Let’s talk about leaky gut

[Harriet Vane]

There is a big debate out there about leaky gut. What it is, whether or not it is really, truly a valid condition, what to do about it.

I’m interested to hear all thoughts, positive or negative.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Harriet Vane
Capitalization typo; privacy

[PeterPan]

I did nutrition for years to heal it, and it worked, sure. Then I got a box of Florastor and realized you could do the same thing with a pill, lol. Look it up. It does something to reverse the mucus problems and heal the gut. I had some of my chemical sensitivities return after some rounds of antibiotics, did the Florastor, and boom gone. 

The things we did that helped my leaky gut and MCS? Food combining to ease digestion, plenty of fruits and veges (not just veges, FRUIT, lots of fruit), and cayenne to irritate the gut and stimulate it to heal. It took several years of that. About 14 months in I got big changes, but it took a fair number of years.

[amyx4]

What kinds of tests and what kind of doctor order those tests?

I recently switched to an OBGYN that mentioned it offhandedly. He suggested a naturopath but the naturopath is quit a distance from me.

[gardenmom5]

55 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

I did nutrition for years to heal it, and it worked, sure. Then I got a box of Florastor and realized you could do the same thing with a pill, lol. Look it up. It does something to reverse the mucus problems and heal the gut. I had some of my chemical sensitivities return after some rounds of antibiotics, did the Florastor, and boom gone. 

The things we did that helped my leaky gut and MCS? Food combining to ease digestion, plenty of fruits and veges (not just veges, FRUIT, lots of fruit), and cayenne to irritate the gut and stimulate it to heal. It took several years of that. About 14 months in I got big changes, but it took a fair number of years.

that's Saccharomyces Boulardii .

I was given that when I was in the hospital on burn your insides IV antibiotics.  Good stuff.

[KeriJ]

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

I did nutrition for years to heal it, and it worked, sure. Then I got a box of Florastor and realized you could do the same thing with a pill, lol. Look it up. It does something to reverse the mucus problems and heal the gut. I had some of my chemical sensitivities return after some rounds of antibiotics, did the Florastor, and boom gone. 

The things we did that helped my leaky gut and MCS? Food combining to ease digestion, plenty of fruits and veges (not just veges, FRUIT, lots of fruit), and cayenne to irritate the gut and stimulate it to heal. It took several years of that. About 14 months in I got big changes, but it took a fair number of years.

How long did you take the Florastor? 

[PeterPan]

48 minutes ago, KeriJ said:

How long did you take the Florastor? 

I don't recall. It wasn't years and it wasn't days. I had a period of time (1-2 years) where I had recurrent pneumonia and bronchitis because of asthma and stress. I had healed the MCS prior with food, but with all that antibiotic use the chemical sensitivities were starting to return. (chlorine at the Y, etc.) I took the Florastor and it tamped it down and got me back on track. 

I've eaten according to the rules of food combining for about 20 years now, and it was a huge part in keeping my gut moving so that it could heal. I also don't eat beef and I do limited white flour. Actually, Harriet Vane has eaten at my house (a long time ago, wow!) and I think my normal lunches are even gluten free by some people's standards. 

So that to me is the tricky part about nutrition, that someone can be so close, eating good things, not eating good things, and to me the question is *why is it not happening* kwim? HV has already done a lot of stuff to help herself, so I was looking for what's left. To me, the Florastor is a jump start, a can't hurt, easily accessible kind of thing. I suppose if you react to one of the fillers or something (I don't) that would be a problem. It's non colonizing, so it's not a permanent solution. It's something to try while you get other things turned around. But for me, the long term heal was food combining, limiting digestive strain (red meat, cheese), and occasional small amounts of provocation with cayenne, garlic (raw), etc. So like I just ate my tofu, fine. But when I was working on my gut, I would sprinkle it liberally with cayenne and let the ketchup cover it up, hehe. And I'd be doing that every day in some fashion, about ½ tsp. There's plenty of data on the healing properties of capsaicin. But if you did that without the other changes (improving gut clearance), I don't know. 

