Healing my gut, battling SIBo & H.Pylori with a functional dietician Pt. 2

If you haven't listened to Part 1 make sure you do that before listening to Part 2!

Questions I asked Claire:
 

1. The program I did with you, can you talk about the structure of it and why this structure is the one you like? 
2. Let’s talk about the stool sample and my results and how you chose to move forward? 
3. Let’s talk about the herbals (especially the biocidin and oregano and the die off they cause) and why you had me take those
4. We found out I have a hpylori and hernia, what now? 

About Claire:

Hi! I'm Claire - a mama, dietitian, and yoga instructor. I am passionate about helping others achieve their health + wellness goals through personalized nutrition, and especially have a passion for helping other mamas regain their health along their motherhood journey.

Instagram:
@claire.s.wellness
@nuvitruwellness

Website: https://nuvitruwellness.com/austinnutritionist-clairestewart/

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Transcript

We're gonna talk about poop today and how the one time I had to dig through my own poop to send in a sample. Yes, I've been there. And if you have been there, you know how it feels. Just kidding. This episode is not about poop, but it is about gut health. And I'm bringing Claire back. My dietitian who has been working with me for almost nine months now to heal my gut. We're still in the process of trying to figure it all out, but she's back to get down to the nitty gritty of what my gut protocol looked like. So let's jump in. Claire, Thanks for coming back. I'm so excited to talk to you again. I know last week's episode, it was such a big, heavy one and everyone is so excited to hear more from you and So much good feedback came from that episode. So let's talk about the actual nitty gritty of the program that we did together. but in case somebody listening did not hear our first episode together, do you want to just tell us who you are? Yes, for sure. Nina, I'm so excited to continue the convo. I am Claire Stewart, Mama Dietitian, yoga instructor and I've been working with Nina since early 2023 and I'm excited to get into the nitty gritty of what fits together, what we're still doing together. yeah, so Claire is my dietician and we use ad hoc, like every week, every two weeks. But now we talk every month and she's helping me heal this gut. So we're going to talk about my gut today, but we're going to talk more about like the program that I did and what it entails, what it looks like, some of my lab results and what we did with those. And then now we're in this new little pickle with my situation, which people on Instagram know about and my hernia and H. Pylori. So I'll get to that too. But Okay. So if you guys don't know from Instagram I did or I'm in the middle of this program, actually, I'm not really in the middle of it because I completed the like first intensive four week program for a week. Was it for well, or we got protocol, but you did the four month package and now we're in the ongoing wellness collective because healing the gut is a journey. Yeah. Okay so just in case you're confused, I did a four week, a gut protocol with Claire as my dietician, and then we did a four month program total. So she continued to follow my journey in the four months. And then I decided after my program was done that I wanted to stay as an ongoing patient just because I'm still not one person where I want to be. But I want Claire. I want you to explain everyone listening. What is functional diet? What is a functional dietician one And then first explain that and then explain the structure of this program and why you think this program is superior. Yeah, definitely. So as a functional dietician in a functional practice, that may be true. We are looking at things from the root cause instead of which you've experienced before. Nina, you know. Hey, you have reflux. Okay, Take omeprazole. We are looking at, you know, why do you have reflux? What's going on in your gut? What's causing the reflux? What are some other things that might be contributing, like constipation or loose stools, you know? And we're not even just looking at the gut. We're looking at lifestyle and stress and sleep and all the things. So as a functional practice, we essentially are taking a step back, looking at the cause for your symptoms and following the symptoms throughout your journey. Why? I think that our program and the program that you've been in or are still in is super important as compared to conventional medicine is because we are trying to get you to a place where you can have healthy digestion, zero bloat, you know, zero gut issues and feel your very, very best for the rest of your life versus having to rely on a medication for the rest of your life. So our goal is really long term healing and long term health. And then the program that I did, the four week program specifically, can you explain the structure of it and what what it looks like? Can you just break it down for people who are like, what is what do you have to do? Yeah, totally. So Nina did probably our most intensive first month of the four months with us. It was a foundational gut healing protocol. So we focused on week by week, adding in new foods and seeing how she responded to those foods. The first week, however, was very, very simple and basic, but super hard. Everything was cooked in bone broth, nothing raw, no oils. It was basically protein and vegetables and bone broth that set the foundation of reducing inflammation in her gut, reducing some of the bacterial overgrowth that we a couple of weeks later found out was there in her small intestine and healing and sealing the gut lining and also just reducing inflammation in her body. So that's where we talked about weight last episode, weight kind of started to trend down, especially not even just fat storage, but that, you know, fluid retention and inflammatory puffiness. People like to call it it, which doesn't you know, it's not just about the physical. It's more about what that means about your internal health. And so that's when you started to feel a lot better. And then week by week, we added on new foods and just, you know, followed symptoms. And we've gotten you to a place where you have a lot more of a diverse diet. And I get I get this question all the time for people, Can you do this gut protocol all without a dietician? Is there somewhere is there like a resource that talks you through this reverse? I don't know. It's like reverse introducing. What would you call that? Like you're an elimination diet. Elimination diet. Are there any reasons that you recommend to people who don't have the resources to be able to hire a functional dietitian? Because straight off the bat, this program is not cheap, right? It's like a big investment into your health. And the version I did, I think it was like $800, around $800 a month. Yeah. Yeah. It's not. And I do think that you can do an elimination diet on your own. And what we did is kind of a step up from an elimination diet. A classic elimination diet is taking out something like gluten or dairy or a couple of foods from your diet and slowly reintroducing them and seeing how you respond. We did a version of that, but with more of a therapeutic healing approach from the get go. I do think that you can do that on your own. It's going to be a lot harder when you don't have the support and guidance because you're just kind of guessing and especially without lab testing. So yes and no depends on how severe your symptoms are, right? If you're just like I'm bloated a lot of the time and I feel puffy, sure, go for it. And then if you decide you need help in the future, great. I think that, you know, I always am saying you are your own best doctor and you're the one who knows your body best. And so I'm all for trying out something first on your own. We also do offer a $99 per month option called the Wellness Library, where you actually get access to our foundational just kind of basic gut protocols. We can't tailor it to you and you don't have a dietician working alongside you, but you do get access to some of our like video free classes in the wellness library and the gut protocol and some resources that are really great. So I would also be an awesome place to start if finances are not there. So I got my results to my stool test and then obviously with my symptoms getting better by doing the elimination diet, my symptoms, we talk a lot about it in episode one, but primarily it was fatigue, bloating, swelling, exhaustion, acne, all kinds of stuff. So we talk about that in episode one, if anyone's interested in. But my symptoms and my lab results gave you an idea of what was going on in my gut, but we'll talk about that in a minute. But when someone comes to you and does this program, what is something that you typically what's like the most common thing you find people have wrong, quote unquote, with their gut? Yeah. So we do a lot of stool testing because it's always the best place to start. And we just get a lot of women, especially mamas, with gut issues. So a couple of markers we almost always see are high inflammatory markers, which you had three high inflammatory markers, low enzyme function and dysbiosis in the gut, meaning some high levels of overgrowth, bacteria, pathogenic bacteria and low levels of probiotic bacteria. These are kind of the common things we see. This test is 25 pages long those. So we're testing everything from, you know, parasites and pathogens to your estrogen metabolism, you know, basically quantities producing bacteria, intestinal permeability, all the things. So there's a lot that comes up and everybody's tests are very different. However, I would say those are those are probably the top things we see that definitely work consistent with you. So you mentioned bacterial overgrowth is a super common one in a lot of people. You work with. What causes bacterial overgrowth, like in layman's terms, like what's something that we do every day that could be causing this issue? Yeah. So sugar, unfortunately, is something that contributes to bacterial overgrowth, especially in the small intestine. Those bugs in your small intestine, especially feed off of sugars and starches, especially simple sugars and starches. So white sugar, white flour, anything with those those ingredients, unfortunately, is feeding those, quote unquote bad gut bugs. And it can lead to overgrowth. Other things that are pretty common contributors are antibiotics, past use of antibiotics, especially in high amounts killing off all bacteria, therefore giving the pathogen extreme the chance to overgrow. So that's something we do see and a lot of people just because the standard American diet is high in sugar and starches and a lot of people have taken on antibiotics, especially in childhood, it can go all the way back to you know, elementary school. Yeah. And I remember you telling me because I I'm a sugar addict and I'm I'm currently, like, struggling. I'm having so many sugar cravings right now. But I remember you telling me that the more sugar we have, the more we crave it, because it's our gut, not only because we're craving it because of the flavor, but our actual body is craving it because of the bacteria. Yes, it's crazy. And, you know, it's not just about willing yourself to stop eating sugar. And so many women are like, my gosh, my willpower is so bad, I just can't stop eating sugar. And a lot of the time it's actually deeper than that. Your your gut bugs are actually driving those sugar cravings and causing you to crave more sugar and more starches because that's what's feeding your gut bugs. And especially with parasites. That's kind of even next level sugar cravings. Those parasites feed off of sugar and starches and they drive sugar cravings. So it's really hard cycle to be in, especially when you don't know why it's happening. Yeah, kind of jump going I had to hear. But I'm curious, once you heal the overgrowth of bacteria that sugar caused right now, can you eat sugar again? And then like how likely is it to come back and grow up? Yeah, that's a really great question. You know, foundationally, we're focusing on removing the triggers. So removing the sugar and starch consumption, which you you in a long time without any sugar at all. So removing the triggers, replacing the good bacteria that helps keep that balance strong, right. Helps keep the good army strong to fight off the bad bacteria and helps keep your gut bacteria balanced re inoculating with good bacteria and you know, re inoculating the gut with, you know, strong mucosal lining, things like that that may be impacted in repairing the gut. And then after that is when. Yes, long term, you know, you can't have sugar. I would say not all sugar is created equally and you have to put in the work first like you have, you know, so that you're not making the the issue worse by long term. You can have sugar. Not all sugar is created equally. Things like honey, maple sirup, you know, sugars from fruits or, you know, naturally starchy vegetables are going to be a much better option than white refined sugar because the glycemic index is so much higher. And so it's going to feed that bacterial overgrowth and possibly, you know, cause those numbers to come back up versus small amounts of things like coconut sugar and maple sirup. Honey in your daily diet. Yeah. And on paper, as someone who is has had disordered eating or has disordered eating and has always deprived myself and like, eliminated things and we talk a lot about this in our first episode together, but I can hear people thinking already because I'm thinking it too. What about, what about the fact that dietitians or like therapists are preaching Don't deprive yourself, don't eliminate because you are just going to crave it more and this and that. And I just want to be very clear here. We're talking about like very scientific like things here proven like things within our body. We're not talking we're not talking like cut out all sugar because it's so bad for you. We're talking like this is just what happens in your body. And then those are the decisions you have to make around. And there are decisions you have to make around that. Right? Exactly. And yeah, we we went much deeper into this in our first conversation. But I think that, you know, that that physiological drive for sugar cravings is there. But then we of course have the mental and emotional aspect where a lot of us women, you know, we want to have the ice cream or have the brownies when we're feeling sad or emotional. And that's also okay, you know, how like we just had Thanksgiving. Having some pie dessert is not going to make your bacterial overgrowth or each pylori come back. Right? It's more about the consistency of it. So if you need an hour to say screw it, I'm going to start eating, you know, having a caramel frappuccino every morning and eating dessert after lunch and dinner every night that contains white sugar. Would your bacterial overgrowth come back? Probably so, because you're you're driving that overgrowth of unwanted pathogenic bacteria. But if you were to choose to intentionally have sweets on, you know, celebratory