Gut Health, Bloating, and Finding the Root Cause with Kim Pelicano

In this episode of The Rooted Method, Kaycee Hines sits down with Rooted coach and functional nutrition specialist Kim Pelicano to explore why gut health is about so much more than digestion. Drawing from both her personal health journey and years of coaching clients, Kim explains why symptoms like bloating, constipation, food sensitivities, and chronic inflammation are often signs that something deeper is going on, not just something you have to live with. 

Together, Kaycee and Kim break down what healthy digestion actually looks like, why gut issues can contribute to hormone imbalances and weight loss resistance, and how addressing the root cause instead of simply treating symptoms can change the way you feel every day. They also discuss why functional testing can be a valuable tool, the importance of improving digestion before reaching for supplements, and the simple habits that can support better gut health over time. 

If you've ever wondered whether your digestion is actually normal, struggled with unexplained bloating or fatigue, or felt like something in your body just isn't working the way it should, this conversation will help you better understand the role your gut plays in your overall health. 

----------------------
Connect with Rooted Coaching to learn more!
Website | Instagram | YouTube

Connect with Kaycee on Instagram 

The Rooted Method is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Welcome back to the Rooted Method. I'm here with Kim Pelcano again. We have talked about nutrition, we've talked about training, we've talked about getting unstuck. So today we're gonna talk about one of your personal favorites, which is gut health, uh, which I think is underrated for a lot of people. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yes, is my favorite subject. Is still wild to me. Personal experience, yes, but I also have realized how many people deal with it on the daily and have absolutely zero idea.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Right. The amount of people that are walking around with a lot of GI distress that they don't even necessarily realize is that, or they think it's their normal.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

It's my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

First of all, well, actually, let's sidebar for a second. What is normal? There is no such thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

No, um, normal it's true. Yes. What I look for in my clients is daily bowel movements, first and foremost. I can't tell you how many times on someone's intake form someone tells me they're going every other day, but that's normal for them. And I'm like, well, that's just not normal. Like that's yes, it might be normal for you, but it's not normal in what you need to be doing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

So I would say motility is a big one. Digestion is another big one. If you are walking around bloated after you drink water in the morning, that's a problem. That's another thing that we look for. If you have burning when you're eating, big problem. That's not normal. So I that's more of what's not normal. If you're not experiencing any of those things, sure, you might have normal digestion. But I think a lot of people don't look at the deeper level because we just think of, I feel like bloating is always the first thing that comes to everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Bloating or diarrhea are the one the first ones where people are like, oh, I must, that must be the only things that is good. Or and then sometimes severe constipation. But otherwise, people think everything else that's a negative symptom is like normal. Totally. Yeah. So we'll we'll backtrack a little bit to like you and your personal journey and like what got you so interested in helping people with their gut health in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

What's crazy is this is what brought me to what I do today, like why functional nutrition is my favorite thing. Because I dealt with gut issues starting about at 14, and there were a slew of things, but most importantly, I got put on long-term antibiotics. And it was for by my dermatologist because I had what we called perioral dermatitis. So I had like these little bumps around my my mouth. They were like, it could be a slew of things. It could be um what you're eating. They were telling me to stop eating spicy food and brushing my teeth with menthol and like these things. And so I was like, okay. And of course I believe them, and they're and it never got better. It was still there. And I was like, okay, so what do we do? So they handed me antibiotics for three months. I was on doxycycline, high dose. I was in my teens too, just taken every day. It cleared up, my skin looked great, but it was not, it was putting a band-aid on the problem. But I didn't know it then. Then I started having all of these uh exasperated issues of chronic constipation. I was bloated. I was at the time eating maybe a thousand calories and I was gaining weight. Um, I felt like trash. Like when I say I felt like trash, they kept telling me I was depressed. So not only am I on long-term antibiotics, I got put on Zoloft. I got put on a bunch of SSRIs, being like, you're just depressed. Like my parents were going through a divorce, like, you know, pinpointing it on things, which I appreciate. They were trying to troubleshoot, but cascade of events kept happening. Yeah. So now I'm on a slew of meds and I'm still having all of these issues and they were just getting worse. But I was thought it was my normal.