It's just a really good question why it's not healing when she's already made a lot of changes to help herself over the years.

[Katy]

I took 4 rounds of Elixa probiotics with a bit of potato starch in yogurt every morning and it healed my food allergies and changed my relationship with food dramatically.

[PeterPan]

35 minutes ago, Katy said:

I took 4 rounds of Elixa probiotics with a bit of potato starch in yogurt every morning and it healed my food allergies and changed my relationship with food dramatically.

Wasn't there a thread on this a while back? Or maybe I saw your mention in this thread? I remember thinking it was kind of interesting. I definitely think it's down the right train. It's so easy now for them to have evidence of which strains do it. I had increasing food allergies and the beginning of anaphylactic reactions back when I started with the nutritionist. And the food reactions just poof, disappeared. 

It's kind of intriguing to think about what else might improve doing a round. These days I just rotate my yogurts and call it good.

  

[kbutton]

I haven't tried to research if it is real, but I changed to an s. boulardii probiotic (Thorne) a few months ago because I heard that it can help lower histamine. I do seem to be able to eat some foods that I couldn't before. Aside from that, my gut behaves almost normally for the first time in many years. I convinced my parents to give it a try (variety of GI issues), and they are converts and evangelists now, lol! 

So, three more votes for this probiotic strain.

[Harriet Vane]

Deleted for privacy

Thanks for offering your experiences--I appreciate it.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Harriet Vane

[kbutton]

I think a restrictive diet with supports is a great place to start if the goal is to go back to as close to a "normal" diet as possible. I have a lot of food intolerances, but I don't test as allergic to anything. I see an allergist who branches out into lots of different things (MCAS, dysautonomias, etc.), and his goal is to get me eating a bigger variety over time. I am not seeing him right now due to COVID since the last recommendation was to get some rule-in/rule-out testing after bloodwork didn't turn anything up, and the testing was cancelled. I have not rescheduled since some of it is likely to still be risky or else just not worth the risk to me. He has me on a lot of antihistamines and whatever I tolerate as far as diet. He did have a low histamine list that he recommended--they run the gamut, and it was nice to have some generalities that he felt was worth trying to attain vs. some random low-histamine stuff on the internet. 

I did have a big improvement in symptoms during COVID, partly from the new probiotic, but I think partly from a lot less stress in some ways. Obviously 2020 has its stressors, but I find running around to tutors, band, etc. with the kids to be really stressful, and we're not doing that. It's almost all Zoom or just not something we are doing. Before that, we'd had no break from a hectic schedule for years except for a week here and there. And no vacations, really.

[bethben]

Here’s my story.  Ever since Covid hit, my stomach has been a rumbly cesspool of yuck.  I would eat something and I would get a food baby—I looked 4 months pregnant with gas.  I was having bad intolerances to a ton of food.   I eat well.  I stay away from dairy, sugar, and gluten and would eat probiotic foods like kombucha.  I stated seeing a naturopath and she tried a bunch of stuff first before ordering a stool test because a really restrictive diet wasn’t clearing up the issues I came to her about.  Here’s what I have learned about probiotics and leaky gut.  Basically, I found out that you can have so much bad bacteria that taking probiotics will do absolutely nothing.  They tested my sample and found that not only do I not have ANY good bacteria, but no good guys will grow with the yuck I have going on inside my gut.  So, I will be going on a protocol to kill all the bacteria in my gut and then rebuild.  My naturopath told me that I could swallow a whole bottle of probiotics every day and it would do absolutely nothing to improve my situation.  I never knew things could get that bad.  I was always told that if you consumed enough of the good guys, they would multiply and crowd out the bad guys.  I didn’t know that in some people, the bad guys can run the town and kick out good guys from even building homes.

[Carol in Cal.]