days, is that going to undo your progress 100% not. And that's why this is so not black or white. You know, you put a lot of that healing work on the front end so that you can have more freedom long term. Yeah. Yeah, I it's hard. Like I said before, it's hard. It's a very fine balance. Let's talk about my poop sample example. I had to send in a poo example, which was so traumatizing, like I'm a nurse. And I said, I've seen so much poop in my lifetime. Other people's poop touched it. It's been on me. No big deal. But I had to, like, handle my own poop and dig in it. That was very traumatizing. Let me tell you, I've done it. It is not okay. What did you see in my sample? And then how did you decide what herbals I needed to take? So in your sample, we found high inflammatory markers like I mentioned, which is super common. We found low enzyme function, so your pancreatic elasticity was low, indicating that you were having trouble breaking down carbs, fats and proteins. So we did some digestive enzymes support we found high as IgG levels, which, you know, about 90% of your immune cells reside in the gut lining, actually. And so your immune function was actually upregulated. And that is consistent with, you know, going back to your, your lupus autoimmune condition. Typically in autoimmune conditions, we see that upregulated immune response. So our goal is always to bring that down because inflammation is always going to be heightened when your intestinal immune response is high. We saw bacterial overgrowth, especially in your small intestine. So we get a lot and a lot of pages of bacterial levels, both good and bad. So there's you know, we've got bad bacteria which are pathogenic, We've got probiotic bacteria, which I think everyone's heard the term probiotic by now. So you had your quite a bit of bacterial overgrowth, especially in your small intestine, which is sometimes known as Tebow. We don't diagnose, but you did have high levels there. And then you also had a lot of low levels of good bacteria. So especially when it came to those different categories, certain bacterial strains that are really important for fighting off bad bacteria and keeping the intestinal lining strong and combating inflammation, A lot of those good bacteria strains were low for you. And so we started with, you know, some herbals. We do a blend called bio sit in, which is awesome for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth strains. We did some oregano oil, which is essentially known as nature's antibiotic. And this is where it gets tricky because, you know, you never want to use these things if you don't know what's going on in your body because you could sometimes do more harm than good, because although there are natural something like oregano, oil is really strong and it's very effective, but you don't want to do it if you don't need it. So those are the herbals we started off with and then we did some enzyme support. We brought in specific probiotic strains that you needed. So I'm sure a lot of people listening and yourself included, have taken probiotics before. But we didn't just do a general probiotic. We actually did those specific strains like, you know, as Fulani, etc., that you needed that your gut was deficient in. So that's where we started. And then do you want to get into, you know, what what we found out later and where we are now, I just want you to kind of mention so I took biotin and oregano which, which are what do you call those natures? Antibiotics, basically, yeah. Antimicrobials, antimicrobial. So from someone who doesn't understand, I'm not a dietitian, I'm just a regular old person here. So basically what that was, is they were these drops that I had to take. And they what they do is they help pull out those bacteria, correct? Yeah. So they are essentially killing off the bacterial overgrowth in your gut, which was a lot of what was leading to your reflux and digestive issues and bloating and inflammation. So these herbals are killing off the bacterial overgrowth, but it's not like an antibiotic where it's just a nuke bomb killing off everything good and bad. It specifically is killing off and reducing the overgrowth of unwanted bacteria. And then all the while, we're rebuilding the good bacteria, right? So we're not just killing off, we're also rebuilding to keep that balance strong. And through that process, you experience and die off. So the die off process is not fun because those bacterial overgrowth strains, when they are being killed off by these into microbial, although it is a gentle process, they're releasing toxins when they're when they're dying. And that can cause what we call die symptoms or a timer reaction, things like flu, like symptoms, headaches, acne, you know, detox symptoms, brain fog, severe fatigue. And you went through some of that. Do you want to share a little bit about that or experience? Yeah, it was. I experienced it first. So I did the oregano later. And so the bias in my experience, headaches and just really bad brain fog, like very noticeable brain fog. Like I literally