Bloating, Brain Fog, & Burnout: What If It's Your Gut?

Many people don’t realize that frustrating symptoms like bloating, brain fog, fatigue, skin issues, and even anxiety or joint pain can actually stem from hidden gut dysfunction. In my most recent webinar, I explained how gut health impacts the entire body through the gut-brain-immune connection and why conventional approaches often miss the deeper root causes like dysbiosis, leaky gut, toxins, and chronic stress. Real-life case studies showed how targeted interventions, including diet changes and gut healing strategies, helped patients resolve seemingly unrelated symptoms and regain their vitality.

I introduced Healing Inside Out: Gut Health 101, a 9-week live program designed to help you decode your symptoms, identify food triggers using a specialized sensitivity test, and build a personalized plan for lasting gut and whole-body health.

Ready to break free from symptom chasing and finally heal your gut?

Join us starting June 6—check out all the details here.

As always, for those interested in working with Dr. McCann and her team, we welcome you to visit The Spring Center’s website here.

Check out the replay, transcript, and chat transcript below.

Transcript

Dr. Kelly McCann [00:00:04]:
Hello and welcome everyone. I’m so excited that you’re all here. It’s a different environment and what I’d love to do, love to hear from you, is to drop your name and maybe where you’re from and what you’re excited to learn in the chat. That would be super helpful. I have my assistant, Michelle also help helping out in the chat, so she’ll be able to say hi and see where you’re from as well. And then if questions come up throughout this program, please drop those in the Q and A section. I will get to them a little bit later. So I created this webinar to really dive deeper with you all from my community to talk about what I think is really foundational for anyone and everyone’s healing journey, which is your gut health, your GI health, and this goes for everyone, no matter where you are on that journey. This session can be for people who are deep into functional and integrative medicine and who’ve been working on their gut health for a long time, but they still haven’t put the pieces of the puzzle together. And this is also for newbies for people who are fresh to functional medicine but who don’t feel well. And they need more direction and more support. So there really should be something for everyone. And don’t forget to put in the chat what you want to get out of today, because I really want to make sure that I’m sharing information that would be helpful. Okay. So for those of you who are not familiar with me, My name is Dr. Kelly McCann. I’m a functional integrative medicine physician. I have a practice, a brick and mortar practice in Southern California and Costa Mesa. And in my practice, I take care of many different kinds of conditions, from allergies and mast cell activation to gut issues, hormone issues, chronic fatigue, and what I really find, and one of the reasons why I wanted to start this webinar for you is this idea that the gut is really central to our health in general. So I’m going to share a PowerPoint presentation that we’ve prepared for you. Let me pull that up. Okay, here we go. Share. Start. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about bloating, brain fog and burnout. What if it’s your gut? Okay, so today we’re going to talk about why gut dysfunction is often the hidden cause of chronic symptoms and how traditional approaches in the conventional medicine space do not help, and how to begin healing with a proven step by step framework. And I would encourage you to stay to the end because we’ll Definitely have some questions and answers and then a special invitation for you. All right, so I have a lot of things that I want to cover and I want to be sure to get to all of your questions. So stay tuned. Okay, let’s talk about symptoms. Now. What is the language that your body is trying to use and communicate to you and specifically what is going on when your gut is the loudest organ in your body? This is the easy part, right? So people know that their gut is involved when they have gas and bloating, nausea, heartburn, diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain. That’s really clear. And we know that oftentimes when our guts don’t feel well, we get fatigue. Fatigue is often a common symptom when we have gut and intestinal issues. And sometimes when we have digestive issues, we will also skin issues. So these are pretty common things that we see. Maybe some food sensitivities or intolerances, and this can lead to leaky gut. So of those of you listening, who, who doesn’t know what leaky gut is or who wants to know more, I guess would be my question. We learn, we hear this term a lot, but it’s not always really clear to people what the heck, what the heck that means like, where are the leaks? What’s leaking out? It’s a little scary when you start to think about things like that, like where, where is that going on? So the intestinal lining is a single layer of cells, and those cells are supposed to be tightly packed together like this. But when we have a variety of different things that we’ll talk about, those root causes can trigger a breakdown in the int integrity. And so then we get spaces between these cells and right immediately on the opposite side of the lumen, where the food is, you can get food particles that aren’t digested going through those larger spaces and they’re hitting the immune system, which is immediately on the other side. And so yes, when you have leaky gut, you can also have sibo. And when you have sibo, you often have leaky gut. So these tend to really align when, when there’s issues with gut dysmotility and dysbiosis and leaky gut. So I’m going to go on because we’re still talking about symptoms. All right. When you have leaky gut, that can lead to decreased nutrient absorption, which then can lead to poor memory and worsening cycle of symptoms and fatigue. Right. And I, and I suspect that most people are aware of this gut brain conn. And in fact, our gi Tract is considered the second brain. And this is for a variety of different reasons, including the fact that the nervous system, that superhighway of the vagus nerve between the brain and the GI tract is passing a ton of information back and forth. In fact, the brain, I’m sorry, the gut, gives more information to the brain than the brain actually gives to the gut. But if the gut. I’m sorry, if the brain is giving false information or is dysregulated in any way, it might send the gut information and impulses that are inaccurate. So this is where we can get some dysmotility. Maybe the migrating motor complex isn’t going to be functioning properly, and then you’re going to get set up with. With some sibo. But let me come back to our slide and some of the idea of these other symptoms. So think about your own symptoms, and you might have a long laundry