Advocating for a Diagnosis and Natural Treatment

Welcome to The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome. This is Lindsey Parsons, your host, and today I'm talking with Dr. Heather Hausenblas, a physical activity and healthy aging expert, researcher, and author, most recently of Invisible Illness: An Insider's Guide to Eliminating Overwhelm and Rediscovering the Path to Health and Happiness with an Autoimmune Disease. Heather became interested in autoimmunity after her son was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. She has a PhD in kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario, is currently a professor at Jacksonville University in the Brooks Rehabilitation College of Healthcare Sciences. Her research focuses on the psychological effects of health behaviors, in particular physical activity and diet across the lifespan. But before I get started, if you haven't yet followed or subscribed to the show, be sure to do so. And if you want to get transcripts of the podcast, pop over to my website, HighDesertHealthCoaching.com, and sign up for my newsletter. You'll also get my free e-booklet, Finding Your Root Cause Through Stool and Organic Acids Testing, when you sign up. Now on to the show.

Welcome to the podcast, Heather.

Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm excited to have you. Let me start just by asking how old your son was when he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and what his symptoms were that led doctors to suspect a Crohn's diagnosis versus just calling it a something that was normal for growing kids, like my son, they said, oh, it's just normal. Some kids feel, you know, rather than getting headaches, they get stomachaches or like a nervous stomach or things that doctors tend to say when kids have GI issues.

He was 16 when he was finally diagnosed and it really was a process. And looking back, we could see it almost years in the making, but it was in the fall of his junior year that he really became quite sick. And we honestly just thought, it's It's a virus. He's just picked up something. And it wasn't until he finally said, Mom, Dad, I have diarrhea. And we're like, okay. But he's like, no, I have it all day. I'm like, how many days has it been all day? And this has been going on for a while. And he was really trying to hide it and live in almost isolation about it because it really is something you don't tend to talk about. We don't tend to talk about how many times we go to the bathroom. So really it was my husband and I pushing and pushing and pushing through healthcare when we weren't happy with answers that we were getting, that it just was nothing and that it was gonna pass away, or they just weren't sure. And that's really how we came to finally getting his diagnosis and not accepting saying that he's gonna be okay in a few days and saying, no, it's, it's, he's not okay. And there's something really, really wrong. So it was us being an advocate for him and not giving up and having many, many doctor's appointments until we finally got the diagnosis.

And was he having pain as well, or was it just the diarrhea?

He was having pain sometimes. It really became near around the last month that he was having excruciating pain. And it was really, if you can believe it, in his throat. And he was saying that he had never experienced throat pain like that. And we only honestly thought, oh, he probably has strep or something along those, something along those lines. And it wasn't until we finally got the diagnosis that it was the realization that he had ulcers. Because of his Crohn's disease.

Now that's interesting.

I've never heard that.

So they were Crohn's ulcers all the way that high up, or was it that it was pushing up acid, or?

It was pushing up the acid and being in the constant pain that way that was causing those ulcers literally in the back of his throat.

When did it start in the end? Did you find out from him like when the diarrhea started and the problems started?

The problems got really, really bad in about middle of October, and he got his official diagnosis the beginning of December. It got to the point where we know something's wrong, we're trying to figure figure it out. He began to eat dinner and then not eat anything until about lunch the next day. He began to skip breakfast so that he was hoping to get through a period or two at school. And then it became almost clockwork where I get a call from him asking me to sign him out from school. He'd come home for a couple hours, literally lie on the couch, try to eat a little bit, and then get back to school for the last period. And we just thought he had some weird kind of virus and we couldn't figure it out. And this went on for a few weeks and then it was finally us going to the doctors and not leaving until we were getting answers and we were actually beginning to get what we felt were tests that needed to be run, just not your standard tests. We said, we need more. There's something wrong. We need a stool test. We need this. We need that. And it was finally at that point where we had his pediatrician finally really listen and say, okay, there is something wrong.

Had this been going on since he was like 5 or was it just a relatively new problem at 16?

Oh, it's a good question. And looking back, we could see signs and symptoms when he was really, really young where he would have these emergency trips to the bathroom where vivid memories of us leaving a restaurant, we get in the car pulling out of the parking lot and him speaking up in the backseat saying he had to go to the bathroom. And my husband would say, let's just wait till we get home. Well, he couldn't wait till we got home. So it got to the point when he was really young that we would always say before we leave the house, do you have to go to the bathroom? And he'd go to the the bathroom and still almost like clockwork, we were in the car for a couple minutes and he would have to go. And it usually happened after he ate. It seemed like he would go from feeling great to all of a sudden having strep or having pneumonia or having bronchitis. And this was this recurring pattern that occurred with him. And it seemed that stress would often trigger it. And when I say stress would be things like the start of a school year, we could almost guarantee that he was sick for at least a good couple of days at the beginning of every school year. And looking back, we can say, okay, these were the signs and symptoms growing over time. This didn't happen overnight.

