Manchester News - 9 October 2010
Doctors have shown that hypnotherapy can cure IBS in 70 per cent of cases. More than 60 patients with irritable bowel syndrome, which can include pain, cramps, nausea, diarrhoea and constipation, are being treated by a hypnotherapist each week.
IBS affects up to 15 per cent of the population and the team at Wythenshawe Hospital now has people from across the country wanting to join the 18-month waiting list for a course of 12 hypnotherapy sessions.
Claire Brunton, 22, from Offerton, suffered cramps from IBS so badly that she stopped wanting to eat and was on the verge of anorexia. She also had panic attacks with worrying about becoming ill. But during the hypnotherapy she learnt techniques to stop the panics and cope with the pain. Now a year after finishing the treatment, she found it helped her cope with final university exams and gave her the confidence to started working as a recruitment consultant.
Claire said: "Hypnotherapy is a very strange thing to try to describe, your therapist helps you to relax slowly but you are awake and conscious throughout - it feels like the last few moments before you go to sleep when you still know what is happening around you.
"IBS was taking over my life. I had started to worry I would not be able to hold down a job and I didn't want to eat because I felt like everything I ate made me sick, so I'd tried all kinds of herbal remedies and acupuncture before the hypnotherapy."
As well as having hypnotherapy, Claire had blood tests which showed she was allergic to dairy and wheat products and she now avoids them. Pamela Cruickshanks, one of three clinical hypnotherapists at Wythenshawe, said: "We provide patients with 12 sessions of `gut-directed hypnotherapy', which teach patients to take control over their bowel.
"Due to the success of this treatment, patients are coming from all over the country to access our services, and hypnosis is now considered to be the treatment of choice for moderate to severe IBS."
Studies at Wythenshawe Hospital have shown that the quality of life for sufferers with severe forms of IBS can be worse than for those with heart disease, diabetes or renal failure.
Hypnotherapy can cure IBS in almost all cases is a fantastic result showing the power of the mind to heal the body. Hypnosis has long been a cure for IBS and it is achieving great results. At The Harley Street Hypnotherapy Clinic, we have a number of trained hypnotherapists that specialise in using hypnotherapy to cure IBS. Improve your life with IBS hypnosis at our central London clinic with sympathetic highly trained hypnotherapists at the hypnotherapy clinic on Harley Street in London.
