Healing the gut

[iLoveSugar]

For anyone that has ever dealt with longstanding gut issues and bad digestion, I am curious as what you think that most important thing that helped you was? Thyroid? Particular foods? Any particular vitamins?

 

[Dolomite]

Eating beans 5 times a day like Karen Hurd recommends. And recently I started using betaine HCl with meals which has really helped get rid of GERD and bloating.

 

[iLoveSugar]

I have colitis and beans trashed me in the past.

 

[Kyle970]

Why do you need to heal the gut, are you 100% sure there is not an issue upstream resulting in a gut issue?

I do understand- heal the gut is literally chanting in the health space. It seems i wasted many years of my life with this approach.

 

[Twohandsondeck]

Eating more muscle meat overall. I think that the amino acids are most important for rebuilding intestinal integrity.

Adding in about 200-750mcg of molybdenum glycinate helped my red meat digestion in a big way. Molybdenum is partially responsible for purine metabolism and it gets depleted with caffeine use.

Lean chicken and lean fish eaten by themselves are surely easier to digest if all else fails.

A bit of salt is probably important for the stomach acid.

Having some water on board can make a big difference in digestion. I think selenium supplementation (as from yeast or l-selenomethionine) helped my feeling of hydration and sweat-ability the most in the recent months.

Paul Chek has suggested using a tablespoon of lemon juice immediately before, during, and after (total of 3 tablespoons) meat meals as a digestive aid for his clients with weak digestive fire and slow peristalsis.
_______
Regarding personal experience with the various types of animal proteins:

I've never had a good experience with collagen or bone broth... powdered, hydrolyzed, pre-packaged, or homemade. At best it felt neutral and at worst it seemed to cause a histamine reaction or generalized inflammation of irritability, constipation, and skin breakout.

Similar experiences with all manner of whey or casein protein products.

Raw milk is a totally different food compared to pasteurized, but my digestion has improved since eliminating all dairy.

Eggs can be temporarily helpful to stop symptoms, but it's likely that they are only causing the liver, gallbladder, and small intestine to store unwanted stuff instead of getting rid of it.

 

[iLoveSugar]

Why do you need to heal the gut, are you 100% sure there is not an issue upstream resulting in a gut issue?

I do understand- heal the gut is literally chanting in the health space. It seems i wasted many years of my life with this approach.

Can you elaborate when you say upstream?

 

[Nokoni]

The evidence in support of sodium butyrate for gut health is pretty strong as you can find on pubmed, reddit, and rpf. Just getting started myself so no personal experience to share.

 

[Kyle970]

Can you elaborate when you say upstream?

How many of these things have you done:
Tudca, ox bike, milk thistle, dandalion, artichoke, chanca piedro, coffee enemas, liver flush (gentle), & much more.
Books and/or joining support groups on digestive organ function, cleansing, and some foods that help.

Ever tried just eating very minimum like peat potato soup or bone broth, for a bit etc. and just increasing easy movement.
I bet you'll have more energy.
You mention in another thread slow healing... that makes me think stagnation- over burdening the system, low chi, low cell voltage.

 

[youngsinatra]

Bean Protocol (Karen Hurd) + B vitamins are the only things that really improved my severe gut & liver/gallbladder issues.

 

[Kyle970]

Insoluble fiber (bulking agent) makes stools large. Large stools induce straining, straining causes the enlargement of internal hemorrhoids, enlarged hemorrhoids cause incomplete emptying, incomplete emptying causes impacted stools, impacted stools cause abdominal cramps.

Soluble fiber (hydrophilic mucilloid) blocks the absorption of digestive fluids. Blocked fluids, including astringent bile and omnivorous enzymes, slip down into the large intestine and wreak havoc there. To cleanse itself of irritants and impacted stools, the large intestine responds with profuse diarrhea. When the diarrhea is over, the colon's examination shows no visible damage. Back on fiber, and the cycle starts again.

Soluble and insoluble fibers are fermentable. If the bacteria level is average, soluble fiber ferments 100%, insoluble — about 50% with normal motility, and almost 100% with slow motility (a condition typical for IBS).

In the overall scheme of things, soluble fiber is by far more damaging than insoluble, except in the cases

Frequently Asked Questions About IBS

Fourteen most frequently asked questions about Irritable Bowel Syndrome

www.gutsense.org

 

[Coderr]

Bean Protocol (Karen Hurd) + B vitamins are the only things that really improved my severe gut & liver/gallbladder issues.

What is the Beam protocol like? What foods should we eat?