list of symptoms. What I would encourage you to do is write down, maybe grab a piece of paper and write down all of those symptoms that you have, whether they’re gut related or not, or if you can draw the connections. That would be really interesting. Oh, okay. Diane, let me tell you what SIBO is. It’s actually sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Now, a little bit of background. We have lots and lots of bacteria in our large intestines or our colons. And our small intestines is where the nutrients from our food are getting broken down and absorbed across the barrier into our bodies. And what’s happening with SIBO is that we get an overabundance of bacteria in the small intestine where we’re not really supposed to have bacteria. And this can lead to a whole host of symptoms, including digestive symptoms, such as gas and bloating, Feeling bloated after you eat, you can have diarrhea, constip, all sorts of symptoms like that. We’ll talk more about that later, But I did want to clarify that nomenclature for you. Okay, so think about your symptoms. What I’d love to hear in the chat is, what are some unusual non GI symptoms that you think might be related to your gut? And then we’ll see what information you come up with, and then we’ll talk what more symptoms might be related. Yes. So itchy skin, psoriasis. So any sort of skin manifestation can be related to the gastrointestinal health. And that’s because the. The gut, starting from the mouth all the way down to the anus, is contiguous and continuous with the skin. So it’s not surprising that when there’s a problem with the GI tract, there will be a problem with the skin. Okay. Other people have put other ideas in the, in the chat, such as joint pain. Oh my goodness. It’s really interesting how when we have gastrointestinal issues, maybe we’re eating a food that doesn’t agree with us, that’s causing inflammation. We get inflammation not just in our gastrointestinal tracts, but we can get inflammation everywhere else in the body too, including our joints. We can also get sinus issues sometimes when we’re eating foods that bother us. And we’ll talk more about this. But I remember I said that the immune system is on the other side of your intestinal lining. About 70% of your immune system is in your gastrointestinal system. Where’s the other part? It is in our upper respiratory system. So mostly in our sinuses, upper respiratory, you know, like your head, your lymphatic, see tonsils and adenoids, the sinus tissue, that’s where the rest of the immune system is because our immune system is trying to identify where there are foreign invaders. So sinus issues, allergy type symptoms, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, those things can be related to your gut health. It’s kind of crazy to think about it, right? Hair loss actually is another one. If you have increased intestinal permeability, your not absorbing your nutrients, you’re not going to have the nutrients to grow your hair because the body is going to preferentially make sure that it takes care of its organs first. And as much as we love our hair, it’s not critical for function. Peripheral neuropathy, Absolutely. Remember that gut brain connection. It’s the gut is not only connected to the brain, it’s connected to our entire nervous systems. And we know that people who have diabetes or even celiac disease can get a peripheral neuropathy because of that ongoing inflammation. Focus is another one. When people have inflammation because of food choices or an imbalance in the bacteria in the gut that directly can, can send signals to the brain and cause brain inflammation. So many, many brain and psychiat psychological symptoms can be related to the gut, such as headaches and migraines, mood issues, irritability, anger, depression, anxiety. It’s really fascinating how connected our entire bodies are. Some other symptoms that can also be linked to gut issues. Muscle pain, upper respiratory symptoms, coughing, shortness of breath, palpitations. I have patients who have food sensitivities and we figure it out because their heart rate spike after they eat certain foods. So if you’re having these weird palpitations and your cardiologist can’t find any reason for them because your heart is fine. Then we might not want to look at the gut. Different eye symptoms, Eye burning, eye pain. What about burning pain with urination? Like feeling as if you have a bladder infection? That can also. I mean, it could be a bladder infection, don’t get me wrong. But it could also be that foods that you’re ear you’re eating are irritating the. The delicate tissues in the bladder. I have also seen back pain be associated with that. And then we can think about things like your bone health. Think about people who are on extended proton pump inhibitors for long periods of time. That suppresses the acid, that reduces the body’s ability to digest and absorb those nutrients. And then you can end up with things like osteoporosis and osteopenia. Hormonal regulation is also related to the gastrointestinal system. For example, the bacteria that are in the colon help metabolize some of our hormones. And if we have an imbalance in the bacteria in our gastrointestinal systems, we may have a difficult time metabolizing our hormones. And so then we end up with hormonal imbalances. So as you can see, the gut is really central to all the other systems in the body. And so we need to have an awareness that this is that. That these relationships exist. Okay, let’s see. I’m trying to. Oh, let’s go over here. Sorry about that. So why dysfunctional medicine, or why should I say, conventional medicine approaches fall short? Well, for a lot of different reasons. For those of you who have ever gone to your primary care doctor, your gastrointestinal specialist, your GI specialist, and you say, hey, I’m getting all these symptoms and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and maybe they will do an endoscopy, maybe they’ll do a colonoscopy, and then they don’t find anything. And they say, okay, well, you have irritable bowel symptoms. That’s a diagnosis that doesn’t really tell us why you have the issue that you have. So maybe you’ve tried elimination diets, maybe you’ve tried probiotics, antacids, proton pump inhibitors, and you’re still not really getting the results that you want. I really want to encourage people to think about the idea that maybe your body isn’t broken. Maybe it’s trying to communicate and we’re not really listening in a way that we can hear what the body is trying to say. I’ll come back to that. Okay. So as I’ve started to explain, there really is a symptom of. Of connection that’s a web where the gut and the brain and the immune system, thyroid, adrenals, all of your endocrine hormones and endocrine organs, they are related. And when we have imbalances in one thing, there’s a ripple effect that impacts all of the other systems in the body. And in conventional medicine, the challenge is that if