Healing the Gut Tribe--January 2007 - Page 3

[MeMommy]

Originally Posted by formerluddite

some earlier posts mentioned mycotoxins in some CO; i'm also wondering if the brand i'm eating has this issue, and maybe i'm reacting to that, not the coconut (i hope...).

i had my husband do NAET on me for the CO. i hope he hit the right spot; he's quite the skeptic and it'd been a few years since i needed anything cleared so i'm a little fuzzy on where to press. i'll try the CO again in a few days.

any advice/insight?

I think the mycotoxins were in reference to my question, on coconut oil made from copra. If you are using virgin CO, I don't think you can make it from copra and call it virgin, but I may be wrong. Just check out how your CO is made.

As for the NAET, you can also use EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) for food sensitivities/allergies. The website is here. I have been using EFT on DD for her food issues since we got her tested. We will be going back soon to get tested again, and I am hopeful that they will have all cleared by now.

I am also treating us for the thrush with EFT, although I will have to wait until next week to really begin in earnest, things get a little hectic here at the end of the week.

[MeMommy]

Someone mentioned here about probiotics feeding yeast? Does anyone know about this? It's funny, 'cuz DD's thrush has been looking great, I haven't given her probiotics in a while, and yesterday I gave her and today it looks worse.

But it also could have been the doughnut I ate .

[sparkletruck]

Originally Posted by MeMommy

Someone mentioned here about probiotics feeding yeast? Does anyone know about this? It's funny, 'cuz DD's thrush has been looking great, I haven't given her probiotics in a while, and yesterday I gave her and today it looks worse.

I posted it, and here's what Ive made of it since; yeast serves the purpose in your body of eating dead things - dead skin cells (your gut turns over new cells every 14 hrs, ideally), and dead bacteria, and waste. When you die, it eats your body (yeah, nice). If there are too many yeasties in your gut, your Ph is likely affected, more alkaline than acid. Bacteria need an acid environment to live, so they wont survive an alkaline gut, die, and the yeast eat it. Supposedly, primal defense can survive in alkaline conditions (no I didnt read the above on a PD webpage and over time can affect the Ph of the gut, so say you take PD for 3 mos and then slowly switch to regular pb's and wean off the primal defese.

Now, how to verify this, I dont know. Another problem is that the dose for affecting gut Ph w/ PD is high, so $$$.

[formerluddite]

Originally Posted by saskiasmom

Supposedly, primal defense can survive in alkaline conditions (no I didnt read the above on a PD webpage and over time can affect the Ph of the gut, so say you take PD for 3 mos and then slowly switch to regular pb's and wean off the primal defese.

Now, how to verify this, I dont know. Another problem is that the dose for affecting gut Ph w/ PD is high, so $$$.

how high a dose?

when we did the candida cleanse diet 4 years ago i took 6-8 primal defense caplets each 24hrs for 3-4 weeks, after working my way up to that level the prior 2 weeks. i had a lot of die off symptoms then: crabby, achy, cravings, junkie withdrawal feelings. i tested (kinesiology) negative for candida, then went back to eating fruits, carbs etc., though not the same diet as before the cleanse. i've taken up to 3/day since, but not all the time; i've gone off them for months occasionally, and also eat yogurt and take jarrodophilus sometimes.

[LovinLiviLou]

Originally Posted by Chinese Pistache

Subbing.

We've talked about IgE vs IgG allergies here before. When I started this whole gut-healing journey, I was sure that we had food sensitivities (IgG) due to leaky gut. Now that we've been diagnosed with regular old IgE ones, I wonder how that plays into gut healing. I'm frustrated by not knowing how it's all connected. I don't buy that we've got these allergies because of unlucky genetics since we do not have a family history of allergies at all. And yet, my dd is definitely allergic to a few things now, and sensitive to many more. SCD isn't even an option because, among other things, we are avoiding all nuts and dairy and many fruits.

Anyone want to discuss this?

Me, me! Though I have less to say than to learn. I finally broke down and took my 7 mo old to a traditional allergist yesterday because I'm so sick of guessing. Fortunately, she is interested in doing more than just IgA testing, so I take that as a good sign. We're doing the ImmunoCAP RAST and some other blood testing. She is doing some gluten sensititivity testing and IgG, IgA, and IgM, so maybe we'll learn something. It will be a week and a half before we get any results, though.

