The Gut Diaries

There are a variety of factors that can influence your IBS symptoms. I have discovered my key ones are FODMAP foods, Food intolerances, Stress and Anxiety. I will continue to share with you how i tackled each of these factors head on to help grow a healthy happy gut. In this post we will be looking at the FODMAP diet, Food Intolerance tests and the after care of our gut.

FODMAP – Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols, which are short chain carbohydrates and sugar alcohols that are poorly absorbed by the body. These are what cause (or a factor of what causes) the pain and bloating .

• This diet cuts out many common foods that may contain high FODMAP foods.
• I eliminated them for around 8 weeks and then gradually reintroduced into a low-FODMAP diet to see if they cause symptoms (elimination diet). It is not meant to be a permanent solution because it is very restrictive, but it may work well enough to be a treatment for people with gastrointestinal (GI) problems.

For a list of high and low FODMAP foods i would highly recommend purchasing the Monash University App https://www.monashfodmap.com . In addition to this, you could download the FODMAP A to Z app which i have found extremely helpful in knowing what i can and can’t have during this process. Note that excessive low fodmap foods can however become high fodmap foods with excessive consumption… something i didn’t take into account during this time!

Food Intolerance test

Where i went: http://beachhousechiropractic.co.uk/food-sensitivity-testing/ Test: The Cambridge Food Detective IgG test £66.  

This was super easy to get done. All i had to do was book an appointment, turn up, have a prick of the finger for some blood to be taken for a sample and by the end of the day i had my results ready! Results: Highly Intolerant: Whole eggs and Cashews. Moderate: Soybean and Brazil nut. Low: Durum Wheat.

This test was vital as during my time following the FODMAP diet, although i was eating low FODMAPS, i was also eating a lot of food (mainly eggs, cashews and soy) which i was according to the Cambridge test, intolerant to.

As you could imagine, by this point i was eating less and less, something i didn’t want to happen as my diet was getting more and more restrictive. I was basically eating everyday fish, chicken and salad. In turn i was getting more frustrated but i knew i just needed to give this a good shot in order to heal my gut.

Probiotics, bone broth and apple cider vinegar – I genuinely think these has been one of the biggest factors in my gut healing process. I was recommended after my intolerance test that in order to introduce high fodmap foods again, in order for my stomach to tolerate them, it needs to be fit and strong again. At this stage it literally felt like it had been ripped up from the inside out.

Probiotics – Your gut flora plays a critical role in your health. However, your gut flora can get thrown out of balance allowing harmful bacteria to overpopulate. Probiotics should be introduced as they are a safe and promote a healthy balanced gut flora. They are live bacteria or yeast found in food and supplements. Some common examples of probiotic foods include yogurt, sauerkraut, tempeh, kimchi and other fermented foods.

Symprove: I began using symprove as it was highly recommended as an efficient way to get probiotics back in my gut populating away. As it is a liquid form, it was easy to start reintroducing these bacteria back in my gut. However, with each weekly bottle costing around £22, it was an expensive option seen as it was a 12 week programme. However, i can say it definietly made a difference in my gut. I felt less inflamed and over my sensitivity to food decreased.

BioKult: As a less expensive alternative i now take two BioKult capsules daily in order to continue introducing these good bacteria. So far so good , my symptoms have not flared up in a long time woo woo.

Bone broth – coming from a vegetarian/ vegan background this sounded like my worst nightmare!!! but at this stage, anything was welcome into my tum if it was to make me feel better. It is said that bone broth helps inflammation and healing the gut. How? Drinking bone broth daily may be a simple way to get anti-inflammatory amino acids into the body. Collagen and gelatine are vital proteins found in bone broth required to build and repair the GI tract lining and reduce food sensitivities.

Apple Cider Vinegar – Every morning i mix a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water. Why? It was suggested some digestive issues could have been due to a lack of bile being produced by the gut. In order to recreate the same conditions, apple cider vinegar aids in the digestion of foods. Like other fermented foods, unpasteurised apple cider vinegar contains healthy bacteria – the gut-friendly bacteria that helps to keep your digestive system working properly. Cider vinegar could provide relief for those with stomach problems because it neutralises stomach acid whilst acetic acid fights harmful bacteria.

The next blog will be dedicated to how you can relieve your IBS symptoms through simple lifestyle changes. Please feel free to share if you have found this helpful ❤ Lets share the tummy love.

Where this all began…

My gut has been a reoccurring issue since i was 17. 6 years on I have still been figuring out what works best for my gut and well being in order to feel like i can lead a normal healthy life.

I will try and keep this short and sweet because needless to say this has been a long frustrating journey but if this helps anyone in anyway it will be worth sharing what i found helped me.

Do you have gut issues? My symptoms included…

• Stabbing pains after eating (pain increased late at night)
• Serious bloating… has your midwife momma ever made you do a pregnancy scan?!? Thats when you know you have some serious bloating going on.
• Acid reflux (it not so sexy when you’re burping all day err day)
• Mc Fart a lot (yeah that one not so sexy either)
• lower back pain

In tern, this has also caused further symptoms such as…

• Fear of eating certain foods
• Increased anxiety
• Increased stress (which then in turn increases your fight or flight mode…more on this later)

Where my journey started

Coming from a history of restricting foods during my late teens, it is unsurprising i have been suffering with the reintroduction of foods throughout the past 6 years. If you take anything from this post, I would like to encourage you all to keep your diet as diverse as possible. May your tummy be filled with a diverse array of healthy happy bacteria <3. As your brains second hand man, I can’t stress how much how important it is to care for our guts. Anyways, enough rambling. Story time… during travelling south east Asia, i noticed my IBS first started to occur as a real problem. It would leave me feeling sick at night, bloated and just grumpy AF (I am forever sorry to all the people who have met that side of KT… you know who you are). NO MORE MEAT: During this time i gave up meat and become a vegetarian for the next 5 years. NO MORE DAIRY: I then went on to a vegan lifestyle for about a year whilst i was at university. I did all these steps in an attempt to see if a vegan diet would reduce my IBS symptoms. Although initially i felt like i had made improvements, i still would have flare ups ever now and then.

My most recent experience

During my most recent internship in bali this year i experienced the worst of the worst in a long time of these symptoms. From vomiting, pooping, bloating and a lot of pain after eating, i decided enough was enough and promised myself i would sort this out when i returned to the UK.

My experience with doctors

In my experience, sorry to be blunt but they are useless. When i first went to see them at around 17 they basically just told me bloating was normal. I know the difference between normal bloating and going to sleep crying in pain. I have had two tests done… celiac and the H.Pylori which both returned as negative. Due to the extensive time and effort i had to go to get any of these appointments or tests done, i decided to do my own research. Sure, if i could have afforded it at the time i would highly recommend you go speak to a qualified nutritionist. Which leads me onto what i have been recently been doing to heal my gut… follow onto my next blog regarding the steps i have taken to reach a recovery process (: