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Month: August 2021

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7 Step Process To Beating SIBO

August 30, 2021August 30, 2021 Amy Hollenkamp0 Comments

Hello SIBO friends–I know I have been less prolific in my blogging lately, but I wanted to share an instagram live video that I did discussing my 7 Step SIBO Process. Please see video of post below! Here is a visual overview of the 7 Step Process that I use with my clients and serves as the roadmap for my SIBO Root Cause Repair Program:

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A survey conducted by SELF in collaboration with a A survey conducted by SELF in collaboration with a UNC Chapel Hill Phd of around 4000 women between the ages of 25 and 45 found that 3 out of every 4 American women has disordered eating patterns or symptoms consistent with an eating disorder.⁠ ⁠ Disordered eating is an epidemic. It breeds fear, discomfort and distrust in your body. I know because I definitely developed disordered eating patterns during my gut health journey and I see the same thing happening to many of my clients.⁠ ⁠ Disordered eating holds women back. When you are so wrapped up in thoughts about food, you can’t focus on goals. When you're too focused on shedding pounds and not on nourishing your body, your metabolism and health will suffer.⁠ ⁠ Culturally, it is easy to get sucked up into a disordered eating pattern. When worth is constantly associated with a number on the scale, it's no wonder so many women develop body imaging and disordered eating issues.⁠ ⁠ In the context of the gut health space, I often wonder what comes first disordered eating patterns or gut issues. Disordered eating drives gut symptoms BIG TIME. I see this often with clients who have a history of chronic dieting. They may have been chronically undernourished for years that is driving their symptoms.⁠ ⁠ And then there are also many gut clients who develop disordered eating or sink deeper into pre-existing disordered eating when they go down the restrictive diet rabbit hole. The restrictions lead to stress, food fears and malnutrition that drives gut dysfunction.⁠ ⁠ I also see clients who may have subtlety been underfueling for years. They might not even have a disordered eating pattern but have just unintentionally under-fueled for a long time, which can⁠ lead to gut issues.⁠ ⁠ You have to be nourished to have optimal gut function! And, unfortunately, proper fueling for women is not promoted culturally. This is a huge underlying factor for many women with gut issues and frankly a lot of other health issues too.⁠ ⁠ I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please leave comments below!⁠ ⁠ #sibo #sibodiet #ibsdiet #ibs #guthealth #digestivehealth #disorderedeating #leakygut
Electrolyte issues can be a common issue with cons Electrolyte issues can be a common issue with constipation but rarely do people focus on getting these key minerals. ⁠ ⁠ Lets start with potassium. Only 2 % of Americans get the recommended amount of potassium in their diets. Getting enough potassium can be helpful to keep the gut moving! ⁠ ⁠ To get more potassium, you can drink coconut water, increase fruits/veggies in the diet, using electrolyte supplement or making a mineral mocktail with cream of tarter. ⁠ ⁠ Next up magnesium, luckily many people are aware of magnesium's ability to help with constipation. ⁠ ⁠ Magnesium has also been shown to promote cholecystokinin (CCK) release in the small intestines which stimulates bile flow, enzymes and motility. ⁠ ⁠ Magnesium is often deficient in the American diet too--I would Try to eat more leafy greens and other dietary sources. Supplementing to help with constipation can also be helpful. ⁠ ⁠ Finally, lets talk calcium. I would say calcium is typically not going to get high unless you supplement with high doses of calcium or vitamin D. Dietary intake is usually not going to drive levels that are too high. ⁠ ⁠ You may want to pay attention to how your gut motility responds to calcium supplementation as it can sometimes raise levels too high and lead to more constipation. ⁠ ⁠ #sibo #ibs #ibsdiet #sibodiet #lowfodmapdiet #lowfodmap #guthealth #digestivehealth
