Dr Dawn Harper is a NHS GP and has been a trailblazer in media and medicine for over 20 years. She has authored 12 books but is best known for her role as a presenter on Channel 4’s BAFTA winning Embarrassing Bodies.
We asked Dawn to share her experience of Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
I have been a GP for over three decades now and during that time I have met countless people whose lives have been ruled by Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).
Our attitude to the diagnosis and the way in which we manage the symptoms has improved dramatically during my clinical career. I am sad to say, that back in the 80s there were some doctors who queried the condition even existed!
Thankfully we have moved on a lot from then. In the 90’s, I worked with a forward-thinking gastroenterologist who ran his NHS clinic alongside a hypnotherapist with some really impressive results. I often say that medicine is as much an art as it is a science and it is the “art” which makes being a GP such a brilliant job.
IBS is such a common condition that I have, on a number of occasions, seen more than one person on the same day with the same diagnosis, possibly even the same symptoms, but had very different experiences.
For me, managing IBS is a bit like choosing a little black dress or a tailored suit. Most of us have got one in our wardrobe, but what looks a millions dollars on one person, just doesn’t cut it for the next.
Fine tuning IBS management is all about personalised care and we are lucky to have range of different treatment options today. Increasingly however, I am finding a growing interest from patients looking for more natural remedies or self-help advice for a range of long-term conditions rather than resorting to taking medication daily. And IBS is very much in that camp.
I always recommend probiotics to any of my patients with IBS and increasingly I am having discussions around silicolgel.
I first came across silicolgel when reading about a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-centre trial published in “Neurogastroenterology & Motility”. Trial participants were asked to use silicolgel or a placebo for four weeks. Over 90% reported a significant improvement in their IBS-D and IBS-M at the end of the four-week period with silicolgel compared to just 20% in the placebo group. The silicolgel group also reported that the number of days per week that loose stools were experienced fell from just under four to around half a day in the same time period.
I am always mindful the impact IBS can have on quality of life and was particularly interested to learn that the patients with the most severe symptoms before treatment with silicolgel gained the greatest benefit with IBS status improving from moderate to mild and IBS-D and IBS-M sufferers reporting a significantly improved quality of life.
Silicolgel is a colloidal oral gel containing silicon and oxygen and it works by coating the digestive tract with a protective lining and adsorbing any harmful toxins or irritants. What I, and my patients like about this, is that the gel is then excreted from the body without any absorption, so there are no side effects associated with its use.
Whilst the product has no taste, the texture may feel a bit gritty but this is due to the very particles that are there to protect the gut lining. If people find the texture unpleasant, the product can be mixed with a small amount of water and is just as effective.
If are suffering from IBS and haven’t yet found adequate symptom relief for symptoms like diarrhoea, abdominal pain and gas, silicolgel may well be a good option for you.