I don’t have the intolerance issues that you’re mentioning.

However, I have rosacea, and the gold standard treatment for that is 2 weeks on, 1 week off antibiotics.  I’m not willing to take that much, but I do need them more often than most people.  So I take probiotics along with and after each round, I take infused ginger A LOT to reduce inflammation and heal my stomach (am very prone to reflux),  and I consciously eat bacteria substrate raw veggies and fruit frequently to give my gut a chance to stay populated and to repopulate.  Bacteria substrate raw veggies are carrots, celery, salad greens, bell peppers, etc.  Fruit is whatever is seasonal, in large quantities.  Tons of oranges and other citrus Jan through April, and right now, more persimmons and pomegranates than anyone could imagine.

Also, I have learned that milk is critical for me.  I know it’s inflammatory or mucus building to some, but if I don’t have milk layered on top of most foods, I get reflux a lot more often and a lot more severely.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Carol in Cal.

[Katy]

4 hours ago, PeterPan said:

Wasn't there a thread on this a while back? Or maybe I saw your mention in this thread? I remember thinking it was kind of interesting. I definitely think it's down the right train. It's so easy now for them to have evidence of which strains do it. I had increasing food allergies and the beginning of anaphylactic reactions back when I started with the nutritionist. And the food reactions just poof, disappeared. 

It's kind of intriguing to think about what else might improve doing a round. These days I just rotate my yogurts and call it good.

  

Yes, I had a thread and someone else did that convinced me to try it about 2 months before my thread.

 

3 hours ago, bethben said:

Here’s my story.  Ever since Covid hit, my stomach has been a rumbly cesspool of yuck.  I would eat something and I would get a food baby—I looked 4 months pregnant with gas.  I was having bad intolerances to a ton of food.   I eat well.  I stay away from dairy, sugar, and gluten and would eat probiotic foods like kombucha.  I stated seeing a naturopath and she tried a bunch of stuff first before ordering a stool test because a really restrictive diet wasn’t clearing up the issues I came to her about.  Here’s what I have learned about probiotics and leaky gut.  Basically, I found out that you can have so much bad bacteria that taking probiotics will do absolutely nothing.  They tested my sample and found that not only do I not have ANY good bacteria, but no good guys will grow with the yuck I have going on inside my gut.  So, I will be going on a protocol to kill all the bacteria in my gut and then rebuild.  My naturopath told me that I could swallow a whole bottle of probiotics every day and it would do absolutely nothing to improve my situation.  I never knew things could get that bad.  I was always told that if you consumed enough of the good guys, they would multiply and crowd out the bad guys.  I didn’t know that in some people, the bad guys can run the town and kick out good guys from even building homes.

Elixa IS like a whole bottle of probiotics in one dose.  I bet you'd see a huge difference in 3 days, but in that situation I would take 4 courses of it like I did to cure my food allergies. I took it every morning on an empty stomach, and followed it up with a bit of vanilla greek yogurt with a tablespoon of potato starch mixed in. It IS expensive though.  I was afraid to spend that much money on it, but DH reasoned that it was much cheaper than gluten free products for the whole family and as worth a try.  I was so allergic to wheat I didn't allow it in the house, and I didn't eat out without a preventative dose of benadryl just in case I got a trace exposure.

[kbutton]

3 hours ago, bethben said:

Here’s my story.  Ever since Covid hit, my stomach has been a rumbly cesspool of yuck.  I would eat something and I would get a food baby—I looked 4 months pregnant with gas.  I was having bad intolerances to a ton of food.   I eat well.  I stay away from dairy, sugar, and gluten and would eat probiotic foods like kombucha.  I stated seeing a naturopath and she tried a bunch of stuff first before ordering a stool test because a really restrictive diet wasn’t clearing up the issues I came to her about.  Here’s what I have learned about probiotics and leaky gut.  Basically, I found out that you can have so much bad bacteria that taking probiotics will do absolutely nothing.  They tested my sample and found that not only do I not have ANY good bacteria, but no good guys will grow with the yuck I have going on inside my gut.  So, I will be going on a protocol to kill all the bacteria in my gut and then rebuild.  My naturopath told me that I could swallow a whole bottle of probiotics every day and it would do absolutely nothing to improve my situation.  I never knew things could get that bad.  I was always told that if you consumed enough of the good guys, they would multiply and crowd out the bad guys.  I didn’t know that in some people, the bad guys can run the town and kick out good guys from even building homes.

