time. And in some of those patients, when they have a flare up of their symptoms, it's because of irritable bowel syndrome and not because of the ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease.

lowering the impact of the irritable bowel syndrome

we can help those patients with these mind body methods by lowering the impact of the irritable bowel syndrome. I always remember one patient who had a well documented flare up of his ulcerative colitis. The colonoscopy showed it very clearly. He was treated as an outpatient and did not improve. He was put in the hospital. He was treated very aggressively in the hospital with medication still did not improve, and he was scheduled for surgery to have his large intestine surgically removed, which is the final stage of treatment for ulcerative colitis. That does not get better. But the diarrhea he was having was unusual. It wasn't following the pattern that we commonly or typically see with all sorts of colitis, and he was being cared for by another doctor, and the other doctor was suspicious about this. He thought, this is a little odd. Before we send him off to surgery, we should do another colonoscopy and just find out what's going on at the moment.

The colon looked perfectly fine

he did, and the colonoscopy was normal. The colon looked perfectly fine at that point because he had in fact, responded to all of the treatment he'd been receiving over the previous several months in terms of the inflammation of his colon, which is what ulcerative colitis is. But his symptoms hadn't changed much. He was still having all the symptoms and that was because he had irritable bowel syndrome at the same time. And the irritable bowel syndrome was from stress. And by diagnosing, the source of stress, which in his case was sexual abuse as a boy was able to get them connected with a psychotherapist who was skilled in that area, and that's when he finally got better.