• Self-hypnosis program for IBS sufferers.
• 100 day program includes four CDs and a program booklet.
• Listeners see an average 85% reduction of pain and bowel dysfunction.
• Addresses all IBS symptoms: diarrhea, constipation, pain, gas, bloating, nausea, and urgency.
• The program is the result of years of over 10 years of clinical research and experience by Michael Mahoney, the UK's leading specialist in gut-specific hypnotherapy for IBS.
• Extremely effective for reducing the anxiety and stress component of IBS.

The IBS Audio Program 100™, for irritable bowel syndrome self-hypnosis, is the result of years of over 10 years of clinical research and experience by Michael Mahoney, the UK's leading specialist in gut-specific hypnotherapy for IBS.

The 100 day program consists of three therapeutic session CDs, with an introduction and five different hypnotherapy sessions, each building on the preceding one into a comprehensive course of treatment. Sessions vary in duration but average 25-35 minutes.

The program also includes a bonus fourth CD (the IBS Companion), which explains IBS to other people in the patient's life. A program booklet provides a symptom checklist, progress log, listening schedule, and essential information for IBS sufferers.

This program effectively converts one-to-one sessions that are used in the clinical environment into a unique home-based, easy to follow program for the IBS sufferer. Mahoney is regularly referred patients by gastroenterologists and family care physicians. He is an associate member of the Primary Care Society for Gastroenterology, a worldwide organization.

After seeing thousands of IBS patients with every combination of symptoms and duration, who were referred through word of mouth or by medical professionals, the hypnotherapy sessions used in Michael's clinical setting were fine-tuned and recorded for patients either too far away or too incapacitated to attend therapy sessions in person. To test the efficacy and effectiveness of the program, patients were asked to participate in private clinical research trials. These patients were contacted for three follow-up periods of assessment, with the last being three years following completion of the program.

Results exceeded previous research findings and showed an average 85% reduction of pain and bowel dysfunction symptoms such as diarrhea, constipation, pain, gas, bloating, and nausea. There are no negative side effects, risks, or dangers from the IBS Audio Program.

Indications

Constipation, diarrhea, alternating constipation and diarrhea, IBS, abdominal spasms, abdominal cramps, abdominal pain, bloating, gas, anxiety, insomnia, urgency.

Directions

Choose a consistent time and a quiet place to listen to the program daily. Falling asleep during use will NOT prevent successful results. Just relax and listen - that's it!

Recommendations

The tale of...Marilyn

IBS really ruined my whole life, and just like everyone here, I felt torn between being grateful I didn't have something "serious" and guilty for feeling like I was dying anyway. People treat you differently when they know that IBS is something that isn't "serious" as in life-threatening, but as my gastroenterologist told me that he could treat the pain of his colon cancer patients better than the IBS patients.

So we have to endure serious and life-altering pain, without the empathy we would have if what we have was terminal. Sort of ironic in a way...how many times have we all heard, "well, at least it's not serious and you don't die from it!" You feel badly for those who do die from diseases, but yet from all the pain and embarrassment you wish you could die...such a dichotomy. That's how I felt anyway...

Well, I was officially diagnosed in 1988, after about five years of not knowing why I was having increasing severe diarrhea and abdominal pain. With the birth of my daughter that same year, I thought I better get tested, that maybe I did have some digestive disease, but several colonoscopies later, it was confirmed as IBS. Trips to the Mayo Clinic and two other gastros further confirmed that every single prescription and OTC medication had little or no effect, and only short-term, if any.

My gastro finally told me that he had exhausted his treatment options, and to go look up other treatments on the internet. In my search, through the IBS Group Bulletin Board, and my friend there, I found out about the use of clinical hypnotherapy for IBS, which worked for him, but in my opinion, I thought was pretty far-fetched and seemed to be absurd to me.

But I was desperate and he told me to try it, so I did as a last resort in the summer of 2000. This was the IBS Audio Program 100, which is a set of CDs with a specific schedule of several sessions that you listen to. That was over three years ago, and now I can actually leave the house, whereas before, I raised my children "through the bathroom door!" I had attacks of diarrhea and pain lasting for hours on end, sometimes six hours a day, almost every day, never knowing when...even if I ate small amounts, the attacks would come out of the blue.

My IBS cost me a whole lost life...events and special celebrations for my kids, just taking them to routine doctor and dentist appointments was an ordeal, and my marriage suffered and collapsed in part because of it. I went from being able to travel and talk professionally in front of large groups of people, to being just about housebound.

This program saved my life. I now have a life! That's what worked for me and I hope this helps someone too. Thanks for letting me share! :)
 

The tale of...Shawn Eric

I was just thinking of expressing some of my thoughts on IBS and having it for 30 years. I have pain-predominant IBS and alternating constipation and diarrhea. Although I can say had and really mean it, as I am doing so much better at about 85% and I believe still improving thanks to the IBS self-help group and Michael Mahoney's hypnotherapy tapes (the IBS Audio Program 100).

I believe my IBS started from a trip to Mexico where I swallowed a small amount of chlorinated water out of a swimming pool and a half hour later, I was very sick with amoebic dysentery and spent the next month seriously close to death. No joke. They also pumped tons of penicillin into me at this time.