SPEAKER_03 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

So I lived with it for almost 10 years before I even did anything about it. Um, and it took finding a naturopath to do a deeper dive into gut health and do a stool, do a stool analysis to figure out at that point, they had just said it was gluten intolerance and dairy intolerance. And when I did a food intolerance test, everything came back under the sun. All inflammatory foods. So peanuts, gluten, dairy, eggs. I mean, I was like, what am I supposed to eat? Like, literally, am I supposed to eat grass? Is that what I'm doing? Ice, ice and grass, is that where we're at? Um, and so I removed all of those foods. And sure, I felt better because I wasn't eating inflammatory foods. I was eating nothing. Anything, yeah. Water, cool. Um, but that was kind of where that took me. So I knew there was more to it, but I wasn't getting answers. Um, and then when I, when we went to nursing school, it got worse because I started working night shift. And I had to the point where I could not go out because I was flip-flopping between constipation and diarrhea. So I would walk out my door to go for a walk and I'd be on the other side of my neighborhood sprinting back to my house to run to the bathroom.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Awful feeling.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Yes. And I just was like, oh, it must have been I had a little gluten yesterday, and I know I'm gluten intolerant or whatever I ate because I was intolerant to everything. And so I started um when we both transitioned to functional nutrition side of things because I want I wanted answers. And I had been dealing with that and um hormonal issues and just so, I mean, literally everything under the sun I felt like I was experiencing. So I started doing a mentorship and um learned a lot about myself and did another stool analysis and found out I had what we call SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth from us all the things that I just mentioned, but most importantly, it stemmed back from that first time that I had long-term antibiotics. And what it does is it totally wipes out your gut bacteria. I wasn't I've done probiotics throughout that time frame after, but at the end of the day, it was it took such a hit and it was so inflamed inside my gut that I couldn't regulate bacteria or anything.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

And 10 years of never actually properly restoring or even knowing the root cause of all of these other problems that were happening.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I had no idea. And so when that came back, I'm not kidding you. When I say that this test was off the charts, so I did a stool analysis and all signs kind of pointed to SIBO. So I did what we call a SIBO breath test. You drink lactalose. All of my nurses out there, if you know lactrolose, it is it's pefty. Yeah, it'll make you go. But it's not fun. No, the sugar in that will feed the bacteria and produce a gas. So then you blow into these bags and send it off, and they measure the amount and the type of gas, and that can help you determine your treatment plan. So it's really a useful tool. But when I did that test, it was so far off the charts that the methane gas capped and they just it didn't go anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I've actually never seen that on a breath test.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, it was terrible. So I had been dealing with it 10 years. I'm like, there was so much methane gas production and archaeol basically living in my gut that it was needed to be treated bad. And I had to do quite a few rounds of antibiotics. But I when I say that everything got better after I treated my gut, I mean everything. My hormones. I mean, I I was estrogen dominant. I had all of these other issues gone once I treated my gut. So depression gone. Like it was a game changer. And that's why I'm so passionate about it because it it was literally taking over my entire life, and it was the thing that caused 50 million other issues. And I finally felt like myself for the first time in 10, 15 years.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

After that.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

So wildly impactful. Crazy. And we walk through this with so many of our clients. So obviously, you've mentioned SIBO. What other are what are the other main issues or main gut disturbances that you see with our clients that are coming through that have gut issues?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

This was a little buzzword for a while. If you guys know leaky gut, leaky gut came through. Um, it's actually very true. And it comes from standard American diet. It comes from high stress, it comes from alcohol, sugar. I mean, all of these things, I guess that kind of falls under standard American diet, but unfortunately, it's all part of it. But yeah, there's a slew of things. Chronic dieting.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Um chronic under eating. Totally. Yeah. Over time, it pokes what little holes in your gut lining, and that's what leaky gut is. Um, gluten, specifically in America, is like top tier for doing this. It will just slowly burrow holes basically in your gut lining, and then our lining becomes permeable. So inflammation starts flying through that and gets into ourselves systemically. So now we have systemic inflammation, and that's where people get bogged down and feel tired and have weight loss resistance, and they don't manage insulin well and blood sugar. And so all of that feeds over into the way you feel. And so I would say that's what I see time and time again, just because we all live the standard American diet. We live a high stress life in America. Right. Everybody's working, you know, overtime and and all the things. So um, yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest thing I see. Yeah. And the biggest thing that we have to fix. Yeah. And that's kind of I not low-hanging fruit, but you know, we like to hit that first because again, it's creating a slew of other issues. So if we can fix that, might fix a whole lot of other things.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Right. If we have, yeah, if we have somebody who has in a specific case that I'm thinking of that we've walked through together recently where we have uh a parasite, we have leaky gut, and we have SIBO all in one scenario here. We're not attacking it all at the exact same time. We're fixing the leaky gut first, then we did the parasite cleanse, then we did approach to the SIBO. Exactly. So, I mean, first of all, like that's the that's the main one that I think most people are walking around with and they don't know. And then what are some other ones that we tend to see on stool tests or um, you know, the burp test and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 10:25