 

[Healthseeker]

Im having some success these day with sibo, or whatever it is. I might have developed into celiac for me. I cut all carbs except, one specific carb at a time. You cant group foods together too closely. Each food digests down differently.
Ive have surprising success with fresh corn on the cob.

 

[youngsinatra]

What You Can Eat on The Bean Diet - Guidelines​

3 to 6, 1/2 cup servings of beans or lentils per day for soluble fiber.

• Psyllium husk can be substituted for a soluble fiber serving (check the nutritional label for the exact conversion), but keep in mind that it will not provide many of the other benefits found in beans. Eating actual beans is usually preferable.
• Limit the amount of oil you cook with when you eat your beans

Three palm-sized servings of a complete, LEAN, efficient protein per day with beans.

• Low fat of the following: Meat, eggs, poultry, fish, and seafood

3 to 5, 1/2 cups of vegetables or 1-1/2 cup servings of leafy greens per day.

3/4 Gallon (96 ounces) of purified water per day, preferably warm or hot.

• Warm water is preferred to increase the metabolic rate. Water also helps with dehydration from the increased fiber.
• Varies depending on weight!

PLUS

• Sleep eight hours per night or 56 hours per week
• Stay toasty warm at all times.
• Incorporate walking, calm yoga or pilates.

What You Can’t Eat on The Bean PRotocol​

• Sugar or sweeteners in any form—granulated, honey, molasses, agave nectar, etc. If it tastes sweet, it is not allowed! ANYTHING sweeter than a carrot is not allowed - including artificial and natural-artificial sweeteners and fruits.
• Caffeine, in all forms and in any amount, is not allowed. This list still has small traces of caffeine that can stimulate the adrenals including teas, decaf coffee, cinnamon and more.
• Saturated fats. These are solid fats at room temperature. Saturated fat can be hard to 100% eliminate, but strive for lean meats and use unsaturated fats like olive oil
• Alcohol
• Gum (regular or artificially sweetened)
• Dairy, in most cases, isn't allowed.
• Processed Foods
• Fragrances of any kind.
• Soy products
• Stress - Yes, everyday stress, from everyday life events, stimulate your hormones and needs to be reduced.

PS: I don’t follow her protocol that scrictly. @Coderr
I personally don’t eat vegetables, I do eat some fruit, I drink black coffee in the morning, I enjoy a cigar here and there, I use fragrance occasionally, I am sleeping less than recommended.

 

[ddjd]

oregano oil is an absolute GAME CHANGER

 

[Aspekt]

edit: this turned into a huge wall of text it's late and i'm feeling contemplative, sorry

After all these years I would say the most important missing piece personally has not been perfecting diet or medication/supplementation but once the basics of nutrition have been figured out and major irritants avoided, there is great benefit to be had from intentional nervous system resetting practice. e.g Heart rate variability training/EMwave/gut hypnosis/trauma release exercises (TRE)/loving kindness meditation etc. I did the free trial for a gut hypnosis training app called Nerva (recorded the sessions and put them on an old ipod) and have really seen good results, much moreso than with normal meditation. It's basically a deeply guided meditative prompting to restore the flow of digestion, much more effective than it seems like it should be. It's a very soothing british female voice and is genuinely pleasant to hear - It's really suprising to me how much listening to these sessions once or twice a day for 15 mins has helped. Doing Trauma release exercises (TRE) over the last few years has been massive, I felt a tangible lowering in pain and a joyous feeling of my body being more whole than before, less at war with my own gut, from the first session I did. And lots of good old simple stuff like foam rolling and using a pso-rite, directly getting into the ab wall and relaxing the tissue, signalling safety and calm to the body even if my mind doesn't feel it yet.

I think we benefit the most when juggling the combination of reasonable diet (most importantly to avoid things that clearly mess you up but try to keep enjoyment in eating because that matters quite a bit), careful or no supplementation once you've fixed specific deficiencies, and try to cultivate a sense of moving forward in life, and ideally feeling grounded/safe periodically, and actively undertaking balancing or flow practices. That can mean that the missing key for some people might actually be something totally left of field like going for a long walks in nature or painting a picture or pursuing a passion. I know a walk won't cure a diagnosis but getting unstuck from your own bull**** is an incredible relief for the body, however temporarily. The energy flow to get into a rest and digest state is key - there may be some part of you that feels suppressed and expressing that part will help a lot too. Being sick is straight up traumatizing, and many people developed poor health in consequence of childhood trauma. Many of us were let down by people charged to keep us safe. We've been blamed for displaying symptoms in social settings and learned to suppress them and smile through painm to stay in good social graces. Those scars can heal but that first requires acknowledging that we have been hurt, not just by the illness itself but by how others have reacted to us. We have to accept that our nervous system likely needs that extra bit of care and self forgiveness to restore the full potential of digestion

