“A healthy person has a thousand dreams. A person who is not has just one, and it’s to feel better." -Brianna Marie
I had learned that my dream of feeling better was very possible. My dream of remission was going to materialize. Health is just within my reach, it was all up to me...
I now knew what I had to do, I started by taking all of the steps in preparation that were needed. I needed to get to the root cause.
As you heard from my history, I was born with compromised immunity and further damaged my gut microbiome with years of abuse to it. (asthma steroids, antibiotics, sugary foods, gluten, stress). 95% of autoimmune issues start here in your microbiome-(more on that in another post). My diet is clean and I do elimination diets once or twice per year. I was tested for toxins, infection (SIBO-small intestinal bacteria overgrowth), parasites-awaiting results. I am under a tremendous amount of stress, but working on that daily! So I start with my gut...
Steps to healing Leaky Gut:
1. Remove: whatever food that's either in excess or is a suspected (or known) sensitivity or allergen. Kinda requires some detective work and tracking symptoms to see if there are patterns. Food sensitivities are tricky because your symptoms may occur hours or days after exposure. This is where the elimination-style diet and/or food sensitivity testing comes into place.
2. Replace: Once the offending foods and lifestyle triggers are removed, work on replacing the factors necessary to help you properly digest, adding in fiber in several different forms to support gut transit time and motility (elimination of toxins). Also important to look at repletion of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.
3. Repopulate: restoring the balance of good bacteria in your gut is CRUCIAL to overall health. This involves using probiotic-rich foods (fermented veggies, coconut kefir), fiber-rich foods, and supplements.
4. Repair: The gut lining can be severely compromised during periods of inflammation, stress and when exposed to allergens over time. Repairing the gut lining is needed to ensure proper absorption of nutrients. This can be done using the silver/Aloe Protocol, consuming foods like bone broth, supplements particularly; berberine, Aquaflora, oil of oregano, L-glutamine. (don't worry, I'm going to get detailed in my next post!)
5. Rebalance: This is where life choices & lifestyle really come into play. It's SO important to address the external stressors in your life that may increase your sympathetic drive in the nervous system and reduce the parasympathetic drive. With practices like meditation, deep breathing, good sleep and other mindfulness-based practices, you can help restore hormone balance that will protect your gut and subsequently, your entire body.
Have you had your hormones checked? Have you had a food sensitivity test done, or tried an elimination diet? Things to consider as we continue....
Brianna, Holistic Healing Fit Club
OMG! I need to do this! What's next??