In 2023 I spent $2700+ on a fancy functional medicine doctor and supplements to fix my bloating and leaky gut. It was largely a great learning process with lots of frustration 😳 but in the end I did fix my gut 🤩 and here’s what I know now that I wish I’d known at the onset:
You are your own best health care practitioner. Don’t hand over your agency to a lab coat and blindly trust everything your doctor tells you. We live in the information age, and everything is on the Internet today. Your gut turns over every 6 weeks, so if you're not healing in a timely fashion, your body is communicating with you, and you don't need a doctor to tell you that you are healing or not. Lean into learning how to understand what your body is trying to tell you.
If you have leaky gut, gut dysbiosis & bloating, you most likely have Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth (SIBO) as well, and you can’t fix your gut until your SIBO is gone. I spent four months with daily - horrible - stomach cramps and diarrhea that my doctor said "was just going to run its course" before she had the idea to test me for SIBO. 🙄 Fix your SIBO first.
There are a lot of pricey gut-spore products and medications like refaximin on the market (trust me, I tried a lot of them) but the most effective treatment to kill off SIBO was a 6-week high dose of allicin, oil of oregano and berberine. Look it up. It works.
You can starve a lot of bad bacteria by adding pre- and probiotic foods that feed good gut bacteria to your diet like kimchee, sauerkraut and green bananas; and by eliminating alcohol and all processed foods, sugar, dairy and gluten from your diet. This last step is essential if you're serious about getting rid of leaky gut. The American Diet is toxic to your gut, plain and simple.
Don't underestimate the roll of estrogen in your gut imbalance. You have estrogen receptors everywhere in the human body, including in your gut. Estrogen is highly protective and anti-inflammatory. When you hit perimenopause and your estrogen levels drop, your gut becomes inflamed and the microbes are thrown into chaos. Along with the other steps listed here, HRT can help bring your gut balance back.
Save this post and if you have a doctor you trust, talk to them about adding these recommendations to your program. Or you can make your own treatment plan. After spending a ton of time and $$$ that’s what I did.
Note: I’m not a doctor but I am a highly informed individual who cares deeply about my longevity and vitality, and was passionate about making progress. Dm me if you have ?s
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