So digestion is a big one. I will tell you the first thing. And in mentorship and stuff, when um I'm teaching other coaches how to approach this, and I do obviously the same thing with my clients, we look for motility first because if we're not moving, everything, nothing's gonna happen. You're not gonna digest.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

And motility means if people don't know, moving the moving the food through the system.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Yep. So going to the bathroom daily and um making sure it, you know, frequency is there, type, all of that. But that's what I focus on first. And then the next thing I jump into is digestion. Because on the stool on the stool test, a lot of times you can see what kind of digestive enzymes you have. Are you breaking down protein? Are you breaking down fats? And we need that because if you're not breaking down protein and using it, like you can't expect to build muscle. You know, if you're not breaking down fats, you can't have good hormone support. So these things become so important. So when that's not happening, introducing something like digestive enzymes. And I'll tell you, I see this because everybody's on a PPI now. So that's a proton pump inhibitor. Think of things like omeprazole for heartburn. So people go in for heartburn, they get put on this med, and what happens is it shuts off their ability to produce acid, and then you don't break down food. So now food sits in your gut, starts to ferment, and causes gut issues. So that is how I always backtrack. I'm like, what are you on? Where are we starting? How do we support motility and digestion before we even touch SIBO or any of the other things?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Right. Which, like, I mean, truly goes to every aspect of our coaching, which is like, look at the basics, look at the beginning of how this is all potentially transpiring down through the entire system. Exactly. So those are the first things that you're looking for. Then at what point or what symptoms are you looking for from people where you're like, okay, now it's time for us to get testing done because we weren't able to normalize based off of just supplementation, diet change, lifestyle change, at what point are we saying, okay, you need to get a stool analysis done?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

I would say if they are struggling to get motility going, um, if we have done everything by adding in extra magnesium, we've improved digestion, you know, or have digestive support in there, things should be moving better through. So if that's still an issue, or if now they're having diarrhea, you know, those kinds of things. Um so if we hit that low-hanging fruit and then someone's bloating with water still in the morning, or they're bloating after they eat a really simple meal of beef and rice, you know, like those things are should be digested well. Now, if you tell me that I am so bloated after you ate a Quest bar, like I'm gonna say, let's try again, because that corn fiber and those other things can cause extra fermentation, that high fiber source that's fake, fake fiber, as I like to call it. It's it's not really fake, but you know, we have soluble, insoluble, um, and then we have like those sugar alcohols that they call fiber. And that could cause a lot of bloating. So that's something that I have to look at. Food diary, obviously. Right. What types of food are we actually bloating with? Yes, that kind of thing. If they are bloating with a ton of carbs, a lot of times that's a problem because carbs are sugar and they feed that bacteria. So then I'm kind of like, okay, well, maybe we have too much of a good thing because we need some bacteria for digestion, but too much of a good thing isn't a good thing, and that's where SIBO comes into play. Yeah. So then I'm kind of wondering those things. So bloating with water, very tall tail sign that someone may have SIBO. Um, and so I would probably pull uh a GI FX or a GI map with one of those. Other things would be uh multiple stools throughout the day, like yes, constipation, but on the flip side, if somebody is they can't, if it's running through them within five minutes of them eating, that's also a problem. And we we definitely want to see, you know, where their inflammation in their gut is and uh like what kind of bacteria they have. Um pain. So high pain too, high pain, low pain, all the pains. If you're everybody, if you're having um, you know, like heartburn type pain and those kinds of things, that can be an H. pylori infection. That can be not just heartburn because you ate spicy food, you know. So if somebody's still experiencing higher symptoms like that, I will absolutely suggest a stool analysis.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Um, as far as the basics that people can do. So, like, you know, if someone's listening and they're not a client, they're not working through this with anybody, it can sound wildly overwhelming for sure. Because we're talking about when we're through we're not educating on like all the different types of issues because we don't have time to do that. Be here all day. Yeah, all day. Um, but for somebody who like truly they're not working with a coach, they they don't have a clue what to do, but they know their digestion is not normal. Like, what are the first things that we can send them to start doing now?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I would say before you even touch a supplement, the basic things are chew your food.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Oh my gosh. The amount of people that are truly inhaling their food and don't realize it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Yeah. Chewing your food thoroughly, um, slowly too, as well. Obviously, if we are standing while you're eating, like not good. Um, going for a walk after you eat can be the best thing you do for digestion. So even it doesn't have to be a 30-minute walk. I'm talking five, 10 minutes. You're just gonna get those things flowing through, and that's really helpful. Yeah. Um, you can do like a simple, I this is technically a supplement, I guess, but like apple cider vinegar. If you have maybe been on a PPI or something, or you feel like you might have lower stomach acid because food is sitting in your throat. A lot of times I have people just try, throw it back to college, throw a shot of ACV back before, about you know, 10 minutes before you eat, even five minutes would be totally fine. And that's gonna help get some acid production going and people digest a lot better. It's also a natural antimicrobial and antifungal, so it can help dampen down any excess bacteria you might have in your gut. And it has a side benefit of helping blood sugar management. So, I mean, there's so many things, and that is natural. We use apple cider vinegar in salad dressing, you know, like you want to get it with the mother, don't just chug the, you know, because it's gonna have that beneficial bacteria stuff in there. So, um, but with that, like that's a very easy something somebody could try.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

