215- Problems with Doctors That Interfere with Treatment
The placebo effect can enhance therapy, and promote a successful relationship between healer and patient. However, a treatment administered by a healer may also have a bad effect. Any treatment may have a predictable risk, but a nocebo effect denotes worsening beyond the known risk – the adverse effect of a failed therapeutic relationship. This can result in sub-optimal health care. An examination of its causes and ways to avoid it are discussed.
221- The Medical History: How to Help Your Doctor Help You
The most important interaction between patient and doctor is the medical history. Through listening to the story of the patient’s illness and asking relevant questions, a physician may often make a diagnosis, or at least begin to understand the nature and location of the complaint. A few easy steps can help make this process more efficient leading to prompt, more precise diagnosis and treatment. Revised January 2012.
231 – Can Intense Exercise Lead to GI Symptoms?
Can exercise be linked to GI symptoms such as diarrhea or heartburn? This article will help you understand how exercise and associated factors can influence the GI tract.
206 -Health Reporting in the Media: What to Believe?
Most people learn of medical progress through the media. Yet this news is often unhelpful. Exaggerated cures, contradictions, and plainly misleading information can do harm. The problem is not science, but how journalists report it, and how the public interprets it. This essay aims to help readers make sense of health news. Reviewed 2009.
Choosing Apps for Managing Chronic GI Illness

In this episode of Exploring Gut Topics, we speak with William Chey, MD, Satish Rao, MD, and Amanda Lynett, RDN, to discuss apps designed to help patients manage chronic gastrointestinal illnesses and monitor GI motility. IFFGD does not endorse any of the apps listed below; however, we want patients to know what apps are available […]
Anonymous Personal Story
Anonymous Personal Story: A Lifetime Battle with Intestinal Obstructions and Pseudo-Obstruction I was born with my problems. Doctors wanted to give me a colostomy at birth. My parents said no. I had chronic pain always. Sometimes I could eat, and sometimes I couldn’t. I never had normal bowel movements. When I was able to go, […]