Can I ever get rid of my gut problems? I’ve tried elimination diets and supplements but nothing seems to help.

You can definitely get rid of your gut problems. While it's impossible to say whether you can resolve them completely and permanently, you can certainly feel better.

A good way to think about your health is to imagine yourself in a field. The field is your health landscape. At the side of the field is a ditch: think of the ditch as disease or the symptoms you're experiencing.

One of the challenges when we're navigating our health is that we never know whether we're right in the middle of this field, or whether we're right by the ditch. And if we're right by the ditch, it's not going to take much for us to fall back in and become symptomatic.

That could be a day to day stressor: a deadline that we have at work, a family loss or an acute trauma.

What's the root cause of your symptoms?

While you can't know for sure where you are within your landscape of health, what you can do is explore what the underlying imbalances are that are contributing to your symptoms.

You can focus on cultivating resilience, because the more resilient you can become, the more central you’ll be in that field of your health.

If you have recurring IBS symptoms and you've tried various elimination diets and a few different protocols, it's possible that the problem goes beyond your gut.

A common issue is compromised immunity. Your immune system has a big role to play in regulating your microbiome, so anything that’s straining your immune system is going to prevent a healthy microbiome from establishing itself.

Another common issue—for example—molds that lay hidden in water-damaged buildings: they can end up in our bodies and produce toxins that can suppress your immune system.

Anything that stresses your immune system prevents your body from being a hospitable environment for a healthy microbiome. The healthier you are, the healthier that your microbiome and digestive system are going to be. 

Don't know where to turn? 

It might be a good idea to consider working with a practitioner if your attempts at healing your gut aren’t working.

In a nutshell, if you haven’t found lasting relief from a few different protocols, we recommend having a one-to-one conversation with a practitioner to explore next steps.