you have a group of symptoms in a system of the body, say you have gut issues, you go to your gastroenterologist, and they’re really only going to look at the function of the GI tract. They’re not going to. Sometimes they don’t even talk to you about food. Right. But what if some of your symptoms are cognitive or. Or neurological or. Or psychological? Right. So you go to your psychiatrist, you go to your therapist, you go to your neurologist, and you’re talking about your symptoms, but they’re giving you pharmaceuticals, they’re making suggestions, but they’re not really seeing that whole picture, the connection to your gut. And I’ll share some case studies where this is profound, that we’re able to alter the systems and the symptoms of the body by. By addressing some root causes and healing the gut. Okay, so as I mentioned before, 70% of the immune system is in the gut. And that gut, brain axis, and vagus nerve connection is important. The microbiome is also very, very important. The microbiome is the name that we give the totality of the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites that are in the gastrointestinal system, largely in the colon. And they are not only important for our digestion and absorption of nutrients, they produce a wide variety of different molecules that are signaling molecules that. That help feed the cells of the gastrointestinal tract as well as communicate back up to the brain and the nervous system. And they impact so many different things. Okay, And I hear you, Cassandra, several dermatologists, you know, they. They might not recognize that there’s really this gut skin connection. And, you know, I encourage you to continue to search and maybe see what we have to offer later in the program that maybe there’s some better solutions for you. All right? So as I mentioned, we can get imbalances in the micro microbiome and things like sibo, that small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Sometimes we’ll get immune system dysregulation, and that can present as an autoimmune condition, that can present as seasonal allergies that can Present as a lot of skin issues. We get nervous system dysfunction that we talked about. So that confusion, brain fog and, you know, anger, depression, anxiety is a huge issue. It’s very, very common that there are gastrointestinal related issues with anxiety and that we can improve many, many systems and many symptoms in the body when we take a look at the gut and really do a deep dive. And one of the things that’s again, really important with functional medicine that’s different from conventional medicine is that there are even deeper root causes. So you’ve got your symptoms right, all the symptoms that you can list here. And then you have the things that get out of balance in the gastrointestinal tract, like an imbalance in the bacteria or an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, immune system issues where you have autoimmune or allergies. But the deeper question is of what is driving those things. And I think this is where functional medicine just shines. So, for example, did you know that pesticides and plastics can cause imbalance in the gut microbiome, even things like artificial sweeteners? So, you know, sugar got a bad rap a couple decades ago. Everybody switched to diet things. And there’s a ton of food products out there that use artificial sweeteners. Those artificial sweeteners are like poison to our poor microbiome. And then think about the level of stress that we’re all under and how those things can impact the nervous system regulation of the gastrointestinal system. When I think about the body, it’s really a marvel. Just consider the fact that when we eat food and we chew, that’s all we need to do sometimes we don’t even have to think about it. We just chew and we swallow. And then the autonomic nervous system and the body takes over and it does all the work. So we, when we start to chew, there are enzymes that get released in the mouth that start the process of breaking down the carbohydrates with different enzymes. And then the food hits the stomach. We automatically know to make our nervous systems automatically know to make acid stomach acid to continue that process. And then when the food goes into the small intestine, the body says, okay, we’re going to make, launch out these digestive enzymes, we’re going to launch out bile acid to help emulsify the fat and break down the fat. And then you don’t have to think about any of that. So amazing. I think it’s really sad that at some points we start to feel like our bodies are against us. And one of the main things that I really want to emphasize is what if we reframe that? What if we recognize that the environment in which we are has a lot of different exposures, like environmental toxins, like mold, mold toxins, different kinds of chronic infections. And that can be Lyme disease, that can be Bartonella. And these things lead to a dysregulated immune system, nervous system, and gastrointestinal system that then manifest as the symptoms that you’re experiencing. But the truth is our bodies are not against us. They are doing everything that they can to protect us by, by supporting the immune system, having an alarm system. So those symptoms, oftentimes those allergic symptoms, those skin symptoms, those are alarm, alarm bells going off and the body’s trying to say, hey, hey, pay attention, something’s wrong. You’re getting an exposure that’s causing these downstream effects that you experience as psoriasis, which is an autoimmune skin disorder or peripheral neuropathy, or even sibo. So I just put that out there. We can mull over that. Okay, I want to share a couple of case studies with you. So I had a 54 year old woman who came in to see me, and she had been on birth control pills since she was 15. Crazy, right? But she had lots of painful periods, and so somebody put her on birth control pills. She didn’t end up having any children, so she just stayed on them until she was about 51. And then finally her gynecologist said, you know, we should probably take you off those. And once she went off the birth control pills, her, her health just shattered. She had hot flashes and mood swings and bladder issues. She stopped sleeping, she had to go on sleep pills. And eventually she found somebody to put her on some hormone replacement. And it was a hormone replacement therapy called the Wiley protocol, which is a cyclic dosing. And it’s a, it’s a wonderful pro photo protocol for hormone replacement for women in the right person. So she felt a little better. Her hot flashes were gone. But then she started gaining weight and she was eating what she thought was a healthy diet. She was working out six days a week, and she couldn’t lose at that weight. And she was actually feeling kind of sluggish and still fatigued and depressed. Her joints started to hurt. She had vertigo and ringing in her ears. She had migraine headaches, and she was not happy. She did not