I'm in the same boat about not understanding how it is all related to gut healing. We've been doing SCD since late July, and while I feel a lot better physically, it is soooo hard to do without dairy, eggs, and nuts. There are times when the die-off and hunger make me crazy, and it is so time consuming to have to make everything from scratch. And on top of all that, I don't know how much healing is going on.

I've thought about the amines connection, but it doesn't seem to match up with her reactions yet, though I've just started thinking about it and going back through my food journals.

[sparkletruck]

Originally Posted by formerluddite

how high a dose?

Ive read btwn 12-18/day. However, I think this may be for people who have serious candida overload, and the PD would be your antifungal. So it could be that if you have less yeast, you need less PD to get your gut more acid (not fighting as much alkalinity from as much yeast as some have?) This is all my putting reading together, subject to change

[Chinese Pistache]

Originally Posted by Nolansmum

I feel like we are in a similar situation. We have food sensitivities, maybe some food allergies, but are they caused by leaky gut or is leaky gut the result of being sensitive to these foods? I have started on the Failsafe diet to see if that can help us. I have just started it, so I don't know that I can offer you any advice, but I can post the websites where I have been getting my info.
http://users.bigpond.net.au/allergyd...tolerance.html
http://www.plantpoisonsandrottenstuf...tion-diet.aspx
http://www.fedupwithfoodadditives.in...afebooklet.pdf
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~breakey/index.html

I am also a member at the yahoo groups FailsafeUS, FailsafeNT, and failsafebaby. I have started the Failsafe elimination diet CFGF and egg free. I have also cut out all my supplements, as many of them bother chemically sensitive people. I want to start the diet as clean as possible so we can try to find out what is bothering us.

SCD helped but in the end it is not the answer for us.

I think there may be something to this for us, but I haven't trialed it yet because I want to get rid of all the known allergen reactions she's had (when we get cross-contamination from corn, as it is so pervasive). I've also eliminated most fruits because at the beginning she was reacting to them.

I'm going to go for some more allergy testing, the capRAST blood test to see if there is an allergy explanation for her sensitivity to some of these things before I do failsafe. We're already cooking everything from scratch, so it won't be that much more difficult. I am however worried about dd's growth and nutrition. She's very small and she can't take vitamins or eat anything enriched because several vitamins are corn-derived.

baby's calling...

[caedmyn]

Originally Posted by amis2girls

Can I ask you what diet you're doing? Eliminating the top 8 or something else more geared toward healing the gut?

Or is it all the same? :

I started out with healing the gut (candida diet) and eliminating dairy since DD reacted to it with blood in her stools. My gut seems to have healed (although maybe not cuz she reacts to stuff I eat) but hers seems to have gotten worse, so now I am trying to figure out what she is allergic to it. So far she reacts to dairy, wheat, and tree nuts, and I'm avoiding peanuts. The only soy I ever eat is soy sauce every once in a while (or whatever is snuck into processed foods that I occasionally cheat with), so I haven't really focused on that. I don't think healing the gut and eliminating allergens really have the same focus, but I'm starting to wonder if most people don't need to eliminate their allergens, or at least their major ones, in order to heal.

[Chinese Pistache]

Originally Posted by LovinLiviLou

Me, me! Though I have less to say than to learn. I finally broke down and took my 7 mo old to a traditional allergist yesterday because I'm so sick of guessing. Fortunately, she is interested in doing more than just IgA testing, so I take that as a good sign. We're doing the ImmunoCAP RAST and some other blood testing. She is doing some gluten sensititivity testing and IgG, IgA, and IgM, so maybe we'll learn something. It will be a week and a half before we get any results, though.

I'm in the same boat about not understanding how it is all related to gut healing. We've been doing SCD since late July, and while I feel a lot better physically, it is soooo hard to do without dairy, eggs, and nuts. There are times when the die-off and hunger make me crazy, and it is so time consuming to have to make everything from scratch. And on top of all that, I don't know how much healing is going on.

I've thought about the amines connection, but it doesn't seem to match up with her reactions yet, though I've just started thinking about it and going back through my food journals.

