Stool Testing

Comments Off on Stool Testing

What should you do when changing your diet isn’t changing your digestive challenges?

Are you experiencing:

  • Cramping
  • Constipation
  • Bloating
  • Gas
  • Diarrhea
  • Acid Reflux

Some of these?

All of these?

Combination of these?

You decide to change your diet – that seems like a good idea.  Things might get slightly better but not completely resolved.  Now you are frustrated.  So, you try a different diet – no change.  What’s the deal?!  More frustration.

This is a perfect of example of it’s not just what you eat but how your body is able to digest your food.

Our digestive system is a complicated but elegant process of getting the foods you eat into a format that your body can use.  When our system gets disrupted and out of balance and we start to experience problems regardless of what our dietary choices are.

What could throw your digestive system out of balance?

  • Poor diet / High sugar diet

  • Birth Control Pills

  • Some prescription medications

  • Antibiotics

  • Stress (long term or ongoing)

  • Travel (exposure to foreign microbes)

This is just a short list of what might throw the digestive system out of whack.

The bigger question HOW do I know and HOW do I rebalance it?

When a client comes with these kinds of symptoms and a health history to match, I usually suggest running a GI MAP.

The GI MAP is a DNA based stool test that is the most comprehensive tool for finding the presence of beneficial and harmful bacteria, fungi, viruses and parasites. It was designed to detect microbes that may be disturbing normal microbial balance or contributing to illness as well as indicators of digestion, absorption, inflammation, and immune function.

See a full sample report HERE.

With this report I am able to see the health of their beneficial bacteria or how well are the good guys doing.  If there are opportunistic bacteria or pathogenic or are the bad guys trying to take over.  I can also see how well the digestive system is functioning and learn what areas of the body might need more support.

In the example below this particular client was complaining of ongoing bloating and gas.  No matter how she changed her diet.  It wasn’t until we ran this test that we could see that she had an overgrowth of yeast in her GI track.

Or in this example below where the client was experiencing ongoing upper GI pain and acid reflux.  It wasn’t until we could see where the root cause was that the issue could be fully address.  H. Pylori was our underlying root cause of both of these symptoms.  She did not need a PPI or TUMs.  She needs to address the H. Pylori.

 

If you’ve been struggling for a while and can’t quite put your finger on what needs to change it might be time to dig deeper.  Look beyond the foods and look at your digestive system from the inside out.

I offer a free 20min consult where we can discuss what you’ve been dealing with – click HERE to find a time that works for you.

OR if you want to learn more about this test and other tests I run – I was recently on a podcast where I discuss this test in more detail and the MRT (food sensitivity panel).