Serena, a dietitian with autoimmune disease, explains how functional gut testing could have changed her treatment. Instead of steroids and NSAIDs, tests for gut-lining integrity, microbiome balance, and toxins might have revealed the underlying causes doctors missed.
So Serena, if you had had a team approach, like how we give our patients here at the time that you were diagnosed with your autoimmune disease process, how would your life have been different, if at all?
So if I wasn't a dietitian already back then, I would probably have an improved diet. I would avoid some of those inflammatory foods I was eating unknowingly because conventional nutrition teaches us everything is healthy as long as it's in the right portions. But in reality, there are some foods that can provoke autoimmune inflammation for people who are, you know, prone to stomach problems, which back then I was because of all the antibiotics I took prophylactically. I would have loved to do some of the special testing, which is what we do for our patients here when they have gut symptoms. We don't just do an infection test, we look at a functional gut test. Looking at the integrity of your gut lining, looking at your microflora to see whether or not they're balanced and healthy. It would have been nice for us to do a toxin testing. So some of these fabulous testing that perpetuate inflammation that the doctors back then didn't have an answer for. Actually they did. I take that back. The answer was you have an inflammation, we don't know what the cause is. Here's some steroids or here's some like in non steroidal anti inflammatory medication and you know, it's a very good and quick fix. However, those medications, as you know, they cause long term problems down the road.
