Clients who come in looking for help with digestion often feel as if they have tried everything. This includes conventional medicine, restrictive diets and different supplements.

Naturopathic Medicine is based upon the needs of each individual. Therefore, each visit begins with a comprehensive history to understand your story. In office evalutation and possible lab tests give more information which leads to a specific plan.

Common treatment considerations for digestion

Testing for and eliminating allergenic foods.

I test for foods allergies in several ways. The fastest is kinesiology muscle tests against different foods. I also have accounts with functional lab companies to run IgG and IgA food allergy tests. People often believe they have been properly tested for allergies by their medical doctor. However, usually they were given an IgE allergy test. This is good for some acute allergic responses and seasonal allergies, but can easily give false negatives when it comes to food allergies.

Go to this post for more information on testing for food allergies

Go to this link for more information on kinesiology muscle testing.

Gut pathogens

There are numerous types of pathogens which can cause digestive symptoms:

• H. pylori
• Candida albicans, Candida glabrata and other yeasts
• Pathogenic bacteria
• Parasites (ie. entamoeba histolytica, blastocystis hominis, tapeworm and more)
• Imbalance in otherwise healthy gut bacteria

Functional labs can be used to test the gut for inflammation, pathogenic bacteria, digestive enzymes, Candida and other yeast, parasites and more.

For a review of functional lab tests please go to this blog post: GI Health Panel and PCR Testing

Inflammation and leaky gut

Some people with digestive symptoms have what is called "leaky gut." Leaky gut is not an official medical diagnosis. It simply means that there is inflammation in the digestive system. This inflammation causes large particles to "leak" into the body. This triggers and immune system response which leads to inflammation, allergies and even autoimmune disease.

With lab testing, some people do have excessive inflammation. Other people may have digestive symptoms, but not the inflammation. Individualized holistic health care put focus on finding out what each person needs.

Traditional herbal medicine

Proper use of herbs depends on a constituational assessment and clear intent for each herb. Herbs are complex medicinals that act on the whole body. Common terms that are used to describe the action of herbs such as "antimicrobial" or "anti-inflammatory" are vauge. If anything, these terms may confuse the public about herbal medicine.

For example, the use of tumeric has expoloded in the past few years. It’s now one of the most common herbs sold because it is an "anti-inflammatory." It's also a warm drying herb. For someone with digestive symptoms, who also usually feels warm, has a dry tongue with red tip a crack down the middle and is under high stress with anxiety, tumeric may just make their condition worse. This does not mean tumeric is a bad herb. It's a great herb for the right person. In this case, lemon balm as a cooling, and calming "anti-inflammatory" would probably work better, even if there is no lemon balm fad going on right now in research or product marketing.

For more information go to the page on Traditional Herbal Medicine

Restoring a healthy gut flora

This is more than just taking probiotics. I may include probiotics. Other considerations:

• Sufficient digestive enzymes (being able to digest food well)
• Eating a good diet of foods you can digest
• Health liver and gall bladder function
• Detoxification. Some microbes, such as Candida love a toxic environment.
• Other supplements that support a health gut flora. This includes prebiotics which often work as well or better than probiotics
• Isopathics (a very powerful, yet not well known natural treatment, and taking the right probiotics for you. Everyone does not need the same probiotic

Go to the post for more information about isopathics

List of digestive related conditions that respond to naturopathic treatment

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)
• Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Chron's and ulcerative colitis
• Symptoms related to gluten sensitivity and Celiac
• Food allergies
• H. pylori
• Gastritis
• SIBO
• Gas, bloating and poor digestion

Conditions often related to underlining digestive issue:

• Autoimmune disease
• Arthritis and joint pain
• Migraine headaches
• Brain fog and difficulty thinking
• Eczema, psoriasis and overall skin health