Tag Archives: fatigue

Health Takes Guts®: Your Comprehensive Guide to Eliminating Digestive Issues, Anxiety, and Fatigue

Why is the gut so important?

As promised, here is the second half of the introduction to my eBook. If you missed the first half, check it out here.

Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain (anywhere in body), skin rashes, hormone imbalances, and brain fog are symptoms. A symptom is an indication that something is going on in the body. A symptom is not the answer as to what is going on, it is a clue. Getting a prescription to dampen these symptoms doesn’t fix the reason why the symptoms are happening. That is like clearing smoke out of a burning room without putting out the fire.

Doesn’t putting out the fire sound like a better idea?

Well, that’s what this book is all about—resolving the problems at the root of your symptoms.

And what’s the root of most health problems? The gut.

Why is the gut so important?

We have an estimated 100 trillion microbes (microorganisms) living in our gut. Ideally, most of these microbes are beneficial, there is lots of diversity (different types of bacteria), and no overgrowth of pathogens (really bad bugs). These microbes are mostly bacteria, but yeast and viruses are present too. Some of these microbes have health benefits for the host (that’s you), some cause health problems, and some don’t do either. This ecosystem is called our microbiome, and when our microbiome is out of balance, problems will emerge.  Unfortunately, most of us have too many pathogens, not enough beneficial microbes, and not enough diversity.

What’s important to realize about these microbes is that they run the show. They participate in or control all of our bodily functions, including:

  • nutrient digestion and absorption
  • protecting the interior lining of the digestive tract
  • how hungry or full we feel
  • what foods we crave
  • how well we utilize calories (metabolism)
  • how we detox
  • inflammation levels
  • how much neurotransmitters (brain chemicals) we make
  • our weight
  • our mood
  • our behavior
  • our ability to fight germs
  • how well we can focus
  • how tired we are
  • how our genes are expressed

The research on how these gut microbes affect illness is overwhelming. It is hard to find a medical condition for which the microbiome is NOT the underlying issue. Below is a list to illustrate this point.

Symptoms and diseases that are caused by or linked to an imbalanced microbiome: (and this is not even a complete list)

  • Bloating
  • Distension
  • Belching
  • Gas
  • Heartburn, reflux, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
  • Diarrhea
  • Constipation
  • Pain and cramps
  • Lack of energy
  • Headaches and migraines
  • Frequent colds or illness
  • Memory problems
  • Joint pain
  • Bad breath
  • Hormone imbalances
  • Acne
  • Dizziness
  • Insomnia
  • Stuffy nose
  • Inability to lose weight
  • Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
  • Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)
  • Inflammatory bowel disease: Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis
  • Celiac disease
  • Multiple sclerosis
  • Rheumatoid arthritis
  • Lupus
  • Parkinson’s disease
  • Alzheimer’s disease
  • Arthritis
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD/ADD)
  • Autism
  • Asthma
  • Allergies
  • Tantrums in toddlers
  • Behavior problems in older kids
  • Chronic fatigue syndrome
  • Fibromyalgia
  • Eczema
  • Psoriasis
  • Cancer
  • Diabetes (both types)
  • Heart disease
  • Hypothyroid
  • Hashimoto’s disease
  • Grave’s disease
  • Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
  • Endometriosis
  • Premenstrual syndrome (PMS)
  • Overweight
  • Obesity

The influence that gut microbes have cannot be overstated. They are the root cause and solution for most health troubles. They are the answer.

Take IBS as an example. Irritable bowel syndrome affects 10-20% of the population. It is a collection of symptoms, such as diarrhea, constipation, bloating, and pain. When a patient presents these symptoms, a doctor will order conventional tests for all the diseases that might cause these symptoms. If all the tests come back negative, and therefore diseases are ruled out, the patient is diagnosed with IBS. It is a diagnosis of exclusion. It is the name for the bucket of symptoms. Often patients are told there is nothing wrong with them and are sent on their merry way. Sometimes prescriptions are given to deal with diarrhea, spasms, and motility issues, but these are merely bandages. IBS is an awful thing to live with. The hopelessness that comes with the idea that there is no treatment or cure is almost too much to bear. Well, guess what’s really going on with IBS? It is the result of gut bacteria imbalance, leaky gut, a hypersensitive gut-brain axis, and food sensitivities/intolerances. These are all things I cover in great detail in this book. If these things are addressed, IBS can be resolved! I resolve my clients’ IBS every day. There is hope!

Let’s look at another example: Celiac disease, a condition where the intestines are completely damaged from eating gluten. For this condition doctors will indeed say that food matters. They tell their patients to stop eating gluten and send them on their merry way. Now, giving up gluten is an absolutely necessary first step, but it isn’t the end of the story. We now know, due to research, that gut bacteria cause celiac in the first place, and these need to be killed and replaced with beneficial microbes. Also, the damage to the lining of the gut needs to be healed (no small feat) and nutrients need to be replenished.

My eBook is intended to give you hope and a new perspective on your health. It is full of crucial information to guide you in healing your gut, and thus healing every condition on the list above.

 

Health Takes Guts®: Your Comprehensive Guide to Eliminating Digestive Issues, Anxiety, and Fatigue

Fix the root problem or dampen symptoms?

We are approaching the one year anniversary of the release of my eBook: Health Takes Guts® Your Comprehensive Guide to Eliminating Digestive Issues, Anxiety, and Fatigue. In honor of that, I am going to publish the introduction of the eBook over two blog posts. Here is the first half of the introduction to my book. Enjoy!

