You've done FODMAPs but you’re still bloating? What to do next...

I see so many people who have suffered from digestive complaints for may years and over these years many have tried everything to correct their issues. Most people I have seen have tried the FODMAP diet, with little to no success. And this can be due to a number of things such as not sticking to the diet strictly (this can easily happen, its a hard diet to follow!) or not re-introducing the foods back in properly. But sometimes people have done everything right and their bodies have kept on reacting to foods.

So now we must ask the question why? Have you ever thought about the digestive tract must look after years of digestive issues? So much irritation usually causes dysbiosis ( the imbalance of the good and the bad bacteria) and possible overgrowths of bad bacterias and yeast. Leaky gut may also be present (see previous posts for more info about this). Good bacteria in the gut helps to regulate bowels, as well as helping to breakdown and absorb food from the gut. The good bacteria also helps to reduce inflammation among many other functions. This can mean that until the balance is restored within the gut, the digestive system will keep on reacting to many different foods in the way of bloating. Think of these as pseudo-food intolerance's, as we generally find that once the balance has been restored the reactivity to foods lessens, if not disappears.

In order to bring this balance back its all about looking at the persons gut. Stool tests are able to show us exactly what the levels of good bacteria and the levels of bad bacteria are, if there are any overgrowths and if there are any parasites (yep you heard me, parasites) in the gut. From there, we go about restoring the good gut bacteria, either by probiotics or a combination of herbs to kill off any bad bacteria and the probiotics.

It is just as important to look at what caused this to happen in the first place, so looking at what caused these issues to begin with is vital. There may be a particle food which is causing intolerances and symptoms, or it may be more stress related. Whatever the cause may be it is important to identify, in order to protect the gut long term.

So if you’re the type of person that reacts to almost every food then its time to look past the food and have a look at what your gut is looking like, because your body will always tell us, you just have to listen and look a bit harder sometimes.