Totally.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Um, not eating too close to bedtime, like those little things uh can go really, really far. I would say though, supplement-wise, um, if you're experiencing a lot of bloating and stuff, I always start pretty low and I do glutamine. Glutamine is, you know, natural, but it's it's a powder that you can use that helps patch those holes in leaky gut, like we were talking about. Very benign. Um, it's not, you know, a lot of people use it too as like pre-workout. It's it works just like creatine, basically. So it can help build muscle. You know, it's uh so it's it's got a lot of side benefits too, but it can help patch some of that. And I notice a lot of people's bloating gets a little better with that. Yeah. Um aloe vera juice is with the inner leaf. Um, you can get that, you know. Uh what's it, Lily of the Desert is the brand that I like to use, but very simple. Again, two tablespoons or so before a meal. Think about it like putting it on a sunburn, um, like you put aloe on a sunburn. If your gut lining is fire red, putting that on there is gonna help reduce some of that inflammation. Yeah, soothe. And a lot of people notice some big changes with that. Yeah. So those are probably the three most benign ones that I start with and then escalate from there.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Sure. And beyond that, like we're not gonna talk about those types of supplements for people to self-implement. That would be more so in a guided plan with a physical practitioner. Okay, I want to move into something that I actually just had a call with someone yesterday where they were asking me about this, but food intolerance tests and your thoughts on those. Because we've been working with them for a long time and people wanting to use them. So I would love to know absolutely tests.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Um, I can't tell you, and I know you've experienced this too, but their Instagram ads will get you. They will get everything. And oh, all the things. How many are we about to get from this conversation? Um, but like the Everly Wells and those kinds of things. Um, not to not that they're bad, I'm not wrapping them by any means, but a lot of my clients will get them blindly and then be like, oh, I got this, and so I cut out all these foods. And I told you firsthand experience here, I cut out at least 40 foods. And sure, I felt better. But at the end of the day, when I've retested with um a different assay, if you will, which we'll talk about here in a second, I got different results and I saw improvement after I did my SIBO protocol and my leaky gut protocol. So the reason that we have to take it with a grain of salt is because it basically has, to get back into the science of it, like an IgG response. That's what we're getting. So, what causes inflammation, right? And so when when that's lit up, if you ate it yesterday and you have leaky gut, it's gonna show up.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

