For this session, use our article on digestive health, as well as other sources of information, to strengthen your knowledge of conditions affecting the gastrointestinal tract. This will give you more insight and information to pass on to your customers. 

You can use information sources you may have in the pharmacy, such as other articles, or OTC medicines guides and manufacturers' literature or websites. For further inspiration, visit the websites listed on the 'information sources' page.

In order to make this information useful and relevant to your work:

• What questions would you ask a 40-year-old customer who says she has intermittent diarrhoea and wants to buy loperamide? What do you need to find out before giving advice?
• Consider how you might broach your concerns with a customer who is certain that she has irritable bowel syndrome. What questions might you ask? How might you suggest that her problem may or may not be IBS? At what point might you refer her to her GP? 
• What lifestyle advice would you give to a customer expecting to suffer from reflux during the party season?
• What OTC medication is available for IBS? Refresh your knowledge of the appropriate use and recommendations for each type of medication. Discuss with your pharmacist
• What are FODMAPS and what is their relevance to IBS management?