Many SIBO clients come to me having tried ALL the Many SIBO clients come to me having tried ALL the herbals and antibiotics. ⁠ ⁠ Some clients find no relief even after multiple rounds of different antimicrobials. Some find relief with their first round or two, but symptoms return and subsequent treatments are not helpful. ⁠ ⁠ But, usually these protocols do not produce long term symptoms relief. Or at least that is not what I see with my client population. ⁠ ⁠ If you have gotten no relief from SIBO treatment at all--more treatment is usually not the answer. You want to try and take a step back to determine what may be driving your continual symptoms. Try to determine what gut breakdowns are driving the symptoms?⁠ ⁠ These are some key areas to focus in on if antimicrobials are not providing relief. When I work with clients that are not getting relief from antimicrobials, I would first focus on these areas before doing jumping on more antimicrobials. ⁠ ⁠ Focusing on these factors could be the answer to your GI symptoms to begin with. Killing and clearing is not always the answer to symptom reduction. Like I said, a decent chunk of SIBO people do not get relief from antimicrobials. ⁠ ⁠ Try not to get too frustrated if you are struggling to find relief. You may need to dig deeper and do more rebuilding strategies to push the needle! ⁠ ⁠ #sibo #ibs #guthealth #sibodiet #lowfodmapdiet #microbiome #leakygut #digestivehealth⁠ ⁠
Officially on maternity leave! I will still be aro Officially on maternity leave! I will still be around here and have created some great content while I am out but looking forward to spending some nesting time with husband and new baby! Baby has yet to arrive but I am spending some time relaxing and celebrating before babies arrival! Will be back taking new clients and resuming current client appts in September
Finding the right diet for you should make your li Finding the right diet for you should make your life easier and not harder. If your diet is stressing you out, making you fearful of foods and keeping you from living your life--it is time to adjust your approach. ⁠ ⁠ So many of my SIBO clients come to me on hyper restrictive diets that are counterproductive because they make life so much harder. Maybe these diets served an important purpose as a tool to reduce symptoms at the beginning but now you may feel stuck. ⁠ ⁠ Again, you are not alone. Many of my clients feel stuck on the restrictive hamster wheel before we start working together. I know I personally felt stressed and stuck on my SIBO diet during my gut journey too. ⁠ ⁠ Its so important to keep in mind that restrictions don't "heal" or repair the gut. This is such a false narrative in the gut health space. Some restrictions may reduce symptoms, but to truly make gut progress you have to focus on providing the gut with optimal nutrition. ⁠ ⁠ I have seen so many clients start to improve when we work on nourishing their bodies, broadening their diets and working on underlying breakdowns in digestion/motility. This is the way forward, not more restrictions. ⁠ ⁠ If you are feeling overwhelmed by your diet--you are not alone. It can take a change of mindset and strategy to be able to loosen the reigns on diet again, but I see it every day with my clients. ⁠ ⁠ If you need more help and guidance on how to optimize your diet--sign up for my SIBO Root Cause Repair program and get access to strategies that can help you broaden up your diet so that you can get back to living! See link in my bio. ⁠ ⁠ I would also love to hear from you. Please leave any Qs in the comments. ⁠ ⁠ #sibo #ibs #guthealth #digestivehealth #sibodiet #ibsdiet #microbiome
I have been seeing more and more clients coming to I have been seeing more and more clients coming to me with SIBO/IBS that also have gastritis. Sometimes these clients are even attributing their gastritis symptoms to SIBO or IBS. ⁠ ⁠ Gastritis is fairly common. It is diagnosed via endoscopy and it means that the stomach lining is inflamed. When the stomach lining is inflamed, it is common to feel some burning, gnawing pain, fullness, nausea and bloating. Typically, these symptoms come on quickly upon eating. ⁠ ⁠ If you have these symptoms, you can talk to your doctor about doing an endoscopy to rule out gastritis. If you know you have gastritis already, I would heavily prioritize addressing this as it can make it much harder to conquer SIBO and IBS issues downstream in the intestines. ⁠ ⁠ Many of the tools that I use for SIBO and IBS are not well tolerated when gastritis is present such as anti-microbials, ginger and digestive support like enzymes/HCL. Addressing the gastritis can help with tolerance to these tools. ⁠ ⁠ When gastritis is present, I love using compounds that can help calm the fire in the stomach. And usually these items can work relatively quickly to build up the gastric mucosa and tame the inflammation. ⁠ ⁠ For more information about gastritis--check out the IBS Freedom episode #89 that we did on the topic! ⁠ ⁠ Do you have any questions about gastritis? Please leave them in the comments!