For sure. If it's high inflammatory, like gluten and dairy, this is why so many people are gluten and dairy intolerant when in reality they just need to fix their gut lining and they need to have lower inflammation because the thing that's showing up is an inflammatory marker. Right. There are other markers that you can measure, like IgE, which gives you that itchy scratchy. Um, it's measuring for like the thing, something that gives you an actual rash or anaphylactic shock, IgM, right? So, how long has this been dormant and like basically living in your system and is something that is like basically waiting to be set off? Um, and that's more of a true intolerance rather than just that. So they have, I mean, I personally like to use what I the FAST 88 because it measures all of those. So when I after I treated my SIBO and did all that, I did the FAST 88. Now, unfortunately, gluten came back for me on all levels. It was red on IgG, IgM, IgE, all of them, all the modulators. So I know that that's something I really should stay away from. Right. Um, and I don't necessarily get anaphylactic from it, but I get itchy. Same thing with eggs. So for eggs, the only thing that came back for me was that IgE response. And I get swollen joints and itchy hands. Um, I don't necessarily get gut issues. But when you think about it that way, it if I was continuing to eat eggs because I was like, oh, well, I don't get diarrhea, I don't bloat, I don't throw up, I don't, my throat doesn't close, that adds up over time and causes systemic inflammation. It I always talk to my clients, think about it like a drop in a bucket. You drop in one, that's fine, your body can handle that. But now you're dropping in quick, quick drops here, it's gonna eventually overflow. And I see that time and time again. And so it doesn't mean you can't have some of these things, but they might need to be a little more limited.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Which is I see you not regularly, but every now and then. Like if we're at a restaurant, you'll have gluten or you'll have eggs every now and then, and immediately your hands are itchy, but you're like, I can handle this one time, I haven't done this in months, type of thing, versus someone ignoring some of those symptoms. Because they don't really know any better. And then continuously eating it day after day and not realizing it's causing potentially other issues. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah. And that's the thing, is I always tell people everything lives in our gut. We have a gut brain connection. The serotonin in our in our gut, I mean, that's why people get depressed or fatigue or moody because their serotonin levels get thrown off when they have gut issues.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

But which to be clear, we're not saying that depression is not a very relevant thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

It doesn't, it's not always just gut related, but sometimes it can be. It definitely can be. And you know yourself, you know, like, and that's what I kept saying. It was like, I'm not I'm not really depressed right now. Like I've been depressed, I've been on meds for it. But like in that moment, I kept telling my doctor, I'm like, I don't think that's it. Yeah. I don't think that's it. Um, and I'm just thankful that I had doctors in my corner helping me dig deeper and deeper and deeper. Cause I'm like, if if I never figured that out, you know, I'd still be probably in that cascade of events. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

The cascade of prescription. Yes. So this is a great segue into something else that I wanted to talk to you about, which is gut issues. One can cause a whole host of other issues that people just don't really recognize, um, which a lot of a lot of which we've talked about. Well, one of that is one of those is fat loss resistance.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

So I know there's a couple of different things between hormones and, you know, the way that the bacterial overgrowth can impact us, but I would love for you to talk a little bit about what do we see with hormones, just briefly. Because we, again, this could be a whole separate episode. But like, what are some of the brief things that you can see health impact as far as fat loss goes?

SPEAKER_00 23:32

So I would say a big one that I see often is it creating offbalance hormones, specifically with estrogen. So we detox through our liver and our gut, right? And our hormones live in that area. So what can happen is we can recirculate estrogen if we have gut issues. So instead of detoxing it out properly, it gets recycled. And now we become estrogen dominant. And estrogen's a great hormone. We love it. We love her. She's we need her. We need her. But in excess amounts, it can cause fat storage. It can cause weight loss resistance. It can cause feeling really emotional and tired and moody. And this is for men and women. Yes, both men and women. And so supporting that gut health and helping support those detox pathways can can help somebody become, you know, not estrogen dominant. And a lot of times, you know, we can incorporate some other things to help with that. Um, but I always feel like you have to find the root cause just with everything. So it's not necessarily a hormone problem, it's a gut problem. Sure. If that becomes a hormone problem. Right. So I see that time and time again with weight loss resistance. I also just see chronic inflammation. Um, but the biggest thing that I see, like I said, with the leaky gut and the digestion issues, if you're not extracting the micronutrients from your food, having a low micronutrient profile can absolutely affect weight loss. If your B vitamins are low, you know, if you're not absorbing vitamin D and zinc, all of these things, again, support hormones and the things that we need for weight loss to work. Um, and then if you're just not breaking things down and they're sitting in there for a long period of time, like that also can cause weight loss resistance. The one for me that got me that I didn't know about until I was treating my SIBO was the type of SIBO that I had. So there are different types that you can have. One, um, I mean, there's three different ones, but the one that I had was methane dominant. So methane-dominant SIBO is actually not bacteria, it's archaea. So it's a totally different form of microorganism. Um, but what's insane, and I didn't believe it. I literally did not believe this. And you guys might not believe me either, but let me just tell you something. This is real life. I was shook. So the way that the archaea breaks down carbohydrates doubles the caloric intake of those carbs. So they ingest carbs and then they your body thinks that you are ingesting double the calories, basically, double the carbs, double the calories.

