Case Study: Gut Health Journey #9

Blog Post by Coach Julie

NCI Certified Nutrition Coach L1 & Certified Mindset Coach
Specializing in Women's Health and Gut Health

I began Phase 4, the reintroduction phase, on July 7th.  With this phase I started 2 new supplements Flora Protect and a supplement called PepZin GI.  These two supplements are to repopulate the gut with good bacteria and to protect the gut barrier and gut immunity.  I will maintain the S. Boulardii with these two supplements and I have continued the peppermint oil.  I am reintroducing foods on a 3 day cycle.  The first day, I will consume half a serving of a certain food.  If I don’t have symptoms, I will continue to day two where I will consume a half serving twice per day.  Assuming there are still no symptoms, I will eat a normal serving on day 3.  Day 4 is a rest day, to make sure that I don’t experience any delayed symptoms.  Sometimes delayed symptoms can occur if you’re experiencing constipation so we’ve built in a rest day to allow any symptoms to subside before we start a new 3 day cycle with a different food.  After the end of the cycle, if there were no symptoms, I have been waiting a week or so and then reincorporating those foods back into my normal diet.  

Since the last update, I have reintroduced: ranch dressing, granola, avocado, ice cream, pears, beets, onion and garlic.  All have been a successful introduction. The only noticeable symptoms I have had occurred during the garlic reintroduction.  I had minimal stomach upset and a little bit of a bloated feeling.  Not enough that I will completely exclude garlic, but I will keep it to a minimum.

I am still working through a list of foods that I had eliminated and this will continue until I have tried all the foods that I eliminated so that I am either back to a normal diet or have identified some trigger foods.  I am getting very close to wrapping this phase up, I have 3 more foods that I would like to add.  I am taking this phase very slowly to be sure that I can clearly identify if there are some trigger foods.  My coach has said that I can probably wrap it up, but I feel more comfortable maintaining this cadence until everything I used to eat is included.

I have discontinued all the supplements, including S. Boulardii, with the exception of the PepZin GI and Peppermint Oil.  I will be continuing those through the Nexium cessation phase.  

After this phase, we will move on to Phase 5 where we will eliminate Nexium and work on increasing my stomach acid levels.  I have the protocol and I know what I will be adding, however I am not going to start this until I have completed the current supplementation and the reintroduction phase.  With my forecasting, it looks like I will be starting that phase on December 3rd.