have joy in her life. It was really pretty tough for her. And it just so happened that about eight years prior, she had a bout of Diverticulitis. Diverticulitis is an infection in the diverticula in the colon. So in colon we can develop these little out pouches because the colon wall is not as rigid as the small intestinal wall. And they can get infected. When they get infected, oftentimes people have to go on antibiotics. In fact, she was hospitalized for three to four days. She had had so many joint pain symptoms and so much back pain that some well meaning practitioner had given her pain medications but failed to tell her, hey, you know, this is going to cause constipation and so you better be careful making sure that, you know, you keep your bowels regular as possible. So she didn’t get that information. She took her pain medicines, she got constipated. She got so constipated that she ended up with a diverticular infection. Had to go on more antibiotics to try and treat that, that. So she was really in a bad place. And then finally one of her doctors said, you know, you should really like clean up your diet, stop eating nuts and seeds and that’ll help. So she did that. And she was drinking high fiber, but she was working in this really high pressure job and, and she was still feeling pretty crappy. So she came in to see me and one of the first things that we did is I actually talked to her about her diet. It, what was she eating? Was it really a healthy diet? And it turned out that, you know, she was trying, but she was working this high pressure job and she just, she wasn’t making as healthy a choice as she could have been. And so I actually encouraged her to do what’s called the Whole30 diet, where she was eating no processed foods at all. It also turned out that she had Hashimoto’s and her thyroid antibodies were very, very high. And so we tweaked her thyroid too. But putting on a no, a grain free diet, no gluten, no grains, whole 30 diet, just real food, no sugar, no alcohol, et cetera. Within a month she was like a new person. Her joint pain went away, her headaches went away, she started losing weight. All of the other weird wacky symptoms, the depression, it just, it lifted, was really, you know, kind of like a miracle. She became this, this poster person for eating what is really a healthy diet. And so many of her symptoms went away really profound. Another case presentation that I would like to share. So this young woman was in her 20s and she started having chronic respiratory issues, fatigue. She had some abdominal pain and some nausea, chronic nausea, headaches. She had been very, very athletic. You know, superstar college athlete. She played all sorts of sports. She played soccer. And two years prior she had moved into a place that she eventually figured out had mold. And while she was living there, she was getting sick every month. Bronchitis, walking pneumonia, croup, all sorts of ear infections. She was not doing well at all and had to take antibiotics with each of these infections. Infections. And then she had two instances where her, she had such bad joint inflammation and inflammation in the synovial areas. So it was considered a transient synovitis that she couldn’t pull open the refrigerator door, she couldn’t walk. She was actually bedbound for a little while because the, her hips were in such pain. She developed chest pain. She was diagnosed with cost for that chest pain and she was given all sorts of medications. She tried to go to the emergency room for help, but they just said, oh, you have a tension headache. And they weren’t really able to help her. When they finally figured out, when she finally figured out there was mold, she moved out and things definitely got better. But her gut now is really inflamed. And she again continued to see other doctors. She saw a gastroenterologist and they did a whole bunch of tests and they found that she had lots and lots of inflammation in her gastrointestinal system. And then she came to see me and I did additional testing and we found out she has profound severe celiac disease. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition where the immune system attacks the gastrointestinal tract every time it sees the grain. Gluten and, and put her on a gluten free diet again. So many things resolved for her. Her immune suppression went away. She hasn’t been sick for months now. Her headaches, her abdominal pain, not chronic nausea. She’s actually back exercising and participating in sports again. And she’s doing just phenomenally well. So really, I think it speaks to a variety of different things, these cases, that many, many symptoms can present in people who at the root have a gastrointestinal issue. And then there are even deeper roots such as mold or other things that can help get people all the way better. Because it’s not just about cutting out foods. Right. We really have to be able to heal. So yes, we cut out foods and we do a lot of other things to really help people heal. We have to fix the terrain too. We have to fix the environment of the microbiome, we have to heal the gut. We have to get rid of the bad guys and give more good guys. Right, right. Those sorts of Ideas. So when people heal, what do they look like? They get resolution of those symptoms. Their brains work, they have more energy, they have reduced reactivity, they don’t feel itchy and bloated and uncomfortable all the time. The sleep improves, the mood improves, and you start to feel like yourself again. And you start to have more hope that, that other things can get better, that you can not only break the cycle of this gastrointestinal issue or the symptoms that you’re experiencing, but you start to see that life can be even more enjoyable, even more meaningful when you have your health and when you, when you change your relationship with your gastrointestinal tract because it was trying to get your attention, they, you know, whatever your symptoms are, they are trying to get your attention and saying, hey, things aren’t okay. And what is often needed is somebody to help you interpret those symptoms and then put the pieces of the puzzle together. Okay, so what I’d like to tell you about now is I designed a program. Now obviously I have my brick and mortar practice in California and we are open for new patients and I love to take care of patients in a one on one atmosphere. We have a very supportive, nurturing environment. And I recognize that there are many people in the country, in the rest of the world who don’t have access to the level of, of functional medicine that you could get in a clinic setting. So I wanted to really be able to share this information and share these transformations with, with folks like you who may not have access to functional medicine. So I designed this program called Healing Inside out. And it’s the first iteration, this is the inaugural iteration and it’s a nine week transformational experience. What’s inside the course? I’m actually