unknown 26:15

Wild.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

So if you're eating a thousand calories, you know, your body thinks, you know, you're eating a slew of them. Um, and so that's why people struggle with weight loss. Like, I'm eating a thousand calories. How am I not? I this doesn't make sense. I'm working out, I'm doing all these things. Now, there's probably 500 things that contribute to that.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

But one of them being the type of SIBO that you have, and that archaea is actually causing you to retain more calories and you're not eating that many calories. So that can lead to weight gain or inability to lose weight. Because most of us are eating, you know, if we're eating a normal amount, 1800 to 2,000 calories. And then if you're almost doubling that carb intake, I mean, you could be anywhere 2,800 calories, and yeah, you're not gonna lose weight on that, you know, um, unless you're just superhuman. But so that can absolutely contribute to.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Yeah. And that's truly wild to think about. And I'm, I mean, I don't that's not something that I've personally worked with. Oh, clients either.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

So that's I mean, crazy that that is what you experienced. The other thing about it too is methane dominant, it causes constipation, right? And so going back to what we talked about first and foremost, if motility is not there, it exasperates everything. So now not only that, you're not breaking down food, but with all no motility, you're producing more gas. So now you're more bloated. And it just is like that trickle down effect that really causes issues.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

When what I want people to really think about and hear from this is that like you're it is not, you know, it's not just I'm just constipated or I'm just I just have diarrhea sometimes. Like there are so many other problems that can come from this. So, like with constipation, when food is sitting there for too long and fermenting, like that it can be a massive problem. If you have consistent diarrhea, you're not able to absorb the micronutrients from your food. So you're not able to function the way that you should be able to function. And it's just people don't make those connections that, like, oh, this aspect could be impacting literally everything else in my body.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

And I mean gut brain connection, I mean, truly everything, your digestion can impact everything else about how you're making progress.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Totally. And I had no idea until it honestly personally happened to me. And so I feel like that was my huge segue into this industry because I was like, I had no idea. So I know there's other people who also have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

So I just feel like, you know, it's one of those things that can be rare. It's not, I'm not saying like everybody has SIBO or those things. I've never had an issue.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

I've done stool tests, I've never had an issue with it.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

I just tell you, you, you, we've always talked about this. She's a stomach of steel, yes, legitimately.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

But like, you know, I have never chronically dieted. I've never done a lot of the things that cause these issues. And so I'm not to say that I'm gonna be immune to it for my life. I'm sure that's one day things will pop up. But for people listening, it's not that everyone needs to be like, oh my gosh, do I have all of these issues? But like if you're hearing us talk about some of these symptoms and thinking, like, oh, maybe this isn't as normal as I thought, you should probably get you should probably talk to somebody. Yeah. Or hop on a free call with us so that we can even just tell you, like, hey, here's where I would go, or here's what doctor I would go see, or whatever. Exactly. So that you can be heard and be heard that, like, oh, this isn't necessarily normal. Here's what I would do.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Exactly. And there's a ton of amazing doctors who have figured this out.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Um, which is awesome. I mean, we know quite a few practitioners here that help with protocols with us and um definitely get behind those things to help fix it because we all know how detrimental it can be to your overall health in so many areas.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

