Understanding what’s causing the “Fire in your Belly” is the key to putting out the fire. Yes, meds may dampen the fire, but they can’t really eliminate the flame?
Going to a traditional doctor with symptoms of heartburn may have you leaving the office with a prescription for a medication that will help curb the pain. But have you really had an explanation of the cause of this distressing problem? Probably not.
Depending on how frequently you experience heartburn may indicate a more serious problem called GERD. The next step your doctor may take is to refer you to a gastroenterologist to perform a test called an endoscopy to look at the tissues of the oesophagus. But that really isn’t getting to the core issue either.
Unfortunately, many doctors don’t even recommend simple things like eliminating certain inflammatory foods, suggestions on how to reduce stress in your life, the timing of your last meal, or losing weight that all can help eliminate night time reflux.
Our functional medicine approach is more of a search for “why are you having this problem in the first place?”
There are common myths about acid reflux:
- It’s normal- everybody has it
- Reflux and heart burn are the same thing
- Medication will cure acid reflux
- If meds don’t work, there’s always surgery
The first thing that I do with my patients here at Healing Unleashed is a very careful history, and physical exam and review of any other labs that you have had done or any procedures. And we want to begin by looking at your diet, we want to look at all the other issues that may be causing the problem. Then a diet history is the beginning of our program at Healing Unleash. Functional medicine labs, especially a stool analysis to evaluate digestion, gut inflammation, the health of your microbiome (good bugs) and a search for bad bugs. So many of my patients suffer from preventable GI issues that I make it priority to fully examine the causative factors.
Next Steps
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To help you get started on your health journey, I have created a special guide: It contains tips about what to do to get started on your journey to better gut health and busts a few myths about chronic illnesses. Simply click here to download the interactive guide!
