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Restoring Gastrointestinal Health and Function: Part One — Causes and Symptoms

By |2023-08-21T18:19:30-04:00August 21st, 2023|Categories: Gut Health|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

Many of my patients are surprised when I recommend a gut repair and restore protocol as part of their personalized treatment plan.

“What does my gut have to do with my sinus allergies?” they ask, or “How will repairing and restoring my gut improve my mood and energy?” These are fair questions. The link between the gut and certain illnesses is counterintuitive — at least on the surface.

But that should come as no surprise. Since the earliest days of medicine, physicians have recognized the importance of gut health and function on overall health. In fact, Greek physician Hippocrates, widely considered the father of Western medicine, claimed that “all disease starts in the gut.”

Graphic for why gut health matters

In this two-part series, I explore the vital role that the gastrointestinal system (the gut) plays in overall health, symptoms that frequently accompany gastrointestinal dysfunction, and the four-step protocol I often use with patients to restore and optimize gut health and function.

How the Gut Supports Overall Health

Although I wouldn’t go so far as to say all disease starts in the gut, the gut does have a positive impact on health in many ways, including the following: Continue reading…

Five Gastroenterologists And Not One Stool Test

I recently had a patient whom spent twenty years with chronic GI complaints, visiting greater than five gastrointestinal specialists. In that span of time, not one of the GI specialists ordered a stool test. I found that surprising and too common. The patient found it frustrating!

Can you imagine having a gut issue for over twenty years and no one thought to perform a stool test?

This particular patient had already been through a series of tests including endoscopy, colonoscopy and abdominal sonogram, due to abdominal pain, reflux symptoms and inconsistent bowels ranging from hard or dry stools to watery diarrhea. To be fair, the tests she  had were able to screen for a variety of conditions including celiac, h-pylori infection, gastritis, polyps, colon cancer, and esophagitis to name a few.

However, the patient was told there was no pathology (this basically means your not dying and we can’t find what’s wrong, so you must be ok). The patient was happy to hear she had no pathologies and unhappy with the proposed solution. She was offered  prescription Bentyl and after trying it for several months was unsatisfied with the results.

In my Tampa clinic I use a few different labs to test for GI problems. One such test is the  Continue reading…