The more I think about it, the more I believe MY leaky gut is what caused all this. No one in my or my dh's families are allergic. But I, more than any other members of our families, has had an abundance of antibiotics, as well as a poor diet growing up (think generic brand, processed food). My health improved as my diet did (in college and beyond, as I became more educated about it), but in the past few years (shortly before I became pg with dd), I've developed a corn sensitivity and now, a coconut one. Also, the antibiotics we had during labor didn't help, and I think made my dd more susceptible to a variety of allergies (she's also allergic to milk, and I believe somewhat allergic to soy).

I'm going to look at the salycilates and amines connection, but I want to have the capRAST done, too. The allergist I saw was very unreceptive to me when it came to that test (he only wanted to do the scratch test, which isn't very comprehensive. It only looked at 8 foods). I'm going to see a new doc, a pediatrician, and hopefully, he'll order the test.

The advantage dd has is that she's a toddler and CAN outgrow these sensitivities. I don't know if adults can or not. Maybe I'll post a question about that in the allergy forum. . .

[Chinese Pistache]

Originally Posted by saskiasmom

Could this be die off? You are both, if i remember right, dealing with yeast? CO is an antifungal... although that wouldnt explain the reactions to the other stuff..

I don't think so. Strangely, since we've identified and eliminated her allergens, the yeast has completely gone away. No more yeast rashes anywhere. I do think that there is a whole body connection to all of this. A damaged gut leads to yeast leads to food sensitivities/allergies leads to more gut damage and so on.

Also, the reaction to coconut, at least for me, has become quite immediate, and I think dd is experiencing the same thing, since she rejects it so quickly (even when the presence of the substance isn't at all of obvious, in either taste or texture).

[Chinese Pistache]

Originally Posted by bluets

i *just* read on the yahoo GFCFNN list that coconut oil and avocados are high in salicylates (amongst other offending things). could that be part of the problem?

It's possible. But the reaction I had seems similar to oral allergy syndrome. I don't know if the salycilate foods cause that same kind of response.

[MommyofPunkiePie]

Has anyone seen/taken http://secure.unikeyhealth.com/index...PROD&ProdID=38?

What do you think?

[amis2girls]

Originally Posted by caedmyn

I started out with healing the gut (candida diet) and eliminating dairy since DD reacted to it with blood in her stools.

I eliminated dairy about three months ago and things got better for about a week, but now back to the beginning.

Originally Posted by caedmyn

I don't think healing the gut and eliminating allergens really have the same focus, but I'm starting to wonder if most people don't need to eliminate their allergens, or at least their major ones, in order to heal.

That's exactly where I'm at.

[caedmyn]

Originally Posted by MommyofPunkiePie

Has anyone seen/taken http://secure.unikeyhealth.com/index...PROD&ProdID=38?

What do you think?

I was going to get these at one point but in the end I didn't because I didn't like not knowing how many billion CFU's of beneficial bacteria were in it. It sounds good. If you decide to get it, it's $31.50 at iherb.com.

[amis2girls]

Here's my second "is this a leaky gut?" question...

My dd #3 has just turned one. I believe leaky gut causes her reflux which causes her chronic middle ear fluid. Can leaky gut also cause fever? She will, out of the blue, start a fever of 100-101 (although this latest round is 101.5-102.0) and continue for 3-5 days. No other symptoms, other than feeling absolutely lousy.

The only thing I've found online is

seven results of the preliminary inflammation of the gut...5. Interference to the gut's protective coating of immunoglobulins, resulting in decreased defence against bacteria, protozoa, viruses and yeasts. 6. Spread of infection due to the 'escape' of bacteria and yeast from the intestine.

Does it look like I'm on the right track or should I look someplace else (and if that's the case, where??) for the cause of the recurrent fever?

[Pattyla]

Sorry I'm a lousy buddy lately.
I'm wanting some opinions on what is going on with me lately.

Last week I started a few new things and my gut isn't happy about something.

On Thursday I started using npc (natural progesterone cream).
On Friday I started taking Nu Zeruba (anti-parasite/anti-fungal)
I have also been making an effort to get more probiotics, pills, water kefir, kombucha etc.