It sounds like you started out with his pediatrician and then were within the traditional medical care system. Did you eventually move to seeing like naturopaths or functional medicine doctors?

We did do the traditional route with healthcare and he had his pediatric gastroenterologist, which we felt played a role and did help. With getting the diagnosis, some medical tests that he needed, but it pretty much stopped there because it was really the push for, for medicine. And I felt it wasn't working. And I was able to, with my background, search the drug that he was on and realized that it really was not efficacious. So it was me using my connections within kind of the health and wellness and functional medicine area to seek out these experts and meet with them and talk with them and realize that there's many ways to be become healthy. And what we did almost instantly after he was diagnosed was dramatically change his diet. And we feel that that in large part was what led him on the road to recovery quickly.

Had you already done your PhD? Were you already in this field or—

I got my PhD about 25 years ago. So I have been in this field of health psychology and health behaviors for a long time. Doing a lot of research. My research largely focused on the psychological effects of physical activity and moving. And honestly, it came from the training in the background that if you exercise, you'll be healthy. Well, it really wasn't until he was diagnosed and we changed his diet that I realized that diet is the most important thing I feel with this disease and with many, many diseases or conditions. And if you don't change your diet, it's going to be very difficult to be healthy or maintain health.

That's interesting you say that just because I do see a lot of people and I think about my husband, for example, he has perfectly good diet for somebody who doesn't have any health issues, right? But there's this idea, well, I exercise a lot, therefore it's okay if I eat an entire bag of potato chips at a sitting or something. Not that he really does that all that much, but it's just this well, because I'm exercising and because my weight is stable, I should be able to eat what I wanna eat no matter how junky or crappy it is. Exactly.

It's really interesting. I, I'm, and I fell into that category and this is what I researched and I really felt that exercise and moving was one of the most important things we can do for our health. And if you exercise, then you're fine. And my son, he played varsity baseball, so he was extremely active and I thought he was okay and we ate kind of healthy. But when you do a deep dive, you realize, It's shocking, honestly, how disturbing our food actually is when you take a deep dive into it.

Yeah. So tell me about the diet changes that, that he had to make and that you made as a family.

The family one was a challenge because we have 3 boys and Tommy's our oldest. And I mean, I'm lucky to get one meal on the table. So let alone being a short-order cook and making meals for everybody. So that became a bit of a challenge and kind of the running joke with his younger brothers began to become. If Tommy could eat it, then they didn't want to eat it because they felt that it was just too, just too healthy. But we've come a long way. And what happened when Tommy was first diagnosed, I immediately reached out to a friend who I knew her son had Crohn's disease. And at this point, I didn't even know what Crohn's disease was. And she met me the following day and I talked with her and she talked about diet and she put her son on the specific carbohydrate diet. I'd never heard of this diet, but I went home and began to research it and I really needed to grasp onto something. And that was something that I could grasp onto and I read up on it and there was minimal science on it, but there was enough for me to say, I need to do this. It intuitively made sense. So we went bare bones with him and followed the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for several months. Now you fast forward 2 and a half years later and he eats what I would consider a very clean diet. We're talking about organic, lots of fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats, eliminating pretty much all sugars, anything that's processed. Basically, if you look at an ingredient label and you can't pronounce it, we're not buying it. And eating as much as possible in the house as opposed to eating out.

And I know that one of the things that's particularly bad for people with Crohn's are these gums and emulsifiers. Is that something that you had to focus on a lot with him?

I did, in the sense of just going what I call bare bones with his diet. So cutting out all sugars, all types of additives, and really taking a deep dive into ingredients and honestly spending literally hundreds of hours searching products, trying to find products out there that we could trust, that we knew were organic and didn't have all these basic added chemicals. In them. And that in and of itself took so much time. And I was lucky because I was able myself to go on medical leave for work because of a family member sick. I was able to take a medical leave to get my son healthy. And a lot of people don't have that opportunity. And that's— I felt literally it took to get him healthy again. It almost became my full-time job. And it's just not right for other people not to have these opportunities to be healthy. So my goal is to try to create awareness and make it a little bit easier for people to regain their health or the health of somebody that they love if they become sick.

I may be wrong on this, but I think under the changes to the Family Leave Act that came under Clinton, we all got the ability to leave for, I think, 6 weeks for a family illness. Maternity leave, for example, I was able to do 6 weeks of that and get— use my sick leave time. So I think if you have a workplace of above 50 people that that applies.

I believe that is the case also.

So specific carbohydrate diet, people may not be familiar with what that entails. Can you just go dig a little bit deeper on what kinds of things are included and excluded in that diet?

