DIY Gut Healing

I hope you have already had a chance to look at the small changes in environment and lifestyle we talked about on the learn page.  Make a plan to start making those changes asap!  One small step at a time will add up to big changes that can have a profound impact on your child's health.  

But you might still be asking how does this work? How to heal my child's gut?

Following along with the idea of taking small progressive steps, on this page you will find some direction and inspiration for taking those small steps toward changing your diet to a nutrient dense, gut healing approach.  For some kiddos simply making the switch to a whole foods, nutrient dense diet is enough to do the trick.  Other kids may need you to dig a bit deeper into the final step with a gut healing protocol.  Which ever the case, you can do this! Just circle a start date on your calendar and dig into some DIY gut healing!

At any point on your journey, should you decide you'd like a little or a big helping hand I've got lots of affordable support options for you.  

I don't want to go into a deep dive here as this is a complex topic but you do need a few down and dirty details so you don't get tripped up by histamines.  I'll set you up with some links if you'd like to learn more.  

First of all, I have worked with many clients who call me in confusion because their child's eczema, asthma or other healthy symptom started getting worse as they began to use gut healing foods or started on the GAPS diet.  I am so glad they called rather than throwing in the towel thinking this approach wasn't working!  Often what is happening in these cases is an increase in histamine in the body.  Long cooked bone broths and fermented foods are very high in dietary histamine.  

Histamine itself is not to blame.  You've probably heard about histamine in relation to allergies and bee stings, but it actually has many functions in the body.  It also functions as a important neurotransmitter and signal for stomach acid production.  So, we need histamine.  However, sometimes our bodies are not able to break down histamine efficiently as we may be low in certain enzymes. Think of it like a bucket.  As long as there is just the right amount of histamine in the bucket, all is good.  But when we can't break down histamine properly, or it is just coming in too fast due to high histamine foods and other health issues, the bucket begins to overflow.  When the histamine bucket overflows we see symptoms like increase in eczema, rashes, asthma, irritability, lack of focus, anxiety and others.  

This is why I made as special note on the fermented foods step and am careful to distinguish between meat stock and bone broth for gut healing.  If your child has reacted to these things in the past, don't despair, it doesn't mean gut healing won't work for them.  Just be sure to take it slow.  Make sure you're using meat stock and begin by introducing just the juices from fermented foods and slowly working up to the vegetables themselves.  If your child reacts even with the smallest amount, stop giving fermented foods and carry on with the other steps in gut healing.  Usually a child that is this sensitive will need you to go all the way into a deep gut healing protocol by eliminating all grains and legumes as well as gluten and dairy.  After some rest and reset for the digestive system you can try the fermented foods again and slowly work up to see how it goes.  

If your child is very reactive to all foods and can eat almost nothing without having some kind of reaction I would highly recommend you seek a qualified naturopathic doctor and ask to have a SIBO test as this is often behind the more severe cases of histamine reactions. 

If you'd like to take a deeper dive into the science behind histamine intolerance here are a couple of links I recommend for you.  

https://chriskresser.com/what-you-should-know-about-histamine-intolerance

https://chriskresser.com/could-your-histamine-intolerance-really-be-mast-cell-activation-disorder/

Https://histaminehaven.com