So many people have unwanted unpleasant symptoms. Are you one of them? Do you want to stop feeling like crap? Of course, you do, but how? The way to do this is to fix the underlying cause of your problem. Treating symptoms while not searching for and treating the source of the problem is like using a bandage. Which makes more sense: taking a pain killer for a shard of glass in your thigh, or removing the shard of glass?

Conventional medicine is really good at some things. Personally, I can say that doctors have saved my life on more than one occasion. However, conventional medicine is not always useful for getting to the bottom of why certain illnesses are happening. Many conventional treatments are aimed at helping to ease symptoms and they fail to address the root causes.

Enter functional medicine and functional nutrition, which are focused on uncovering the underlying causes of symptoms in order to address and resolve the problem at its source.

When clients come to me, they tend to say the same types of things:

  • Their doctors don’t believe that diet matters
    • How can food, that stuff you put INTO your body all day every day, not matter? In fact, there is a ton of evidence that it does matter and can hurt or heal.
  • Their doctors don’t address their suffering because there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with them (this happens with: IBS, anxiety, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and so on) according to test results
  • Their doctors say there is no treatment for their problem, this illness is something to just live with, this isn’t something that can be fixed
  • Their doctors give them five different prescriptions—one for each symptom—with no attempt to address what is CAUSING the symptoms, and, of course, these prescriptions cause their own side effects.

Bloating, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain (anywhere in body), skin rashes, hormone imbalances, and brain fog are symptoms. A symptom is an indication that something is going on in the body. A symptom is not the answer as to what is going on, it is a clue. Getting a prescription to dampen these symptoms doesn’t fix the reason why the symptoms are happening. That is like clearing smoke out of a burning room without putting out the fire.

Doesn’t putting out the fire sound like a better idea?

Well, that’s what this book is all about—resolving the problems at the root of your symptoms.

And what’s the root of most health problems? The gut.

Stay tuned for the second half of the introduction!

“I am NOT fine!”

I hear the same story 10 times a day.

Exhausted patient walks into her doctor’s office. She says “Doctor, I don’t feel well. I am in pain. I am too tired to get through the day and enjoy my life. I am bloated, constipated, and can’t lose weight”

The doctor responds, “All your tests are normal, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“I am NOT fine! Something is definitely wrong. Please help me, I am at the end of my rope.”

“You’re fine. Goodbye.” (appointment over)

This is the general experience of so many people. Too many people-because let’s face it one person being dismissed like this is one too many. This country is full of these chronically un-well people. They aren’t sick enough to be diagnosed with a serious disease, but they are not well. (Even the ones who do have diseases get a prescription, not a resolution to their problem.) There seems to be this pattern in conventional medicine where doctors live in their bubble, prescribing what they know, for the body part they specialize in. There isn’t any investigation as to what the root cause of the problem is or what is going on in the rest of the body.

Even though I hear this story, over and over every day from my clients, it never fails to surprise me.  Luckily for my clients, they have trusted their instincts and taken matters into their own hands. They look elsewhere for help. They find me. I dig deep to find out what is causing their symptoms. I take their concerns seriously and we join together to fight the problem as a team.

If you want to learn what are the root causes of most problems and how to fix them, I have put it all in my ebook: Health Takes Guts. Your Comprehensive Guide to Eliminating Digestive Issues, Anxiety, and Fatigue.

Tired of being tired?

phonto

Feeling tired but doc says nothing is wrong? Might be adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is a diagnosis used in functional medicine.  Most conventional doctors only deal with adrenal problems if your adrenals are down to zero. But what if they are not at zero but are very depleted and you are not bouncing back? That’s a problem that deserves attention too.

Adrenal fatigue is caused by stress. Stress can be physical (infection, surgery), emotional (divorce, death), or environmental (poor diet, toxins). The adrenal glands respond to every kind of stress the same way.

Adrenal fatigue can be sudden, as in a terrible car accident or gradual, with smaller stresses that accumulate or come so close to one another that your body has no time to recover. I’m sure we can all imagine a time where a root canal, major job stress, family member major illness, and a month of binging on holiday candy and egg nog, all can happen at the same time.

Basically adrenal fatigue occurs when the amount of stress is more than the body’s adrenals can cope with.

A short (not complete) list of symptoms:
-Continuing fatigue not relieved by sleep
-Increased effort to do everyday tasks
-Craving for salty foods
-Increased time to recover from illness, injury or trauma
-Skipping a meal causes tons of problems such as worse fatigue and irritability

Conditions associated with adrenal fatigue:
-Chronic diseases
-Use of corticosteroids
-Chronic fatigue syndrome
-Fibromyalgia
-Hypoglycemia
-Respiratory infections

Eating habits are very important in treating adrenal fatigue. Some tips:
-Eat at frequent intervals. The adrenal hormone cortisol is responsible for keeping our blood sugar at normal levels. You need to eat to keep your blood sugar up because your body can’t do it on its own.
-Avoid caffeine, it depletes the adrenals too, making matters worse not better
-Eat breakfast.
-Snack between lunch and dinner and snack before bed.
-Eat good quality whole food.
-Go ahead and eat salt. You need it.

Food sensitivities also play a key role as the offending food causes histamine and other inflammatory substances to be released. It takes cortisol to reduce that inflammation.  That’s taxing on the already drained adrenals.

If you suspect you have adrenal fatigue you should get assessed by a functional doctor or nutritionist and get a personalized plan. You should also check out my eBook!