Yes, it's a restrictive diet. It's based largely on eliminating your processed foods, clearly a focus on, on organic, but it went much more beyond that with focusing largely on fruits and vegetables and meats, but going to the lists for the specific carbohydrate, of their legal and illegal foods. And I would almost use this as a Bible and continually go back to this list to determine what are legal foods. So foods that somebody with IBD could eat on this specific carbohydrate diet. But interestingly, what continually kept coming up on this SCD or specific carbohydrate diet was yogurt, not just any type of yogurt, but a homemade fermented yogurt. I learned through the process to make this yogurt myself. And I feel that that was something that my son was eating multiple times a day because it was very almost comforting on his gut and didn't hurt him, didn't cause him any pain. And he ate this continually, daily for several months. Now you fast forward to 2 and a half years later and he can't stand the yogurt. He ate it so much at the beginning, but this probiotic yogurt, I really feel, played a really, really big role. But it was me doing a deep dive into food and beginning to make a lot of things from scratch. For example, almond milk. I bought almond milk, what I thought was healthy, from the grocery store. But then if I looked at the label, Oftentimes it was made just with almond extract. There wasn't even almonds in it, and there were all these added preservatives. So I began to make, for example, almond milk from scratch, orange juice from scratch. If I could figure out how to make it from scratch, even coming down to salad dressings, I would do that knowing that I had control over the ingredients and then what he would be eating. I almost felt like I was becoming the sneaky chef and trying to sneak healthy things into the food to try to make it taste a little bit better. With this diet, you, you cut out all types of sugar except for natural sugar from honey. So that was the sweetener. That was used in his food.

When I think about the specific carbohydrate diet, and I was talking on one of my previous podcasts with Dr. Steven Sandberg-Lewis about this, that it's essentially some combination of low FODMAPs and specific carbohydrate, right? I think it was low in a certain type of fiber, was it? I can't recall whether it was the soluble or the insoluble. And that that points to the fact that at the root of Crohn's and colitis for that matter may be overgrowth of bacteria, that in essence you're starving out some of those bacteria by pulling out some types of fiber.

You know, it is a good question, and we really don't know enough at this point because unfortunately when you take a look at the research, the medical research, meaning things typically with, with drugs and, and surgery, dwarfs research within diet and nutrition. But that is changing because there have been some pretty interesting studies that are recently coming up on these different types of diets, including the specific carbohydrate diet, maybe the FODMAP diet, a gluten-free type of diet, and, and testing to see if this actually is an efficacious or a good treatment for individuals with IBD. In part, they're showing that yes, diet does play a role. Does it need to be the specific carbohydrate diet? Is that the only diet to follow?

No.

That was the one that we grabbed onto at the beginning. Does my son still follow it 100%?

No.

It's a difficult diet to maintain in the long term. And once he began to feel better, we lessened up a little bit and increased the number of legal foods. Now that he's a sophomore, you know, at university and he's off on his own a lot more, he's got, has a little bit more freedom. He's at a point where he's telling me, "Mom, I try my best to eat as healthy as possible, but sometimes it's a little bit of a challenge." Yeah, that's where he is right now.

Yeah. And so was he gluten-free as part of that?

You know, it's interesting. We did start off with him being gluten-free for the first couple of months and it was him coming to me saying, "Mom, I think I can eat gluten. I don't think that's the problem." So we slowly began to introduce gluten into his diet. And when I say we introduced gluten back in, we were eating really healthy to begin with and it was oftentimes like sourdough bread from the local bakery that I would get that he really, really liked. I say he was eating gluten, he was eating really, really high quality food. And I think oftentimes the whole gluten thing gets mixed up with— not mixed up, but couched within a lot of unhealthy foods as well.

We have a local baker here and I am generally sensitive to gluten and I was talking to him about the bread and he says, you know, when we use this sourdough rising process, or it's a complete process that eliminates most of the gluten from the bread by the time you're done with it. And so at the end, the bread that you have is a lot healthier than maybe a quick rise bread that didn't ferment for 24 hours or 48 hours or however long they ferment their bread for.

Right. And I even began to make my own gluten-free bread for a while as well at the, at the house. And luckily I'm like, this has taken a lot of time and luckily found a bakery that was making this type of sourdough bread that you're talking about, which was excellent for for him to eat and he really, really likes. So it's, it's, it's a process, right? And I think that the take-home message is that everybody is different and no one diet is necessarily gonna fit everybody. So it's a trial and error and you need to figure out what's going to work for you. I recommend, and what worked for us is almost going, I don't wanna say going bare bones, but really stripping down and it is gluten-free and sugar-free and no additives and lots of fruits and vegetables, and then slowly beginning to reintroduce foods. To see, okay, can he eat this or can he, can he not? But really by sticking or staying away completely from, from sugar and, and fast foods and trying to eat as, eat at the house as much as possible because that's where you really have control over what you're putting in your mouth.