Right. But if you are dismissed, that this is like, hey, this is no big deal, this is your normal. I would just um I would encourage people to advocate for themselves and to, you know, seek out coaching or seek out a practitioner who hears them. Absolutely because it can be hard to throw blanket statements on things. Yes, and you know your body best. Okay, real quick before we start wrapping some things up, I did want to bring up a client case study that you and I have kind of gone through that they don't mind us talking about this. We're not gonna mention their names or anything. But uh just Kim and I work with uh a couple. So you work with the wife, I work with the husband, and we saw some interesting things on some of their testing. And I would love for you to just kind of talk through what we've seen and what we've kind of uncovered and how we've done it.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Absolutely. So this is such a good example of teamwork makes the dream work, I feel like. So this is why I love getting to work with you and like just be able to do these things together because bouncing those ideas off and getting to that next step is always key. And we also have a doctor in the mix with us, which is super fun.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Um, because then we can all discuss and and move forward. Um, and I think the biggest thing that started it off was their sweet son was having a lot of gut issues and did a stool analysis, and some things came back that were a little more alarming. The husband was also having some some gut issues, and that's who you work with. So you were like, you probably also need this. Yeah. And so when we compared them, they had the same parasite.

unknown 31:23

Crazy.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Um, they both had methane-dominant SIBO and SIBO, just of some sort. And both had signs of leaky gut, and both had major signs of inflammation and and same same kind of symptoms. Bloating, um, smelly gas is a big one, like all those things where you just know something's not quite right. You're like, there, I gotta do something about this now. Um, and so we really were trying to backtrack and find that root cause. Did you guys travel? Did you, you know, was there anything? And we were like scratching our heads for a good while. The specific parasite is connected with things like pinworms. So I told um the wife, I was like, just hear me out here. Like, if you can go into his room at night, because the pinworms come out at night, and just see if you see any of those pinworms. And sure enough, pinworms were there on multiple of kids of theirs. Your girls taught hearing this. This is actually relatively common. So common. Well, especially with like kids. I mean, daycare, all of it. Yeah. Um, playgrounds, you know, all of it. So nobody was surprised, but like it was one of those things that, okay, we kind of found this root cause. And so taking care of the pinworms. Um, your client did a parasite cleanse. Now, with kids, you have to be a little like obviously that is doctor, yeah, pediatrician. I was like, I'm not touching that. I'm gonna tell you what my thoughts on it, and we're gonna see your doctor. Yes. Push that forward. But that can cause, I think their their first concern with him was some behavioral issues. And so it's crazy to see that it could totally be just gut related and um being able to connect those dots and when they live together, you know, we started looking down the mold train and like all of these other things, but always starting backtracking and finding that root cause is key. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Which not a lot of people have the bandwidth to do. And that is again, to we're always so careful when we talk about things like this because this is not necessarily a physician problem. This is not a doctor problem. This is a system problem. Yes. That we are not, and that our doctors are not, and that most healthcare providers are not given the time and the capacity to really be able to dive in for hours on end to find the root cause of things. You can't find it in 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

No, no way.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

No. So to be able to have that team approach where, like, you know, me, you, and the doctor that we have with them, we all got to dive in together. I mean, that really is how we got to the root of all of these problems. 100% and to be able to now moving forward, be able to fix that for a whole family is insane. Crazy. But how crazy was it when we pulled up their GI uh tests and put them together and we're like, okay, so the five-year-old son and the dad have pretty much the exact same test profile. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Wild. Is environmental to no other. You know. So pretty cool. Excited about that one to see it all the way through. And I think that's gonna be a good one.

SPEAKER_02 34:18

Totally. Okay, I know that we first of all can talk about poop all day because we are both nurses and the hell is important. And I really want to desensitize people to talking about some of this stuff. Sure, you don't have to go talk about it with all your friends, but like have a trusted practitioner or provider or coach who you trust to talk this stuff through with, because obviously, from our conversation, it is wildly important. And I know that we can dive into so many of these issues and we can do individual episodes probably on each one. But for people right now that are listening, if you want to schedule a call with us and you want to figure out is this normal? Like, first of all, it's confidential, it's not gonna go anywhere. Second of all, it's free. Uh we won't share, promise. Um, but you can go to therootedcoaches.com. You can book a call with us. It is free, 30-minute consult, and we can at least help you figure out if what you're experiencing is normal or not.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yes, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Um, anything else you want to tell the people before we sign off today? I love gut health.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

You really do. It's smile. I can nerd out about it all day. I love it.

SPEAKER_02 35:16

Well, I'm sure you're gonna have plenty of people that are interested in talking to you about it because a lot of people don't realize they have issues. So thank you for listening today. If you want to find us again, go to our website or our uh Instagram page for all of the coaches is at the rooted coaches. We have mine, which is at Casey Hines with an underscore, and then Kim's is at Kim Pelicano with an underscore.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Thanks.