super excited about this because it’s nine weeks. We have all sorts of resources and materials downloads and there will be weekly live lectures, not in a webinar style like this, but in a lecture style, classroom style where we can actually talk and communicate and ask questions face to face, as it were. On, on Zoom, I have included a cutting edge food sensitivity test and interpretation with one of my colleagues who does the food sensitivity testing for, for our practice and our patients. When I, you know, and I’ve, I’ve done all these food sensitivity tests on myself over the years. I’ve done them on my patients and this particular test has been the most accurate test. In fact, at one point I was living in a moldy house. Some of you may have heard this story, but I was living in a moldy house and I’ve Been gluten free and dairy free for years. My mom has celiac and I had some sensitivities from previous mold exposures and all of a sudden I couldn’t eat almonds, I couldn’t have rice, I would get terribly bloated. Peas made me bloated. And then I figured out by doing my own scientific elimination diet that I had a whole list of other things too. Tomatoes, peppers, eggs, oranges, strawberries, watermelon, and I’m sorry, corn. All of these things were causing issues for me and I figured it all out. I was talking to my colleague, my friend, Dr. Ingalls, and he said, hey, we should do this test on you. I and I kid you not, his test identified every single food that I had a problem with that I knew I had a problem with. I was floored because as I said, I’ve done all these tests and none of them even came close. I remember one time I did a test and it said that I was reactive to cashews. I have been eating cashew milk yogurt for probably several years before that, and that was probably the one, one of the few things that I did eat and didn’t have a problem with. So. So we are offering this food sensitivity test as part of the course. And there are not many places that you can get this test. It’s not a blood test, it’s actually a cheek swab. So it’s super easy and very accurate. It additionally, the course will be housed on a platform where there’s a community component to it. So everyone who joins me in the course will be able to communicate with each other. My hope is that, you know, we can’t do this in isolation. It can be very isolating. When you feel you have all these symptoms, you can’t go out to eat because nobody understands and you just want to talk to somebody who gets it. And so I thought it was really important to be able to have that community aspect where you can connect with other people who are having similar experiences and share your wins and your improvements together. It’s so much more fun and uplifting to do that. Additionally, I’ve gotten into AI recently because it’s everywhere and it’s going to really impact our lives. So what we’re going to DO is offer 247 access to what’s called my Delphi clone. Delphi is a company that takes a repertoire of everything that I’ve ever done, every blog I’ve ever written, every webinar I’ve ever been on, every Summit interview I’ve ever had. And it is my brain. So it’s a digital brain of everything that I’ve ever done. And you get 24,7 access to that. It’s actually like having a conversation with me so you can ask it questions and it will spit out what I would tell you. So how amazing is that to be able to, to chat with me offline at 10:30 at night when you’re really struggling with some, some issues and you want some answers. So that is really pretty cool, I think. And then I’m also including bonuses and interviews with experts. Some of the previous summit interviews that are relevant are really pretty fascinating and are available through this course. And we’ll offer supplement discounts in the store as well. And you know, this is the inaugural program, which means that I will be really looking for feedback and looking for conversation and communication with each one of you who decides to go on this journey with me so that we can figure out what do we need next? What do you need next? How do you envision your health and how can I be supportive of you in, in achieving the goals that you want to achieve in your journey. So I think that that’s a really special thing too. And you know, we may be offering additional like add ons in terms of additional testing if that’s needed for you and what we discover when we’re working together. Okay, so here’s the course outline. Week one, really just kind of setting the stage. Let’s talk about what is your gastrointestinal system? How does it work? You know, as I said, we chew and then we forget about it. Right. So really having a much better understanding of what’s happening in your gastrointestinal system and how it’s working so hard for you. And then talking about your gut microbiome. Week two, you will hopefully have completed the food sensitivity test that we can really talk about. What do those things look like? What does an elimination diet look like? Especially when you have a test that can help you and also recognizing that food is a relationship and these aren’t rules. The goal isn’t to live on an elimination diet forever. I got all my foods back after doing the work that I needed to do in order to heal that leaky gut that we talked about so that it calmed down my immune system. In week three, we’ll talk about the microbiome, we’ll go over some of the other supplements that can be really helpful because just an elimination diet isn’t going to fix things. Right. We have to do other things. So we’ll Go through what those tools will be. Week four is probably one of my favorite weeks because we start to get to have. We start to have the conversation about what are our bodies really saying, and start to recognize and reframe this idea that your body’s against you. Right. I think when people don’t feel well, they have a sense that their will and their cognition is fighting against the body. And you know, as I’ve been saying on this webinar, that’s not really the case. Our bodies are doing everything that they can to protect us, to support us. And if we can shift the way that we think about this, perhaps we can really start to heal and come back into alignment with ourselves. Week five is an integration week. It actually will happen over July 4th weekend. So there will be homework if you want to participate in it, but no live call that week. And then week six, we go much deeper into the gut, brain connection and the nervous system, and how to really heal the nervous system. Week seven, this will be our problem solving week. When the symptoms persist. What are the other tests that you can do, what are the things that you need to think about, what is SIBO, how do you test for that, etc. And then week eight, we’ll dive a lot deeper into those root causes, things like environmental toxins, mold, chronic infections, emf, et cetera, and how those things really are the drivers of all the dysregulation that you’re