I know most of my listeners are struggling with gut health issues or else you wouldn't be listening to a podcast that this, this inside baseball on gut health.

So I just wanted to let you know that in addition to being a podcaster, I work one-on-one with clients around gut health issues like IBS, IBD, SIBO, SIFO, or invasive candidiasis, constipation, diarrhea, soft stool, food sensitivities, and other health issues like autoimmune diseases, skin issues, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia. I help clients locate the least expensive lab tests that they can order themselves online to determine the root cause of their issues, then educate them on protocols used by practitioners to address those issues. The first step in seeing if health coaching might be right for you is setting up a free 30-minute breakthrough session with me., and you can tell me what you've been going through and I'll let you know if it sounds like something I think I can help with based on what you've already tried. So you can find a link to set up a free session in the show notes.

So you said you did eventually get some more complex testing. Was there anything they found on that testing, like Candida overgrowth or bacterial, like SIBO or anything like that that was eventually treated?

With the testing that we did, it was a diagnosis of Crohn's disease and then getting the really the inflammation out of his body into a level where it was normal. So the cause, we'll never know 100%, right? What was the actual cause? Looking back, I, I think that it was related to early antibiotic use that kind of really threw off his gut. I really think that's what, what the cause was, because as a very young child, I remember before the age of 1, he had an ear infection. And what did he get? Antibiotic. And I can remember many times when he was young, he was getting antibiotics, whether it was strep or different illnesses that he had. And I think that threw him off and then just kind of started slowly. I think it was kind of in him and creating and becoming worse and worse until the point where he was diagnosed.

Just looking at the one-pager from your book, you mentioned some simple tips that people suffering with autoimmune disease can follow to find their way back to health.

What, what are some of those tips?

So some of the simple tips are you have to listen to your body and trust your body. Go and take a close look at your diet and what you're eating and what you're putting in your mouth first and foremost. Because if we take a look at what makes us healthy, about 50% of our health is related to our health behaviors, with the top 3 being our diet, whether you smoke or, or don't smoke, and then how much you exercise, where you live or the environment. Diet counts for about another 20%. Your access to healthcare only counts for about 10%, and then your genetics counts for about 20%. So what you get from your parents that you can't change. So that kind of encompasses what makes you healthy. But the bulk is our health behaviors, about 50% of why we're healthy. So I want people to know that they have a lot of power over their health because we can control our health behaviors. You have control over what you eat. You have control over how much you exercise, whether you smoke or not, for example, and also your sleep, which is something that we tend to forget about. But sleep is vital and it is so important and to make sure that you're getting enough sleep and keeping your stress level down. So I think what is critical, the tips, and there's many different simple health tips. You need to take a look at your diet. You need to take a look at how much you move or exercise during a 24-hour period. And you need to closely take a look also at how you're, how you're sleeping. Also your stress level as well. Like what is causing you stress or anxiety. And we saw this with our son firsthand when he was experiencing stressful periods during the school year. We saw his symptoms increase, especially when he was first diagnosed, probably the first year after diagnosis. One example was he was supposed to take the SAT one Saturday. Friday night, he was in pain, he wasn't feeling good, he was running to the bathroom, and it was the stress caused by having potentially to take the SAT So we ended up canceling it and he took it at a later date, but he finally came to us and said that he was really worried that if he had to go to the bathroom during the SAT, what was he going to do? And that was us saying, oh my gosh, we never even thought about this. And then getting paperwork done so that he could then get a potential— not an exemption, but he had to stop the clock so that if he did go to the bathroom, they would stop the clock on his SAT. So if he was in the bathroom for 10, 15 minutes, he would he wouldn't lose that time on his test. So these were things that we began to do for him and got these types of accommodations done, not only when he was taking the SAT, but also at his high school and now at his university as well. If he does need it, it's in place, and that actually reduces his stress knowing that there is that opportunity for him and that if he does get stressed or if he has to go to the bathroom during an exam, that he's not gonna lose any time on his test.

You know, I imagine there are a lot of people who don't think about, oh, I've got this gastrointestinal thing, that's a disability, but they could go to the disability services office at their school or their counselor at their high school and get those accommodations.

And you're so right, you tend not to think that way, that this is a disability, but there are things in place to help because it is. When you're spending, or if you're in pain or you're spending that much time in the, in the bathroom There's even Ali's Law, for example, that was passed where you can— if now you're in a store and it's a retail store and they have a restroom, that if you have the card, the Ali's Law card, then you're able to use that, use that restroom. Because we don't realize, or a lot of people don't realize, that when some people say they have to go, they have to go. Like, there's no waiting till later. It is an emergency.

