IBS is a diagnosis of exclusion. This means that a doctor rules out all other causes before deciding that IBS is the only diagnosis that fits the symptoms.

But to arrive at this conclusion, conventional medicine goes about it backward. It does all the tests — bloodwork, colonoscopy, and stool cultures — to rule out disease instead of looking at the symptoms from a prevention perspective, starting with lifestyle and diet.

Unfortunately, much time, money, and suffering is expended before a patient gets to the point where their condition is addressed in a logical way.

Although many doctors will readily diagnose you with an illness and dispense drugs, don’t automatically assume you have a disease if you are having stomach troubles.

If you have diarrhea alternating with constipation, bloating, abdominal cramps, discomfort that developed over the course of months or years, and you aren’t losing weight but feel uncomfortable, you don’t have to rush to see the gastroenterologist.

Instead, take time to look at your life. See if you can find the cause and eliminate the problem yourself.

It is your life, after all.