There is a tendency in state of acute unwellness to have this gnawing anxious feeling that you have this problem in you, something separate that really needs to be fixed, maybe you start pacing around or you sit in a weird posture on the pc and won't move for hours like some kind of serotogenic freeze state while you obsess over why, why, searching forums and research papers for an external reason for an experience of internal disarray. There's a feeling you like you want to sit and search for the next supplement that'll fix it, the piece of knowledge that'll turn it all around. Ironically this sitting around processing, analysing, being frustrated is quite a significant factor to the overall gut situation.

The gut thrives when you're breathing well, relaxing your body, and not taking into too much content, when you're moving in life without thinking, just living. The internet really isn't great for the gut overall. This is why you must go at it head first, with practices that will bring you back to a sense of comfort with your gut and back into your body. You have to gently coax your body down into parasympathetic activity, in whatever way works best for you. For me personally its morning sunlight, walks without podcasts or music, nerva gut hypnosis twice a day for 15 mins, trauma release exercises a few times a month, not neglecting my creative instincts, and cultivating a sense of being more relaxed about food choices (this last one becomes much easier as your symptoms ease). Of course I've spent years fiddling with diet like we all have but if I eat well and also neglect the above things, my nerves start to become sensitive again and I feel the old patterns rearing up. We just can't eat and supplement our way our of nervous system imbalance and nor should we try to. I think many people here have experienced the dead end spinning your wheels feeling this can result in.

As you relax further into rest and digest/parasympathetic activation and make these restorative activities daily practice, you'll find foods that bother you don't cause the same symptoms. You'll find you feel less bloated after meals, not as tired. The pain isn't there, the aversion to eating in anticipation of something bad happening. These things can shift without your diet being radically different or figuring out exactly what's "wrong with you". the mind and the enteric nervous system as so inseperably linked, when we really respect how much our state of mind and mental diet matters to digestion, then we can really get free from old patterns. As annoying as it is to think about, the self perception that we're sick can be limiting to a state of mental wellness. This is why it's important to have time that has a different mental charge. Not, 'What happened to my gut? Why does it hurt there? What's the cause of all this? What should I have done differently? Is this my fault?' Whether these questions are valid, are they helping you or actively disturbing you, if you let them swirl around your head over and over? I've come to realise how much overthinking can really contribute to visceral hypersensitivity and all the strange gas pain/slow peristalsis. The answer isn't magically thinking positive about everything, but doing 'workouts' of peaceful good brain activity like gut hypnosis. It does your body so much good to halt the negative self talk (even just for minutes at a time) the frustration at not being as well as you'd like. One of those ironies of life that accepting negative emotions and letting them go actually releases you from their grip - and the cruel fate of the sick person is that this is difficult to overcome because your body is signalling you to feel bad. It has a similar quality to depression in that it lies to you and tells you it can't be any better. But it can.

Just as it took quite some time for our digestion to become dysfunctional, we must be patient in slowly rolling it back to normality. Recognize that you have within you most of the tools you need, patience, some discipline, self acceptance and self forgiveness, and hope, because you will feel hope if you are diligent with some kind of restorative practice as I've mentioned, it has to be earned. I know how terrible it feels when it feels like the food is your enemy, and you'd like nothing more than for your body to accept it but it feels like a battle, with pain and sensitivity all the time not just when you're eating. I've been there, at one point when I was 22 I weighed only 43kg, in hospital getting nasogastric intubated because I couldn't hold down any food and the doctors didn't know what was wrong, now I feel strong at 71kg and can eat most things without much bother. It can get better and it can get better without finding your ultimate diet, your ultimate supplement (Having said that THC/CBD/Cyproheptadine have helped me a lot on the way), or even knowing exactly what befell you to get to this point. I still don't really know what my situation is at the end of the day, as far as where one problem starts and another ends- hypothyroidism, gut dysbiosis, visceral hypersitivity, trauma, MTHFR, damage from malaria all rolled into one mess. I had to let go of knowing exactly. The true healing is within, the acceptance and self restoration as you serve yourself with your mind and activities that can cultivate that feeling of internal nervous system balance - that will be the ultimate complement to eating well and supplementing and all the rest of it. Our minds are powerful in their influence on the physical state, a cultivated relaxation of the nervous system is the finest supplement and empowers food to heal you.