Are you doing something like GAPS? That sounds difficult and like a long process. BTW, I had that kind of gas since childhood, and it resolved--mostly by going GF, and then with the s. boulardii. I assume you have more going on, but I really hope you are able to resolve this. That's miserable! It's one of the symptoms of mast cell issues too, I believe. 

As katy said, there are prebiotic foods that can support good stuff (and you can get prebiotic powder of various kinds; I think all have inulin from various sources). I am really surprised such a drastic step is needed, and I am wondering what it is. 

[PeterPan]

3 hours ago, Carol in Cal. said:

Bacteria substrate

as in inulin? You can also buy it in gummies. There's a whole school of thought on using inulin fiber sources for health. I'm all for the veges, but sometimes getting the inulin straight is handy too. Oatmeal and asparagus are both particularly high in inulin. 

[Carol in Cal.]

1 minute ago, PeterPan said:

as in inulin? You can also buy it in gummies. There's a whole school of thought on using inulin fiber sources for health. I'm all for the veges, but sometimes getting the inulin straight is handy too. Oatmeal and asparagus are both particularly high in inulin. y

Asparagus and artichokes are among mY favorite vegetables.

[kbutton]

Jerusalem artichokes are full of inulin, I believe. 

You have to increase it gradually to avoid additional gas. 

The naturopath protocol may include inulin/veggies as a step in the process as well. 

[Carol in Cal.]

14 hours ago, kand said:

Has there been any talk of trying a fecal transplant? I know not every doctor is doing that yet, but it’s probably the quickest, most effective way of doing what you’re needing. 
 

Harriett—I have some history in common with you and also took Florastor for years. I still do sporadically. A transplant is what cured me. Eventually, my gut pretty much normalized and I regained the ability to digest foods I couldn’t before hand, but you had more consequences of infection than I did. 

I am so intrigued!  I did not think they were doing those transplants yet!  I am figuring on these being the obesity cure, so am watching the data, but did not know that they were available.

[Kareni]

Could someone point me to a list or an article that itemizes the symptoms of leaky gut. I'm wondering if this might be something that a family member is experiencing.

Regards,

Kareni

[Harriet Vane]

5 hours ago, Kareni said:

Could someone point me to a list or an article that itemizes the symptoms of leaky gut. I'm wondering if this might be something that a family member is experiencing.

Regards,

Kareni

A general synopsis from the Harvard med school blog:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/leaky-gut-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-mean-for-you-2017092212451

A fabulous description with symptoms from nobody-in-particular. I picked this one because it's thorough and clear:

https://www.healthywomen.org/content/blog-entry/10-signs-you-have-leaky-gut—and-how-heal-it

And a complicated medical article that seems to cover all the bases:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4253991/

[Kareni]

Thank you very much, @Harriet Vane, for the links. I'm off to do some reading.

Regards,

Kareni

[ScoutTN]

I have a friend who did the GAPS diet for a year or so to fix it. 

[Carol in Cal.]

On 11/7/2020 at 9:26 AM, kand said:

Mine was nine years ago and the pill version wasn’t available. I was very lucky to have an ID doc who was fairly cutting edge and gave me a home protocol. It cured me within days (after a five month battle being very ill). I think it has tremendous therapeutic value, it’s just a matter of overcoming the stigma about it. 

I think it has great value, too, but I didn’t think it was available yet.