When we hear this question, many of us turn a deaf ear and don’t respond in fear of what we may be volunteering for. Fortunately, there are many of you who “heard our calling” and volunteered to participate in one or more of our research trials. We wanted to know just what interested you in volunteering so we asked, and these are some of your responses.

“I have gone from doctor to doctor and no one can offer me any treatment...they tell me to take a vacation or to decrease the amount of stress in my life!”

Currently, there are no drugs indicated for the treatment of IBS, NUD or fibromyalgia. Medications that are currently used for these conditions provide minimal relief of symptoms and have side effects such as fatigue and or dry mouth. Understanding the physiology behind these conditions provides us with important information and leads toward working with compounds toward improved symptom management. Our clinical drug trials use compounds that are aimed at this increased understanding.

“I feel like the staff is looking out for my safety and best interest.”

Long before we ask you to participate in a research program, there are many months of preparation. Aside from the actual writing and design of the trial, there is a committee called the IRB or HIRC that reviews the protocol for its safety and ethicality. This mandatory process alone can take one to two months.

“I felt like someone was considering me and my physical and emotional needs rather than treating me like my problem is all in my head.”

We choose a study that meets your personal needs. To do this, we consider such things as your age, gender, symptoms, other medical conditions and medications.

“I feel comfortable talking about personal and sometime embarrassing issues with the staff.”

It is imperative that you share all of your medical history and symptomology with us. This ensures safety for you as well as providing essential information when evaluating study results. All the information you share with us is 100% confidential. Volunteers are never identified by name, social security number, date of birth or any other identifying factor when analyzing data, reporting results to a sponsor or in an article.

“I have no health insurance. Participating in a clinical trial not only provides me with a physical exam and lab work...I also got paid!”

It is not necessary to have medical insurance to participate in our program. If you do, we would never charge your insurance. All of our programs require that you have a limited physical exam with our Nurse Practitioner or one of our physicians. We do not serve as your primary care physician and should not take his or her place, but for those of you who do not have insurance, we are happy to provide this service. Some of the programs require lab work and others require examination of the GI tract by endoscopy. The results of the tests are available to you for your personal medical record.

“I want to participate even if it doesn’t benefit me immediately...I would do anything to help have a better understanding of my condition and work toward better management of my symptoms.”

Your altruism is to be admired and if it were not for the hundreds of people like you that do volunteer, our program would not exist. We want you to know how much we appreciate your time and any inconvenience you may experience. Together, we hope to find answers and possibly new questions that will lead to a greater understanding and management of functional bowel disease and improve the qualify of life for you and the hundreds of thousands that experience similar symptoms. A sincere thank you....our hats off to you.