The Interaction Between Agoraphobia And Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Agoraphobia is a psychological disorder capable of causing a lot of discomfort for a long time, so it is important to seek professional support in therapy as soon as the first symptoms begin to appear.
However, although this psychopathology is already harmful in itself, when it is combined with physical illnesses, the combination is even more negative: more than the sum of both alterations separately. In this case we are going to focus on the issue of the interaction between agoraphobia and irritable bowel syndrome.
Irritable bowel syndrome, also known as irritable bowel syndrome, is a chronic disorder of gastrointestinal function which generates several digestive discomforts. Among the most common physical symptoms of this medical problem are digestive spasms, abdominal pain, spontaneous diarrhea, constipation, flatulence, bloating, bloating, and nausea.
The exact cause of this syndrome is unknown, and it is most likely that there is not just one; However, several factors have been considered as possible causes or responsible for the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, among which the following should be highlighted:
On the other hand, The degree of intensity of the symptoms and the discomfort that this produces, in addition to their duration and frequency of appearance, can vary greatly.. However, in most cases it represents an alteration capable of significantly damaging the person’s quality of life while the disorder is present.
And patients with irritable bowel syndrome have a condition that makes their lives very difficult. The gastrointestinal symptoms of this syndrome are not only painful, but they are also experienced in a particularly anxious and overwhelming way.
Agoraphobia is a psychopathology that is part of anxiety disorders, and which is included within phobias. Specifically, this alteration causes people to develop a very intense and maladaptive fear of the idea of being left in a situation of extreme disability or vulnerability in a place where they will not have help nor will they be able to access the means to ask for it
In most cases, It is based on the fear of fear: the person develops strong anticipatory anxiety when anticipating that they will suffer a very pronounced peak of anxiety in a place where this could cost them dearly. That is why agoraphobia is often confused with a kind of fear of leaving the house. In reality, those who develop this disorder are not afraid of leaving their home, but rather of exposure to places where they feel they can completely lose control and be greatly harmed by the fact of not having protection.
Thus, agoraphobia creates a vicious circle: the prospect of having an anxiety problem generates anxiety. And if this anticipation of anxiety is also combined with the anticipation of the symptoms of a physical illness from which one is suffering, the problem worsens.
The link between irritable bowel syndrome and anxiety problems
Since no clear organic cause was found to explain the appearance of this disorder, many experts have tried to find it in the patient’s brain, associating it with a psychological problem such as anxiety.
Thus, the relationship between irritable bowel syndrome and anxiety disorders has been a topic of extensive research. In this sense, the link between this syndrome and anxiety is not entirely known, but it is a fact that there is a relationship, since 10 to 15% of the world population suffers from irritable colon, about 50% present psychological symptomsespecially in the form of anxiety disorders.
On the other hand, despite being a digestive condition, the severity of its symptoms and the limitation it represents can imply multiple emotional problems for patients affected by this condition, so that in those cases in which anxiety is one of the the main triggers of the syndrome, a vicious circle is generated. And if something characterizes anxiety disorders, it is their ability to feed back on the consequences generated by their symptoms (in case these are not well managed by the person).
Added to this, it should be said that the relationship between a digestive problem and anxiety disorders is understandable, since it is common for healthy individuals, without a diagnosed psychological or digestive problem, to have felt on more than one occasion how their nerves go to the area of the lower belly. For example, when we are nervous because we have to give a speech, it is common to feel digestive symptoms in the form of dry mouth, cramps or even diarrhea.
If a healthy person sees their digestive function altered while experiencing anxiety, it makes sense to think that in a person with irritable bowel the situation will be more serious.
The symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome are too physical to be attributed entirely to an anxiety problem. There must also be variables of a biological nature behind it, such as certain genetic predispositions., although of course having an altered emotional state does not help. Suffering from high levels of anxiety can affect intestinal transit and, in turn, having digestive problems such as chronic diarrhea and constipation does not help to stay calm.
It cannot be said that anxiety directly and unidirectionally causes irritable bowel syndrome (something understandable, taking into account that many diseases do not have a single cause), but it is true that this medical condition makes us anxious. This was the conclusion reached in a 2016 study carried out by the group of Koloski, Jones and Talley in which 1,900 Australians were followed, monitoring individuals with symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome and who at the beginning of the study did not have They reported suffering from psychological problems. These same individuals showed high levels of anxiety and depression a year after receiving the diagnosis.
Added to this, of all those people who had a gastrointestinal disorder at the end of the study, two thirds manifested intestinal symptoms before psychological ones. This finding suggests that It is more common for irritable bowel syndrome to cause psychological problems than the other way around.whether in the form of anxiety, stress or depression.
On the other hand, it has been shown that the intestinal microbiota influences the gut-brain axis, that is, the set of organs and networks of neurons that connect our brain with most of the digestive system. This has been seen with mice, animals in which scientists have discovered diseases linked to stress, both acute and chronic, that can alter the intestinal environment by modifying the composition of the intestinal microbiota. This altered microbiota has been associated with anxious and depressive-type behaviors in these rodents.
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