However, amoebic dysentery is known to cause inflammation in the digestive tract. I recovered from that and I don't remember when or how soon I came back from Mexico. I was suffering from severe abdominal pain and alternating constipation and diarrhea. It wasn't too long before they started the first tests on me and that testing would continue on and off for a big part of my life and cost thousands of dollars.

The first tests were stool samples and upper GI tests, all negative. The next test was a lower gi, also negative. Blood tests and all the regular tests from a normal MD. I was ten. In those days no one had a clue about IBS and they called it spastic colon or nervous stomach. I missed a lot of school and was always trying to catch up in my school work.

Since the good doctors couldn't figure it out, I was sent for therapy and put on librium and told it was psychosomatic. I struggled for years through school, some working and trying to explain to friends why I was in pain a lot and could not do things. Dating was a problem. They thought I had a stomach ache and it would go away and I should just quit being a big baby. Funny because my boss said that to me also, ten years later as well as a lot of coworkers.

More testing. Basically the same kinds of tests over again. When you're in your teens and you're seeing some upstate NY MD in a small town in those days testing didn't amount to much. Still no advice from anyone on what to do. My parents were very supportive and my mom is a nurse, which was very helpful and supportive.

However, sometimes my mom's own concern bothered me as she could not help and I could see that in her eyes while I lay there in complete agony from the knife jabbing sharp pains coming from my gut. When I got these pains I would hyperventilate and all kinds of thoughts raced through my head. For me this was already establishing itself into my thought patterns on a day-to-day basis and I didn't really know much about living any other way as I hit my late teens.

I was having episodes at least two to four times a week. Although I would have some remissions they always came back and for a while my IBS went cyclic and bothered me most in the winter months, but in the summer improved somewhat. But it came back.

Meanwhile, I continued to try to figure some of it out for myself, in ways I could manage it or do things to reduce it. Late teens to late twenties. More tests. "Maybe an ulcer, but we don't see it." New drugs, and from there librax, donnatol, prescription tagament, and a few others I don't even remember, but prozac was one as well. No noticeable long term improvement. Mid thirties.

I got serious and went to the best GI doc in town and told him to test away on everything we could think of that might be applicable. Also worried it could be something else still, although nothing showed up before he tested me and after he tested me. More drugs. Bentyl and valium. Sent to therapy told to relieve stress. I knew this wasn't the cause and thought because the pain was so severe that something had to be wrong in there, it just couldn't be possible to have this much pain and not have something physically that they could see wrong.

I just didn't get it. I did know stress aggravated it but not to the extent I do now or the kinds of stress either environmental, physical, or psychological and at the time I did not know how to reduce it enough with the management techniques I was using and I used a lot of them. I tried all the food aspects and nothing other then some common sense on most things. Although it made sense what was going in had something to do with it, but in reality looking back now, it was common sense issues of eating too much too fast, fat, spices etc etc...

There were some weird signals before an attack. My skin would turn whiter, my eyes would twitch and my hands would sweat. Sometimes I would get dizzy. My therapist had migraines and knew nothing about IBS, other then realizing some of the symptoms sounded somewhat like some symptoms she would get with her migraines and that it was not in my head (psychosomatic or crazy) and I should go back to the doctor. It wasn't helping me to see her so I agreed.

Although she didn't explain serotonin to me, nor did my doctor take the time to either. I feel if someone would have explained some of the mind-gut connections earlier I could have saved a lot of time and effort. I know some are relatively new, but I think they had some idea and either it was too complicated to explain to me or they just didn't have the time.

I think at this point one of the best things a doctor can do is explain some of this to new patients. I didn't have any other issues I was healthy otherwise and was playing soccer for twenty years and going professional until I blew my kneecap out.

I believe I personally have a classic case of IBS. For me I believe it is faulty neurotransmitters that are not talking right between my brain and my gut. Just some thoughts and thank god for hypnotherapy, which I want to add some of my thoughts on as a side note.

I am drug free and very happy with the results. I want to say something about hypnotherapy in general and what I believe and have seen for myself and these are my own personal comments from my experiences with it. Although, many others feel the same way now. It is the deepest from of relaxation I personally have ever found.

It has tremendously reduced the pain for me from severe to very mild. I think this has worked two ways. It has steered my thoughts and attention away from the pain when I want and I also believe the relaxation aspect of it is releasing endorphins to my gut. This has been a big achievement and will save me trips to the ER.

When I wake up in the morning I no longer have IBS on my mind first thing. I no longer dwell on it. I don't worry to much about going out or bathrooms any more. I know longer turn white or have my hands sweat. I can relax my gut at will. My whole body is more relaxed in general and I didn't realize how tense it was before.

I breathe better and more deeply, which I have found useful if I feel any twinges of a potential problem. I sleep better and more deeply. Day-to-day problems don't bother me like they used to. I can eat things I couldn't before. I feel like I have been rewired so to speak. My bowel movements have improved substantially. There are symptoms I don't even remember and that is unbelievable.

Anyway just some thoughts of an IBSer pondering. I don't know if this helps anyone and I also don't want to say hypnosis is a cure or the only thing people should be doing to manage IBS, but it is one majorly effective tool that isn't understood by a lot of people or used enough by doctors in the IBS world and why I sound like a broken record sometimes.

However, I hope no one gets tired of hearing about something that really works for the majority of people with IBS as there are just too few of the things that do.