experiencing. And then week nine, we put it all together and hopefully celebrate your wins and your transformation. Okay, who would benefit from this program? Well, those of you who’ve tried everything and you still feel off, those of you who are sick and tired of chasing symptoms and getting no answers and just the run around from your conventional practitioners and even your functional practitioners who may not be, have had the skills or the, the capacity to nail that, nail that down for you and people who really want science as a foundation, but are also open to some of these ideas about the connection between the mind and the body, the spirit, and how when we come into alignment with ourselves all the way down, body, heart, mind, that we really can heal, heal. And those of you who are ready to get back to your life. So it is a transformation, a real understanding of what your gut needs to heal. We will have tools to help you confidently navigate food symptoms, stress. It is my goal for you that you will have a renewed sense of trust in your body and a plan to move from, from frustration to freedom. Oops, sorry, let me go back. So think about these things. Why is now the time. What would happen in six months, a year, if you don’t join the program and you keep doing the same things that you’re doing and nothing changes? How does that feel? Project yourself into the future. What does that look like in a perfect world? What does life look like? If you achieve your goals with this program, if you are able to heal your gut issues, able to heal your skin issues, your brain issues, and you start to be able to. To have hope, have freedom, have the life that you really want and deserve. And what are you excited to accomplish by joining this program? What would you want to learn? How do you want to feel at the end? And who’s ready to say yes? So here it is, as I mentioned, there’s the learning portal. There’s all the protocols and the resources and the live calls. There’s the food sensitivity test, access to my clone, and the help and support of the other loving souls who decide to join this journey. And there will be the bonus expert interviews, which I’ve curated. I think that they’re fantastic on SIBO mass activation, gut microbiome, nervous system retraining, as well as the supplement discount, which I think is pretty valuable. You can use the QR code to. To scan, and that will take you directly to the sales page, if that’s of interest to you. The class does start on June 6th. It will actually be the same time, so we’ll have our live calls on Fridays at 11 every week with the exception of the 4th of July. So let’s get to those questions. Let’s see if I can get to those questions. All right, give me two seconds. I’m just gonna. I’m gonna stop sharing, all right? Right. Thank you so much for listening to me. Okay, I’m going to start at the beginning. Thank you so much for asking questions. We have a whole bunch. Okay, the first question is from Galia. Can too much supplemental HCL be causing throat irritation, laryngitis? She’s 77 and needs some. But yes, it absolutely can. It can be very irritating. And there are definitely ways to navigate that. You know this. Obviously I don’t know you. I’m not your position, so I’m just giving you general ideas. And then if you have further questions, you can take that to your providers. But my thought would be, yes, it can be causing that irritation, so you might want to reduce the dose. And it may be something else too, you know. So, yes, we generally think that the amount of acid production decreases over time as we age, and we need some support to help our digestion. But there’s so many other possibilities that could be leading to the symptoms that are causing. You want to take the HCL in the first place. And that’s really, you know, the, the thrust of the conversation is, is that really what’s happening? Could it be that there’s a food sensitivity or food intolerance that could be driving some of those symptoms? So, yes, decrease it or even stop it altogether, at least temporarily to see what happens, and then you can reintroduce it, maybe at a lower dose. Barbara asked about sweeteners and my thoughts on birch xylitol. I will say, Barbara, I haven’t looked specifically at Birch xylitol, but we know that xylitol is a biofilm buster. For those of you who are not familiar with biofilms, biofilms are the mucous structure and protection layer that bacteria make when they get in a group with other bacteria. And so there can be issues with overuse of oral xylitol to cause disruptions to the gut microbiome. So we just have to be cognizant of that. And then from Karen. So Karen asked a question that I actually answered, but can poor gut health exacerbate thyroid function symptoms? Absolutely. Absolutely. So that patient that I mentioned, who had Hashimoto’s and most of my patients with thyroid issues, when they eat foods, particularly if they have an autoimmune component, but even if they don’t, food matters, right? I think we’re really taught in this culture with, with conventional medicine that food doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, but it absolutely does. One of the first things I tell people with low thyroid is you need to get off gluten, you may need to get off dairy, and that can help, amongst other things. So looking at the whole picture is super important, but I would at least do those things because, yes, the answer is absolutely. Thyroid symptoms can be caused by poor gut health and then same thing, too. Think about it. We need selenium for our thyroids to function. We need iodine for our thyroids to function. And so if you’re not getting those nutrients in your diet because of a malabsorption, you’re not going to have the nutrients that you need to make thyroid hormone. The thyroid is very vulnerable to the environmental toxins. There are so many different chemicals that impact the thyroid that also impact the gastrointestinal tract. So working with a provider or considering joining our course could be be essential at not only healing your gut, but healing your thyroid. And that asked what kind of test can be done to test for the possibility of mold in the body? Sorry, it just jumped on me when people add one see mold in the body after discovering mold in the apartment. So there are tests to check for mold in the body. Usually the tests that we use are looking at the excretion of mold toxins coming out of the body as representative of what’s in the body. And it is a professional test that needs to be ordered by a ordering practitioner. There are other tests too. We can look at antibody levels against molds and antibody levels against mycotoxins. So there are a couple of different tests. Let’s see. Nora asked what test did I do for food sensitivity? So that test that I did is a test that Dr. Ingalls, my colleague, does out of his office and he has graciously offered to order the, to be the the lab for this course. So my favorite food sensitivity