I'm totally not familiar with this Ali's Law. So where do you get the card?

You can apply online for it and you'll get it in the mail. And it's, it's an interesting story. It's a girl named Allie who many years ago, and she had Crohn's disease, and she was shopping with her mother in a retail store. She had to go to the bathroom and she had to go right away, and there was no restrooms anywhere close outside the store. So they asked to use the employees' restroom in the store and they were denied access. And she had an embarrassing accident in the middle of the store, and her mother advocated that this would never happen to anybody else, so went through the steps to get this passed as a law, and it's passed as a law in many, many states. And now you can get this card, you keep it in your wallet, and you show it when you're out saying, I need to use this washroom, it's an emergency, you can't deny me access, and you show it.

Wow.

I will find a link for that and I will put that on my, on my show notes for how to apply.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I will send you the link. It is not difficult to complete and it's a small thing, but it can provide a lot of comfort for, for individuals and it's an important step forward.

Absolutely. So one of the topics that you seem to be passionate about is journaling for health. So can you tell me a little bit more about that?

It was a process for me. When our son was first diagnosed, and myself, I was experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety and having a difficult time sleeping at night because I'd wake up in the middle of the night trying to think about, okay, what do I need to do to get him healthy and keep some level of normalcy for our other two boys? And this began my routine of waking up in the morning and actually starting to keep a gratitude journal or a thankful journal. And it would literally only take a couple minutes, not a lot of, not a lot of time. And it was a simple whole process, but it actually set my day off on a more positive note and kind of reframed how I, how I thought about things and almost had this calming effect on me. And what I also immediately started to do for my son is I began to track his food, kept a food sensitivity log, basically keeping track of everything that he was eating during the day, how many times he was going to the bathroom, if he was having any symptoms, how he was feeling so that I could begin to to pinpoint if there were certain foods that he was eating that were triggering his symptoms or foods that were these safe foods that were really, really good for him. And I feel that that was so important to be able to track it and be able to look back at his diet and see what, you know, what potential symptoms were that really helped him on his road to recovery. And I began then, of course, as I do with most things, was dig into the science. And there is a great deal of science showing that keeping a gratitude journal is extremely powerful for, for people's overall health, making them more productive, putting them in a better mood, and just being kinder and overall, overall healthier. And the same thing with the food sensitivity log as well. So I'm a very strong advocate for these because they are really, really simple to do. They don't take an extreme amount of time and they're not expensive. You can create your own journal if you want, Or you can go on, for example, Amazon and buy a journal for, for less than $10 that will last you several months and you can use that as a guide. So I'm a really big fan of science-based health techniques that are easy for people to do and are not overwhelming. And to me, journaling and health journaling is a very simple thing to do that can create a lot of positive health effects.

You know, it's interesting because when I began my training as a health coach and launched my business, one of the questions that they suggested we ask new potential clients is, what are 5 things you love about your life? And at first, it just felt fluffy to me to have that at the end of the questionnaire, but I left it on there because I liked hearing the answers. And I've noticed as time has gone on that there are people who are really suffering and yet can still find 5 things that they're very thankful for. And that they, that they love about their life. And then there's some people who are just so down in the dumps that they can't find a single thing to put there. And, you know, I think about what the prognosis is for someone who's got not a single bit of hope to begin with, that it's almost the necessary precursor to healing.

I love that you, you did that. I love that you say it was— you feel like it was almost hokey to do it. It almost seems fluffy, but it's, in a sense, the simplicity of it is so brilliant and that it does work. And I know for myself, especially at at the beginning when our son was really sick, I'd have to dig deep some mornings to find even a couple things that I was thankful for, you know, as simple as, you know, my morning cup of coffee. But over time it grows and becomes bigger, and you realize that you do have so many things to be thankful for. And by keeping this gratitude journal, it just really reframes how you think about things. You begin to find the silver lining in a lot of things. And we do know the power of the mind and the power of positive thinking has an incredible effect on our health.

Absolutely. Yeah, no, after I went through sciatica, just feeling so thankful for having my body back and being able to walk. That piece alone, I'm still constantly just amazed that I'm not in excruciating pain every day and how thankful I am for that and how thankful I am to have an able body. And it's one of those things that sometimes you have to have lost it to understand what it is to get it back.

It's so true. It's really, It's unfortunate, but I get it. It's not until we've lost a piece of our health that we don't really appreciate it. And we almost, we take things for granted, right? And a gratitude journal reframes how you think so that you're not taking these little things for granted and you're not taking your health, your wellness, maybe it's your walk with your dog, your morning cup of coffee, sitting quietly or peacefully or watching your favorite TV show, whatever it may be, that you begin not to take those things for granted.

