It’s all about your Gut and Digestion!

We hear a lot about food allergies and people having sensitivities to foods such as gluten, dairy and peanuts.  The number of people, both adults and children, suffering with digestive distress is staggering and yet a properly functioning gut is critical to good health.

In fact, 60 -80% of our immune system is located in our gut and 90% of our neurotransmitters (chemicals responsible for regulating mood) such as serotonin are made in our gut. Problems in our gut (GI tract) can cause more than just stomach pain, wind, bloating or diarrhoea they can be the root cause of many chronic health problems.

Gut imbalances and leaky gut have been linked to hormonal imbalances, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and hashimotos thyroiditis, diabetes, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, anxiety, depression, eczema and rosacea.

In Natural Medicine we notice that gut and digestive issues often manifest when a client is also feeling stressed, upset, nervous or anxious or depressed.  

With Natural Medicine and Homeopathy I use a personalised approach to heal your gut.  

Healthy Healed Gut and Digestion Package

Who is it for? You, if you are experiencing gut and digestive issues and have tried the recommendations below but are still experiencing symptoms.

What do you get?

Four homeopathy sessions over four months. Individualised homeopathic prescriptions to address imbalances, support organs rebuild your gut flora and strengthen your constitution. Six amazing nutrition products: Acidophilus, Bifidus, Digestive enzymes, Blue-Green Algae, Fatty acids and Anti-oxidants. Nutritional advice on pre-biotic and pro-biotic whole foods to include and foods to exclude. Ongoing support and advice in between consultations.

Please contact me to find out if this package is right for you and what results you can expect.

General tips to start healing your gut and digestion:

• Drink a cup of water and freshly squeezed lemon in the morning before breakfast.
• Eat slowly. One of the main causes of indigestion is unchewed food.
• Don’t eat food or drink “piping hot”. Food and drinks that are too hot may disrupt enzymes and injure the lining of the stomach. .
• Don’t eat on the hoof. If you eat on the move, there is more chance that digestion will not begin but sit in your gut and produce gases that bloat you.
• Avoid eating fruit with the meal.  This is because fruit digests faster than dense proteins, so fermentation and gas accumulation may occur.
• If bloating is a persistent problem, try simplifying your meals. Instead of having lots of food groups at one meal try separating them.
• Make sure that you drink enough water. Ideally, hydrate your stomach with a glass of water half an hour before a meal.

Your Self Help Homeopathy Gut and Digestion Toolkit:

Calcarea carbonica is very good at relieving chronic heartburn in chubby people who get cramps in the stomach, really burning heartburn and who belch noisily. Often they get a sour taste in their throats after belching. Milk often disagrees with them and produces heart­burn and indigestion, whereas for most people milk helps.

When heartburn and regurgitation occurs after only small snacks then Lycopodium will probably bring relief. Typically, the heartburn only spreads up as far as the Adam’s apple, but it tends to last for hours at a time, despite antacids or milk. The stomach often feels bloated during these episodes.

Pulsatilla is indicated when heart­burn is associated with the taste of a food taken hours before. Fatty foods, butter and pork seem to cause these bouts of heartburn, and it is more likely to occur when they are peeved about something or with someone. They rarely feel thirsty.

Pain associated with nausea, a gnawing pain in the upper abdomen and retching of mucus suggest the rem­edy Argentum nitricum. These folk are often hurried, full of fears, especially as they anticipate a meeting or event, and prone to bouts of loose motions.

Nux vomica is well known to peo­ple as a remedy of excess, or overindul­gence. The pains classically come on about two hours after food. Like Argen­tum nitricum these people are hurried, but they are less likely to be fearful. Irritability and anger are more in keep­ing with their temperament.

By contrast, sweet, gentle and self­sacrificing people who experience flat­ulence and dyspepsia after too many starchy or fatty foods may need Natrum carbonicum. They cannot take milk and very often have multiple food allergies.

Phosphorus is extremely useful in people given to ready vomiting with their dyspepsia. They crave cold drinks, which seem to help for a short time, only to be vomited ten minutes or so later.

Bloating
Bloating may arise from excess gas in the stomach, small intestines or the colon.

Carbo vegetabilis is a useful remedy when the individual feels chilly, blown up like a drum, and when passing wind both up and down produces ease.

Next is China when the same feeling of bloating is not relieved by passing wind. People who gain the most from this remedy are great fantasists.

Lastly is Lycopodium.These people are often quite serious types and they classically experience problems in the late afternoon and early evening.

Hangovers
Nux vomica has been mentioned already as a useful medicine for overindulgence and comes in handy for hangovers. It is particularly indicated in a person if there is hypersensitivity, impatience, frus­tration over obstacles and when irrit­ability is obvious to one and all.

Constipation
This refers to infrequent, difficult and sometimes painful evacuation of the bowels. In many ways it is a subjective complaint, since normal opening of the bowels varies from person to person, some people going normally only once or twice a week, and others going nor­mally three or four times a day. Sus­tained alteration of the bowel habit needs a medical opinion.

Alumina is an excellent remedy for very severe constipation in elderly peo­ple when the desire to open the bowels seems to have been lost. The individ­ual may sit and strain and even feel impelled to use fingers to try to expel hard, knotty motions.

Petite, shy individuals who produce large hard motions when they do open their bowels may be helped by Baryta carbonica.

Bryonia is helpful for people who get constipated when they travel and who experience a burning sensation when they open their bowels in this con­stipated state.

Calcarea carbonica is useful in people who paradoxically quite like the sensation of being constipated. They may lose the desire to open their bowels, but suffer no ill effects from it.

For children who get quite distressed when they strain to open their bowels, Silica is useful. Straining almost always produces a stinging sensation in the back passage.

Diarrhoea
Acute episodes of diarrhoea can leave the individual feeling quite drained and weak, as the result of electrolyte loss. Replacement of fluids and electrolytes is the mainstay of treatment, but the following remedies can nip an attack in the bud.

Arsenicum album is extremely use­ful in very neat, anxious, restless people. The diarrhoea produces a burning sen­sation around the anus, which may become quite red and inflamed. The motions are usually watery and offensive.

For cases which start in the early morning or just after midnight China is useful. The motions are watery with undigested residues present.

Sulphur is useful for people who are forced out of bed every morning, often at 5 or 6am, by a sudden desire to open the bowels. The motions are loose and extremely offensive.

Podophyllum also helps the sudden urge to open the bowels, especially when the diarrhoea is almost explosive. There is usually a lot of gurgling in the abdomen before the urge comes.

(Adapted from Spotlight on Digestion by Keith Souther, H&H Spring 2006).