test is done through my colleague because as I said, none of the other tests were very accurate. And so it’s part of the program that you get that test with Dr. Ingalls. How long do you have access to these resources? Good question. So the access will be lifetime in terms of the community. Same thing as we do reiterations. We’ll be updating some of the resources. At some point we may shift people over, but because this is our inaugural program, I’m sure that there will be changes, but you’ll definitely have access to the resources, the videos and then the live calls will be all recorded. So if you happen to have to miss a week, you can always go back and watch them again. All right, the next question is, would gluten sensitivity, other food sensitivities or allergies more likely be worse as a result of certain pre existing mold exposures already in one system? And does one sensitivity allergy possibility to molds make it more likely to happen and be worse if one had pre existing food sensitivities and food allergies? Okay, I think what you’re asking is say you have a predisposition like I did, where I was gluten free and dairy free free and then I got mold exposed. Chances are the gluten free and dairy free was because of a previous mold exposure. But you know, I can’t, I can’t say that for sure. Certain. Let’s say you’ve got some pre existing food sensitivities and then you get a mold exposure. Yes. Things tend to get worse. Absolutely. And they may get worse. Not just in the gut, they may get worse. Across the board, you may end up with more neurological symptoms, more psychiatric symptoms, more cardiac symptoms, more hormonal dysregulation. So think about it as your body’s sink, right? The. Some people have huge sinks and big drains, and you can stuff in a whole lot of toxins and infections, and they just party like rock stars and they’re fine. And then there are a lot of people who have very shallow sinks and really narrow drains. And so every time we get a mold exposure, an environmental toxin exposure, they. And those things end up in the sink. And when the sink overflows, that’s when we have symptoms. So, yes, every hit, every exposure can make things worse, unless you know what to do to heal yourself. Okay, let’s see the dates and times of the live calls. Michelle, just put that in the chat. It begins Friday, June 6th. The weekly calls will be every Friday at 11:00am Pacific Time, and they’ll usually probably be about an hour and a half. If you have to miss a call, then they will certainly be available in the platform to watch at a later date and time. Yes. Okay. How long do each calls last? My hope is to have maybe half and half, so perhaps 45 minutes of lecture and lots of time for question and answers, because I know that a lot of people have questions. And then, as I said, there are resources, handouts, checklists, things like that that will enable you to progress and kind of have your homework to do, etc. I mentioned the testing for the food sensitivities. Would this be useful for current patients? Yes, I think it would be useful for current patients because it’s really offering not just testing, but a deeper dive as well as a community that can be very helpful when we see our physician. When you see me or some of my other practitioners, it’s quick. It is the fastest 30 minutes on the planet, I think, sometimes. And there’s so much information that I want to be able to share care, and it’s not always feasible. So, you know, we’re. We have a finite amount of time in those appointments in this program. It’s really designed to give you more time, more access to me. And even if you’re not talking to me directly, talking to my clone is pretty darn cool. I had some pretty neat conversations with her already, so. So that would be a way to really augment your understanding about how the gut and all of your symptoms are interconnected. And yes, the food sensitivity test doesn’t even need to be shipped. There’s a PDF that you will download that instructs you how to collect the test. It’s a cheek swab. So just make sure your mouth is clean, take some Q tips, swab your cheek, and then you mail it to Southern California. So it should be fairly straightforward. I don’t know what the shipping costs are, but you’re mailing a couple of Q tips in a plastic baggie with a piece of paper. So even if it’s coming from abroad, I don’t think it will be pricey for that person to be able to send. Send the specimen. Okay. We are not going to be offering a gut test during this program. The cost of the test for the food sensitivities is built into the program. I decided to do this fairly recently and so figuring out how to add a gut test into this program was not feasible. But that may be the next iteration and it may even be like a short add on where we don’t do a whole nine week program, but we do a very short like gut test, plus a couple of weeks to really dive deep into the results and what they mean at the back end of this program. And that’s again where the beauty of this being an inaugural program is. We get to decide together with, you know, your feedback what is it that you folks really need in order to continue on your health journey. And I want to be able to offer that to you. Okay. This person asked about taking hypochlorous, I’m sorry, hydrochloric acid supplementation and making the body lazy to create its own, and then asked about the approach of taking digestive bitters compared to HCL supplementation to raise those levels. Yeah, so this is something that we could definitely explore in the program itself. I think it’s a little bit too nuanced and detailed for the purposes of today, but just know that if people need HCL in order to digest, giving you HCL is not going to further suppress the production. We have to ask why is the production being suppressed and how do we eliminate that which may not be. You may not get the testing done to figure that out. But at least with the at the end of the program, you will know what next steps you need to take in order to figure that out. Jan says she had a GI map class where they required certain ingredient mixtures to fix the gut and you reacted badly to the mixtures and would prefer single ingredients so we can try them one at a time. There is no requirement that you purchase certain things from me. And I hear you, I take care of many, many highly sensitive patients. And one, I don’t Think that the technology for the GI map test is accurate? One, that’s one thing. And two, there’s no requirements for purchasing. We’ll go through supplements and I, I will offer supplements for sale and there’s a as a discount code to be used in the store should you want to, but there’s no requirement. Another question about urine testing for mycotoxins. And again, this one is a very intricate question about detecting black mold and other bad actors in the body. Where are they typically stored, how deeply are they stored? And would certain supplements accompanying infrared sauna be