Every night before I go to bed, I just thank God for each of the things that I'm grateful for. And some of it's just the basics, that I'm in a safe house, that I have a warm bed, because I think about refugees and people like that who have none of that. And just try and keep my perspective that even the very basics, and we try to do this with our kids too. We tried to have a gratefulness circle going around the dinner table, but for the life of me, I couldn't get them to look at the simple things and just be thankful. It was, you know, it was whatever they were currently unhappy about was more they wanted to complain about that rather than find something to be thankful for.

Right.

It's so true because we do tend to focus more on the negative. But you bring a great point about around meals or around the dinner table when you actually do finally slow down and sit down. It's a great opportunity just to take a couple minutes, not even potentially even just a minute, to express what is everybody thankful for for the day, or to say somebody take the lead on what they were thankful for. And it just kind kind of sets the mood and sets the tone and makes everybody sit back and say, okay, we do actually have a lot to be thankful for because we get just so caught up in our day-to-day and the stress of our day-to-day and we need to do more and more and more. And that's not the case. We need to really slow down and reset.

Yeah. And the impact on your health. I mean, what does it, what does the science say about the impact of gratefulness on your health? Gratitude.

It's really quite impressive. There are hundreds of studies now. Showing that individuals who express gratitude, whether it's journaling every day, being thankful, has incredible health benefits for them. And it's so simple and easy, so simple and easy to do. So it's something that I recommend people do, whether you want to create a journal yourself or buy one that's out there. It's so simple to do. All you literally need is a pen and some paper and you start doing your journaling.

So any other lifestyle practices that you found were helpful for your son?

The main one, you know, and as I've mentioned, was really this incredible change in his diet, trying to eat at the house as much as possible, jumping onto a diet that we felt was going to work and going bare bones and then beginning to lessen up on it over time and include more of these legal foods. I recommend people get support. You need help. And I was somebody that was able to, to reach out to individuals within the health wellness community and to find other parents that were going through similar things that I was, that I could meet and actually meet for lunch or talk on the phone or go for a walking meeting. Because to have that type of support is extremely important, not just from your health team, but also from family members or friends or people that you can relate to that are going through something that's really, really similar. I think it's so important because there's so often you feel really alone and by having or creating this community, then that will lessen. And I know there's incredible support teams now out there. On the, on the internet as well. If you feel like you can't get out of that, get out of the house, or we're doing our social distancing right now. So there is that type of support as well. My husband and I, we joined the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation and join their walks and try to create awareness and raise money for the organization as well so that we can try to help others who are going through this or have a loved one that's going through it.

And is that foundation functional-minded? It's not just traditional medical?

Yes, there is some functional-mindedness in it. There, there is a large medical focus as well, but you, you do see a focus on the diet and importance of exercise, and they really do have some great outlets for family members and even for young kids who are suffering.

So did you have some mentors or authors around the topic of Crohn's disease or autoimmunity in general that you that you followed?

At the beginning, no, because as I said, when I was first diagnosed, I'd heard of Crohn's disease. I couldn't have even told you exactly what it was. So I was really starting almost at ground zero to try to learn the disease. So it was really connecting with individuals, connecting with organizations. And I reached out to a medical doctor, David Suskind, and he actually responded to my email and I talked with him because I was really impressed with what he was doing. Because he's a medical doctor who deals with pediatric issues, in particular IBD and, and IBS. And he was researching SCD, and I was really impressed with the fact that he listened to his patients when they came in, and his patients' parents were saying that the diet does play a role. And he began to hear them talking about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, so he began to research it, and now he's a very strong advocate for it because because he knows that diet does play a really big role in the help of, of healing from, from this disease. And he also realizes how difficult a strict diet is to follow. So he's doing some really cutting-edge research on modifying the specific carbohydrate diet, meaning what happens if you include some ileal foods? Are you going to be okay? So he actually has a clinical trial going on right now that hopefully will be published sometime in the near future that will bring even more light to this. So I'm a big advocate of that, and I began to read honestly everything I possibly could on Crohn's disease, buying a lot of books on IBD, IBS, listening and reading to, reading people's stories and listening podcasts. So I was just trying to soak in as much information as I possibly could to try to understand what would be the best path for us.

Besides David Susskind, were there books that you found particularly useful or?

I think the books that I was drawn to the most were from these health wellness functional medicine, more naturalistic doctors' books that were out there. In particular, I became a very big fan of Dr. Mark Hyman. He's a functional medicine doctor.

Cleveland Clinic. Yes.