Having healthy MMC waves is critical for preventin Having healthy MMC waves is critical for preventing SIBO. So what is the migrating motor complex? ⁠ ⁠ The MMC is a cleansing wave that sweeps the small intestine clean when we are in a fasted state (removing fiber, waste and microbes). I like to picture as a little broom in my head that comes in and just takes out the trash. ⁠ ⁠ In a healthy gut, this MMC wave happens about every 2 hours. People with SIBO seem to have deficiency in these waves. So, maybe instead of the trash being taken out every 2 hours, it is taken out ever 4 or 6 hours. ⁠ ⁠ Without optimal MMC function, your small intestine can become susceptible to SIBO as waste, food and fibers can sit in the small intestines for longer periods of time. ⁠ ⁠ For the MMC to function optimally, check out the key areas in this post. I think the biggest takeaway is that you need a healthy nervous system and enough good bacteria to support healthy MMC function. ⁠ ⁠ Working on balancing the blood sugar, strengthening the vagus nerve, taking prokinetics, feeding good microbes, spacing the meals can all help support the MMC nicely! ⁠ ⁠ Please leave any MMC questions down below in the comments⁠ ⁠ #sibo #ibs #guthealth #sibodiet #ibsdiet #digestivehealth
Life update: only 2 weeks left before baby comes! Life update: only 2 weeks left before baby comes! So excited to meet her and for the adventure that is motherhood! I remember in peak of my IBS/SIBO journey worrying if I would ever get well enough to have kids. There were times where I was really hopeless and skeptical about reaching my personal and professional goals. But, what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was not broken. I was really just not implementing the right strategies to get well. It took reassessing how I was approaching my health journey to figure out what strategies worked best. Mainly, it took trusting myself and listening to my body VS all the noise. I also seemed to make major strides once I actively decided I wasn’t going to let my health dictate my life. I was going to go on dates, eat out with friends, travel and enjoy my hobbies again. Health journeys come with ups and downs. They are rarely linear. Keep faith that you can reach your goals. One last tip—if you are struggling to see what your life looks like outside of your gut issues, try visualization practices. I find manifesting goals can be incredibly powerful. So…what will your life be like when your gut is thriving again? You can share below if you would like 👍🏻 #sibo #ibs #guthealth
Your time and energy is finite! You must invest yo Your time and energy is finite! You must invest your energy wisely or else you won’t progress.⁠ ⁠ I see many of my new clients not using their time and energy effectively. I work a lot on helping them to diversify their strategies for better outcomes.⁠ ⁠ I personally struggled to find the right diversification strategy when I was trying to overcome my SIBO. I spent way too much of my resources on diet, supplements and researching with little progress to show for it. It wasn't until I learned to diversify that I started to progress. ⁠ ⁠ I also want to point out that it is super easy to over research your gut issues. And when you spend so much time researching and trying to solve your gut issues, you may have less time to actually implement strategies that can push the needle. That time could be used to build habits that will move you forward. ⁠ ⁠ Gut progress comes when you improve habits across many bases. Diet and supplements are only a part of the puzzle. The more you can focus on other foundational bases the better the outcomes will be. Small gains in many areas has more of an effect than hyper focusing on a few areas and neglecting others. ⁠ ⁠ How do you plan to diversify your strategy? Are you using your time and energy effectively?⁠ ⁠ #sibo #ibs #guthealth #microbiome #digestion #leakygut
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