As the name indicates, irritable bowel syndrome is a “syndrome”, which means it is a mixture of signs and symptoms. The good news is however, there has been no definite link found between IBS and other serious illnesses such as cancer. Over time, other terminologies have also been developed for IBS, among them colitis, mucous colitis, spastic colon, or spastic bowel. However, no link has been established between IBS and inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis.

Patients who are going through the most severe symptoms of IBS have found that the quality of their life has been severely affected as well. They can have lower self esteem, and that can really affect their functioning in that way.

Irritable bowel syndrome can also be complicated by non-gastrointestinal symptoms, taking place simultaneously or accelerated due to IBS. One very common symptom is fatigue. Difficulty in sleeping is another. There are patients who do not sleep well, and if you do not sleep well, which is a time for the body to restore itself, it can lead to worse bowel symptoms the next day, and that actually has been shown in studies.

The additional aspect of irritable bowel syndrome is the fact it coexists with some other problems, where you’ve got symptoms that are outside the gastro-intestinal tract. Like fibromyalgia, which is a chronic pain condition of the muscles. Some patients develop chronic muscle pain and chronic back pain due to irritable bowel syndrome, and this condition is outside the GI tract. IBS patients can develop other conditions where they will have other symptoms, and a patient who becomes more severe, they will tend to have more of these non-gastrointestinal symptoms, either related to a diagnosable medical condition like migraine headaches or fibromyalgia.

Irritable bowel syndrome can also be highly associated with leaky gut syndrome and gut dysbiosis, in the form of small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). Other than that, IBS may also be linked to various environmental illnesses. Some other medical findings show that those diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), Gulf war syndrome (GWS), and autism mal also experience IBS. The most recent studies are now starting to identify the link between IBS and other chronic illnesses, and are looking into the possible causes for this connection.

One of the most well studied links has been involvement of SIBO in most of these illnesses, especially CFS and fibromyalgia. Just as SIBO has been found to be common in IBS patients, recent research has also found this to be the case with fibromyalgia and CFS. It was found that SIBO is common in both IBS and fibromyalgia patients.

An interesting angle found in the studies was that SIBO was more serious with fibromyalgia patients, and the gravity of the SIBO of each of the patients is in proportion to the degree of the pain felt. Based on this finding, would it be possible to make speculations that if an IBS patient experienced severe SIBO he would also be developing fibromyalgic pain? More studies would have to be done to come up with conclusive answers.

Can a change in diet help with IBS?