The topic of bowels and bowel control remain a taboo subject for many. From the time we become continent it becomes a largely controlled activity that many of us take for granted and do not discuss in any detail, and yet we are beginning to understand the prevalence of bowel problems. A functional bowel disorder was frst defned as a bowel problem which does not have a structural or biological cause . We would like expand upon this defnition because some of the conditions we will discuss in this book do have a structural cause, as with evacuatory dysfunction secondary to a rectocele, or incontinence secondary to a sphincter defect. We will therefore defne functional bowel disorders and bowel dysfunction as the subset of troubling symptoms, which may or may not have a structural or biological cause, but which mean the bowel, and or anorectum and/or pelvic floor do not function at an optimum.