I, I love what he has done. The books that he has written, um, his podcast are phenomenal. Dr. Josh Axe, as well as another individual that I really went to his website, knowing that things were going to be science-based. His books are phenomenal. And an individual who's a big leader in the health wellness industry named Naomi Whittle as well, who's done a lot and written some New York Times bestsellers on specific diets and how they help with overall health. So it was really trying to take these leaders that are out there, see what they're doing, and, and learn from them and read, read what they're doing.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, those are, those are Those are great resources. I hadn't heard of Nomi Wittle. I'll have to check her out. So tell me about the research that you're doing now.

So my research most recently is largely focusing on sleep and how sleep affects our overall health and focusing on whether it's a supplement, potentially a type of music that can help us sleep better. And most recently, I've actually begun to take a look at some of the health effects of journaling and how keeping a gratitude journal or keeping, for example, movement journal, how that will help people overall on their health path, whether it will help them move more, to sleep better, to be more thankful, to be more productive, or to lower their stress.

So on the topic of sleep, what do you find are some of the biggest obstacles to people getting good sleep, and what are some of the solutions related to those obstacles?

I would say one of the biggest obstacles right now is how much we're plugged in during the day with our electronics. Sleep is a behavior that we do. We do it every single day. So you would think that we'd be experts at it, but large part, most of us are not very good sleepers. So a few simple tips to help with sleep: get your electronics out of your room, get the TV out of the room, and do something quiet before you go to bed. Read for a couple minutes, but you want to create a sleep environment where you're sleeping in a very quiet, dark room and to begin to have this consistent bedtime and this consistent wake time, meaning that try to go to bed at about the same time every night and also try to wake up at about the same time every morning. Because we have our circadian rhythm, a circadian clock that resets every day, and we're creatures of habit. And this is really, really important. And I know myself, I used to fight this for years because I'm really more of a morning morning person. I love to get up, you know, around 5 in the morning. And on the weekends, I would feel this pressure to stay up till midnight or beyond. And I just stopped doing that because, because it didn't work for me and would really throw off my health. So I think those are really simple tips. And for people to, to state that my sleep is important and I need to make it a priority during my day, and what I do during my day is going to affect my sleep at night, meaning that if you don't move enough during the day, you're probably not going to as well at night. So you should try to exercise every day. You should be getting outside every day and getting that natural light, which is so important. And you do need to watch what you eat as well, because certain foods can throw off your sleep, especially eating a large meal right before bedtime. So these are things that people have control over. And to have people think about sleep as a really, really important health behavior, and that if they don't get a good quality of sleep, it's going to affect everything that they do the next day.

Right. I've talked to clients who are completely exhausted and they have brain fog and they're only getting 5 hours of sleep a night and I'm thinking, well, that seems like it's probably the first thing you need to address because it may not be because of a gut issue that you're, you've got brain fog. I mean, it may be, but the 5 hours of sleep are a bigger culprit.

Yeah. And it, and it's all related. Your body's gonna have a hard time healing properly if you're not getting adequate sleep. So it it is really, really critical and it's important for people to say, okay, I've gotta take my sleep time and know that it is so important for my health that if I'm not gonna sleep well at night, it's gonna affect everything the next day. I'm not gonna be as productive. I'm gonna be grumpier. I'm probably not gonna eat as healthy because have you ever noticed that when you are tired, what type of food do you begin to crave?

Oh yeah. You gotta get that instant pick-me-up with the carbs.

Exactly. So it's for people to understand that, okay, I need to, I need to realize that my sleep is important and that there's many things that I can do to sleep better that are in my control, that I do have control over.

Yeah. So one thing that I hear a lot from clients is, I don't have any trouble getting to sleep, but I'm waking up at 3 in the morning. Is there a solution for that one?

Oh gosh, I wish there was a simple solution to that. And it's really common that, that people say, yeah, my problem is I'll wake up in the middle of the night, have to go to the bathroom, or I just wake up and then my mind goes into overdrive. And I begin to think about everything that I have to do, and it will take me an hour or two to fall back asleep. And by the time I fall back asleep, it's time for me to get up. So once again, it's taking a look at your entire sleep environment. And if you do wake up and you begin to get a little bit anxious, you're having a difficult time falling asleep, well, don't just lie there for an hour or two. Get up out of your bed, go somewhere quiet, pick up probably a book, begin to read. Or listen to maybe some really relaxing music, but you've got to do something just a little bit different until you begin to get groggy again and then go back to bed. I find for myself that's what works.

Right. So you need to associate your bed with sleep, not with agonizing over the details of your life.

Exactly. You don't want your bed and your bedroom to be this stressful environment that provokes stress for you. And there's many individuals who almost dread going to sleep because they fear that, oh my God, Gosh, I'm gonna wake up in the middle of the night. It's gonna be the same routine and I'm not gonna be able to fall back asleep. So it's really saying, okay, what can I do about it? Maybe it's as simple as picking up a journal and writing in it for a few minutes that may make you tired again. Don't turn on the TV. You certainly don't want to do that, but do something quiet. And what's often recommended is reading or listening to soothing types of music. We do know that listening, for example, to relaxing types of music like classical music or like something like whole tone phones does actually promote sleep.