My symptoms. I'll have diahrea but only pass a little bit of stool. Then later on I'll have to go very urgently and pass a large fairly formed stool. Lots of gas and it is stinky (haven't had this in months). My poop today and yesterday is very pale. For the past week is very peanut butter-y sticky and hard to get out of me. I have found myself running for the bathroom many times lately only to get there and not be able to go or it takes a long time to go.

Thoughts? Is this die off? Is this something else? Any other ideas? I have done the hcl before and seemed to improve my digestion to the point where I didn't need it anymore but could it have gotten bad again?

Also, I fasted today for breakfast and lunch (church thing). I felt fine while I was fasting. In fact I felt the best I have felt in a while. Then tonight I ate dinner and although my stomach didn't hurt like it has been I found myself running for the bathroom again this evening (it didn't happen all day). The only thing I consumed before dinner tonight was tea and water kefir.

[Bex80]

Subbing---been curious about this topic for a LONG time. Is there a thread that outlines *how* to heal the gut? Specific foods, do's and don'ts? Please advise.

[MommyofPunkiePie]

Ever since I have started taking my supplements (B50, Cal/mag/zinc, vitamin A & D, vitamin E, EPO) I have not had good bowels. The day I got everything, I also started to get a little sick, so I did vitamin C to bowel tolerance, and I think that's where it started. I was also taking fish oil and it gave me horrible gas, so I stopped taking it.

Stools are the usual color, but they are very sticky. Bleeding hemorrhoids (had them since high school but never this bad) have me wiping with DD's cloth wipes and using diaper rash cream so I can sit comfortably. I also have a little flap of flesh that sticks out of my anus (leftover from the crappy sewing job after my fourth degree tear despite episiotomy -- there should be a law about men being OB's ) which can sometimes hide stool and cause irritation. And I keep forgetting to take my probiotics because they are in the fridge.

I am not eating dairy, eggs, or wheat, and I am more of a meat and veggies kind of girl. I have been craving oils a lot lately, coinciding with the start of the supplements.

[caedmyn]

Originally Posted by Pattyla

Sorry I'm a lousy buddy lately.
I'm wanting some opinions on what is going on with me lately.

Last week I started a few new things and my gut isn't happy about something.

On Thursday I started using npc (natural progesterone cream).
On Friday I started taking Nu Zeruba (anti-parasite/anti-fungal)
I have also been making an effort to get more probiotics, pills, water kefir, kombucha etc.

My symptoms. I'll have diahrea but only pass a little bit of stool. Then later on I'll have to go very urgently and pass a large fairly formed stool. Lots of gas and it is stinky (haven't had this in months). My poop today and yesterday is very pale. For the past week is very peanut butter-y sticky and hard to get out of me. I have found myself running for the bathroom many times lately only to get there and not be able to go or it takes a long time to go.

Thoughts? Is this die off? Is this something else? Any other ideas? I have done the hcl before and seemed to improve my digestion to the point where I didn't need it anymore but could it have gotten bad again?

Also, I fasted today for breakfast and lunch (church thing). I felt fine while I was fasting. In fact I felt the best I have felt in a while. Then tonight I ate dinner and although my stomach didn't hurt like it has been I found myself running for the bathroom again this evening (it didn't happen all day). The only thing I consumed before dinner tonight was tea and water kefir.

Could you be doing too much at once and overwhelming your system with die-off? All my gastrointestinal symptoms now are die-off--every once in a while I get diarrhea or lots of gas or stomach rumbling and it usually is after meals but that's when I drink most of my kombucha and water kefirs. My stools do vary a fair amount from day to day, too, and I think it is because my gut bacteria are still trying to find a balance. Maybe you could try stopping your probiotics and anti-fungals for a couple of days and then adding them back one at a time to see what happens. It might be that one specific thing is causing it, too--I can drink a quart of water kefir a day with little or no gastro symptoms but a few ounces of kombucha can give me diarrhea.

Is your DD doing any better?

[caedmyn]

Originally Posted by Bex80

Subbing---been curious about this topic for a LONG time. Is there a thread that outlines *how* to heal the gut? Specific foods, do's and don'ts? Please advise.

There's a "Healing the Gut Cheat Sheat" stickied at the top of this forum.