couldn't I was like, what was I thinking about? Like it would literally just be like super nice. And I never I don't know, it's so weird. So I experienced brain fog and headaches and just feeling like bluh like blob, but it only lasted a few days with the oregano oil. I had it a little bit. Not as bad, but then at the end, towards the end of oregano oil, I remember telling you I had really bad. My acid reflux came back really bad and we had found that oregano oil could cause acid reflux for some people. And I literally I stopped it and it literally went away like the acid reflux kind of way. Yeah, it's pretty intense. Oregano is is probably one of the most effective but intense antimicrobials. And so with you, you were experiencing some of that reflux, which can also be, you know, part of the die off process. And, you know, I always told you through the process, a lot of the times things will get a little worse before they get better. So you have this, you know, Turkheimer reaction, this detox, you know, die off process of an inflammatory response. When things are dying off, your body's releasing inflammatory cytokines to respond, toxins are being released. Brain fog can come up because of that strong gut brain connection to anything that's going on in the gut is always going to impact your brain, even your mood. Some people will feel kind of low during the day off process and then afterwards is when you're going to feel a lot better. And that usually lasts, you know, anywhere from like 3 to 10 days. Yeah. And now we're in this process where we did find each pylori later on as another contributing factor to reflux your gut old hernia, which I know you mentioned. And so you've had to go through a whole nother period of that die off. so just a kind of catch you guys up here. I had a endoscopy because I was so having reflux and the whole goal here was to get off of my basil and Claire and I decided it was good, good idea to get an endoscopy and see where things were. And with might ask me, they found a large hydel hernia like surgical candidate large. And then also they found a pylori, which freaked me out. I called La Hannah, who is works with Claire. I called her crying, freaking out, like, what the hell? They wanted me to take all these antibiotics and and I was like, I don't want to. Like, I just did all this work, like eight months of work, and they wanted me to take antibiotics, and I was like, I'm scared it's going to destroy everything I did. So I decided to work with Claire to do a natural nature of antibiotics for my age. Pylori And we're on month two. I've had some setbacks with flus, so I'm hoping to take a stool test probably in, like, less than a month. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the process is ongoing and a lot of the time that's what this looks like is, you know, we take a couple of steps forward, one step back, a couple of steps forward, one step back, and all the while we are making progress and you are healing. But it can take, you know, sometimes years to get to a place where you do feel feel your best. And, you know, we really have to be patient. You know, you can speak to that. I know you've you've had to have a lot of patience through this process and it just takes takes a lot of patience when you're doing things the natural way, especially. But it's so worth it to get to that point where you are feeling your best. But there's always going to be different things that we are unraveling along the way. Yeah, Yeah. So, Claire, thank you so much for explaining all of that. I hope that answers a lot of questions from everyone that follows me on social media. They're like, Well, what does this entail? What does that look like? And I do have all of this saved in my gut health one, two and three highlights on Instagram where I literally bring you along the process of how I'm healing my gut and Claire's recommendations and whatnot. And also just please note that this is in no way a medical recommendation to anybody here. We're just having a conversation about gut health and what we did together. So Claire, before we head out, do you want to tell everybody where we can find you? that's for sure. So our company is new. Meet your wellness and you can go to any future wellness dot com backslash. Austin nutritionist Claire Stuart and find me there and we would love to help you along the journey and like like we were discussing the beginning there are a lot of different options so if finances are not there for the more intensive program, there's a lot of, you know, more gentle, less expensive ways to start out on your healing journey. Awesome. Thank you, Claire. I hope that helped you. If you were interested in hearing more about gut health and the protocol that I did and my lab results and all the herbals I took. This is all stuff that feels so foreign to many of us. So I'm really excited that I'm able to shed light on it on my podcast. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review. Follow on socials. Subscribe to the podcast. That means so much to me and I'll talk to you next week.