necessary to yank those so just very quickly? Mycotoxins are so small that they can get into the cells. Taking binder alone doesn’t do the trick because the binders are in the GI tract, they can’t get into the body, let alone into the cells. And so I have a much more comprehensive mold protocol that includes things like phosphatidylcholine and glutathione that actually get the mycotoxins from the cell to the liver gallbladder and being excreted out into the bile or to the kidneys or can be excreted via sauna. Again, my clone. It’s a good question. We haven’t worked out all those details yet. I would assume that the clone would be available for a certain duration of time. That might not be an indefinite period of time, but probably at least a month or two after the end of of the course so that you could finish the modules and make sure that you get the full value of the course will definitely leave the community intact and definitely leave all the videos and the resources intact. And then the next participant asked going gluten free and dairy free is recommended for many conditions. If the food sensitivity test I am recommending doesn’t show a problem with gluten or dairy, do I still have people with certain conditions eliminate them for a period of time? Time? If so, what types of conditions? And this would be exactly what we would talk about in the course. So even though I’m not your physician and we are not establishing a patient physician relationship, you could ask these kinds of questions and get your answers and enough information to be able to make those choices for yourself at that time. I will say that most people on this test do end up having gluten and dairy intolerances or reactions, so they do end up avoiding it. A test for leaky gut that won’t be included in this program, but there are a couple tests. There’s a blood test that’s looking at Something called lps. So lipopolysaccharides, which are, are on the cell membrane of bacteria, the pathogenic bacteria that are in the gastrointestinal system. And if you’re making an immune antibody to LPS proteins, you have leaky gut. Cyrex has a test like that. There’s a company called Precision Diagnostics that has a test like that. And so you can figure out if you have leaky gut. But honestly, if you have food sensitivities and you have symptoms, you have leaky gut, it’s not that hard. Somebody asked if I could compare the meteor release test to the food sensitivity test that Dr. Ingalls will be providing. I don’t remember the exact technology for the immediate. The mediator release test. I think it has to do with lymphocyte reactivity. This is a different technology. He has a computer system that runs the specimen and I would say it’s more frequency based than lymphocyte based. And it is his own. It is his own proprietary test. And may someone not on this webinar participate in the program? Absolutely, yes. As Michelle said, this program is open to everyone. We’re doing two more webinars on slightly different topics. If you want to share the information with your friend, you don’t have to sit through the webinar if you don’t want to. If you already know that this program is for you, you can just share the link with them and they can sign up if, if they want to participate. If you want to participate in the next webinars, Michelle will put the information. It will be Wednesday the 21st at 5pm Pacific Time. And so they can learn more at that point. You can learn more at that point. And then let’s see. Frankie asked, is the cheek swab a genetic test? Absolutely not. There’s no genes that are being assessed. It is just providing a saliva sample. We could run the, we could run the test on urine. That’s just a lot more complicated than running the test on a cheek swab. So there’s no genetics involved whatsoever. It’s just looking at food reactivity. So don’t worry there. And the Q tips get thrown out in an appropriate manner and everything like that. So there’s no concern there. And let’s see how many items are on the food sensitivity test. I would say I think it’s at least 100, maybe 120. I’ll have to count. And we could provide a sample report. It’s a very straightforward report. It says the food and Whether it’s positive or negative. So there’s no grade. There’s no like one star, two star, three stars. It’s very simple to read. If it’s positive, most likely you have a problem. If it’s negative, most likely you don’t have a problem. Now, as you know, no test is perfect, but typically what we’re, what we’re, we’d be doing is then looking at those results and saying, okay, for you, based on your test results, these are the things that you’re going to eliminate in your elimination diet. And then we kind of go through that and the test does look at some other kinds of grains. I don’t think it looks at tiger nuts or buckwheat or cassava, although those are very good questions. And I can certainly chat with Dr. Ingalls and we have the capacity to potentially add some things. So that’s a good thought. And then did he develop the food sensitivity test that’s being offered? No, he did not develop it. It was developed by another practitioner and he may be joining us at one of those weeks. And so he can speak to more of the specifics of the test if that’s really of interest to you. So I’ve come to the end of the questions and Michelle has told you in the the chat what the next two webinars are. And so we’ll talk a little bit more about the gut talking and hidden fruit, hidden root causes of gut dysfunction. And we will definitely be talking more about the gut brain access and how that’s all related. So that will be part of the program. And I’ll just bring this up here and share this. Try and share this. Okay, so there is the QR code to scan in and that takes you to the landing page if you are ready to take advantage of this really amazing offer and amazing transformation. I mean, I think it’s really about you and empowering you and learning what it is that you need to do for yourself so that you can take charge of your health and implement the things in a way that is sustainable. You know that patient that I mentioned who did the whole 30, she has been able to maintain that because of all the other support that she has in the clinic. And it’s my intention to be able to offer that same level of support for you through the program with your fellow classmates who are going through the program together so that you can implement these changes that are sustainable for you and really heal your gut cut and heal yourself from the inside out. So thank you very much for spending your time with me again. We’ll do another webinar in a couple of weeks. If any of your friends or family members are interested, they can join the webinar. They can join the program. I think it’s going to be a rocking good time and I hope to see you there. Have a wonderful day and a wonderful weekend, and we’ll see you soon. Thanks so much, everyone.

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