Resolving Common Gastrointestinal Infestations
Gastrointestinal infections are one of the leading causes of missed work and trips to the doctor but the majority of patients have overgrowths and don’t even know it. There are millions of bacteria, viruses, and parasites that are willing and ready to ruin your day. Even something as simple as an overgrowth of the wrong gut bacteria can make your stomach grumble in pain. Our integrative health center, Hoyt Integrative Health in Murrieta, will use a comprehensive gastrointestinal panel to find out what’s going on in your gut to get you back to feeling great again.
What is “functional medicine”?
A comprehensive, functional medicine treatment plan incorporates all aspects of your physical being. Functional medicine specialists will look at your whole body and how the systems feed into each other. Imbalance, injury, or infection in one part of your body can dramatically affect the functioning of the rest. It’s detailed, thorough, and likely the most personal medical evaluation you’ll ever have.
Common gastrointestinal infections
Some of the most common conditions for your digestive tract are also easily rectified through natural protocols, but only if they’re identified. Some examples of common gastrointestinal ailments include:
Candida overgrowth, which is the overdevelopment of the yeast fungus. It occurs for many reasons, usually if your immune system is suppressed, your diet is rich in carbohydrates you have been taking antibiotics, alcohol or birth control. This condition causes a range of symptoms, from fatigue to gastrointestinal distress. Unfortunately this can be contagious. Dysbiosis or bacteria overgrowth is a very common problem which can lead to inflammation and leaky gut.
H-pylori is the infection that causes ulcers. It can cause recurrent episodes of stomach pain temporarily relieved by eating, but also vomiting, heartburn, and if untreated, painful ulceration in the digestive tract.
Parasites can often come from food and cause a wide range of symptoms. If you’ve eaten sushi, drink well water, or been outside the country or been in contact with someone who has and you’re not feeling well for longer than food poisoning would affect you, it’s possible you picked up a hitchhiker.
What causes gastrointestinal problems?
Sometimes it’s as simple as an imbalanced microbiome. Too much alcohol, sugar, and refined foods can kill off good bacteria. Getting your gut microbiome back on track with prebiotics and probiotics is a great place to start, as is cutting down on processed foods. For Candida protocols, it’s often a natural
anti-fungal specific to that species and then a diet that encourages a healthy gut microbiome to make sure the overgrowth doesn’t happen again. Especially with antibiotics, it’s imperative to take prebiotics
and probiotics but that is usually enough. Other problems picked up on the test can include insufficient pancreatic enzymes, hypochlorhydria or insufficient gastric acid, elevated calprotectin or lactoferrin indicating irritable bowel disease such as Chron’s and Ulcerative colitis, also indicators of Celiacs, compromised immune defense or SIgA, abnormal Zonulin or leaky gut and inadequate estrogen processing or elevated Glucuronidase, blood or white blood cells in the stool. Patients don’t realize they have under the radar low grade but significant immune responses to otherwise healthy foods like carrots, broccoli, or spinach which requires a highly specialized comprehensive food allergy test with 4 immune markers to get to the bottom of their compromised GI tract. This panel can help crack the code on many complicated GI and autoimmune issues.
Fixing your gut with functional healing
By examining your diet, blood markers, hormones, and many other facets of your health, functional medicine can pinpoint the best course of action for gastrointestinal issues. If you live in Murrieta, Temecula, or the surrounding communities, call Hoyt Integrative Health today at (951) 973-0773 to take the first step on your road to long-term recovery.