A few years ago, I began hearing about the importance of gut health.
But what did that mean, “gut health”?
For me it meant that if you had no heartburn, diarrhea or constipation, your gut was healthy.
But then I began learning about probiotics to support the good bacteria that is in our gut and about a fungus, Candida (which can be bad if there is an overgrowth), that lies in our gut.
Learning this information was the beginning of my journey into gut health.
At the time, I was lucky in that I had no issues with my gut (or so I thought) and no major health issues.
I had no real reason to be interested in learning more about my digestive health, except for the fact that I was just interested in achieving and maintaining optimal health.
And based on what I was starting to learn, I began taking a probiotic every day, just like a multivitamin, simply because it was “good for me”.
But as I began to delve deeper into the inner workings about the gut, I realized that I knew nothing.
This digestive system that I thought I knew and learned about in pharmacy school was far more complex than I ever realized and I needed to know more.
I began closely following and studying people like Jillian Teta, ND, Alex Vasquez D.C., N.D., D.O., F.A.C.N, Jeffrey Bland, PhD and Amy Meyers, MD.
I needed to know why functional medicine doctors always started their “treatment” by addressing gut health.
Why did they think that the root cause of so many ailments was found in the gut? I just had to know.
What I learned had the potential to be life changing.
I’m glad that I learned about leaky gut syndrome and all the issues related to poor gut health when I did.
A few years later, I began experiencing some really bad eczema. I mean REALLY bad and it didn’t go away.
It was so bad that when I finally went to a dermatologist (after suffering for over a year), she had no idea what it was or what was causing it. So, she did a skin biopsy.
Needless to say, the biopsy came back completely normal and I was given a potent steroid cream and placed on 3 different allergy medications plus 2 others in an attempt to control the itching.
The only thing that helped was to basically overdose myself on Benadryl…100mg every 2 hours….for months (this was in addition to the 5 other medications I was given). I lived my life in a stupor for about 6 months.
I have no idea how I continued to function at work or be a mom. It was probably not my finest hour.
After 2 years of on and off bouts with this uncontrolled itching, I finally went to see a functional medicine doctor who put me on a strict gluten free and dairy free diet (plus other potent supplements) for 3 months. Because she knew that my uncontrolled eczema was due to poor gut health.
And she was right. My skin finally did begin to clear up.
It’s not completely resolved (mostly because I do love brownies, cookies and pizza) but I now can provide my own testimony about the importance of gut health.
This is what I learned and now do:
- Avoid gluten…any gluten (really hard for someone who’s favorite food is pizza).
- Avoid dairy (really hard for someone who’s second favorite food is ice cream).
- Take a daily probiotic, but make sure it’s a good one with many different strains
- Take a high quality Omega-3 supplement daily. Look for about 1,000mg DHA and EPA
- Take at least 1,000mg vit C daily.
- Make sure you are having at least 1-2 bowel movements daily.
The gut really is the foundation of our health. I was surprised to learn how symptoms that appear to be completely unrelated to the gut, can actually be a results of unhealthy gut. Things like depression, brain fog, weight gain and even a weak immune system!
I challenge you to take a look at your diet and your supplements. For 3 months, follow the steps that I outlined above and let me know how your feel.