Yeah, no, I have a, a Yoga Nidra CD I scanned in ages ago, and I will put that in my earphones if someone else is in the room, or just out loud if, if not. And that will be my go back to sleep, or at least, if not go back to sleep, at least do something relaxing that is supposed to be somewhat equivalent to sleep while I'm trying to get back to sleep.

That's so important to do. And I know this might sound a little kooky, but I now typically sleep with a sleep mask on so that—

Oh, I do too.

Everything is, yeah, everything as dark in my room. And sometimes I'll even put in earplugs.

Yeah.

Because I can hear the noises, you know, my kids may still be up or whatever, cuz I do tend to go to, go to bed a little bit on the earlier side. And that helps also.

Speaking of circadian rhythm and, and going to bed early, I think that that's a battle that many people struggle with, which is, well, I wake up at 5 in the morning. Well, then you're gonna have to go to bed at like 8 at night, right? Like there's only so many ways to add up to 8 or 9. And it's not going to be going to bed at 11 and waking up at 5.

Right, right. And that's a good point that you bring up because not everybody needs the 8 hours of sleep or the 7, 8. Some people can actually operate on less sleep. Some people may need a little bit more, but that's on average. The average person needs between 7, 8 hours of sleep. And what I recommend people doing is if you wake up without your alarm clock, that means that you've had enough sleep. Meaning if your body wakes up naturally, then that's telling you've had enough sleep. If you're waking up with an alarm clock, then you didn't have enough enough sleep that night. So yeah, I know we can't do this every day, but potentially on the weekends, try to see when is that time or when is that point that you wake up naturally and then count back and say, okay, this is how many hours I seem to need on a regular and consistent basis to get adequate amount of sleep. Maybe it's 7 hours. And then take a look at that and say, if I need to get up at 5 in the morning, then this is the time that I should be going to bed so that I get those 7 hours of sleep.

Right. And then you have to keep in mind too that you're not falling asleep instantly and that you may be lying in bed for a minutes after you wake up. So you have to add in a little fat. You can't just go to bed 7 hours exactly before you're going to wake up.

You're right. Factor in that buffer period. Typically, it doesn't take us too long to fall asleep. It shouldn't be taking more than 5 to 10 minutes. Once your head hits the pillow, you should be out. And then when you wake up in the morning, you should pretty much be ready to go if you're waking up without an alarm.

For me, if I don't, if I don't take melatonin, but I don't have to take much, I take a gram, then I can't fall asleep within 5 or 10 minutes and it'll take me me 15 to 30 minutes.

That's the thing, right? Everybody is so individual. Maybe it's a, you know, a hot cup of chamomile tea. One of the tricks that I have that I learned from Dr. Michael Breusch, who's a sleep expert and has written some wonderful books on the science of sleep, recommends hot water and you put a banana in the hot water and just kind of let it seep just for a couple minutes. But when you put the banana in, the banana banana still has its peel on, you just cut the ends off of the banana, put it in the cup of hot water and just let it seep for a couple of minutes. And then you take the banana out and you drink this hot water that has a hint of banana and it's actually enjoyable to drink, but it's the potassium that's in it that actually helps with sleep. And that's a really simple, easy thing to do.

Organic banana.

Yes.

Yeah.

Especially unless you wanna ingest pesticides.

Yes, exactly.

Good point. Right. Okay, well, I appreciate you sharing your story about your son with us. I know there's probably a lot of parents out there struggling to help their kids get back to health, and Crohn's is a very serious diagnosis. And I know there's— I know someone whose child died of this, so I'm glad to hear about your story and that it turned out so much better and that you've written a book to help other people. Where can people find you and your book?

They can find me at www.heatherhelsenbloss.com. .com, and that's where the book is. And information also that I have on journaling and health and blogs that I've written, people can go to www.healthymovesjournaling.com.

Okay, great. And I will link to all those in the show notes. So any final thoughts for our listeners?

If anything, I want to tell people that they have the power to be healthy and to really take control of what they're doing and to critically take a look at the their diet and how much they're moving and sleeping at night, and really take a look at journaling as a really positive health thing that they can do.

Great. Well, thank you so much for talking with us today.

Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for everything that you do.

If you'd like to connect with me online, you can follow my High Desert Health Facebook page, join my Gut Healing Facebook group, or join my newsletter list at highdeserthealthcoaching.com. And while I'm not terribly active in other forms of social media, You can still find me and at least posts about my podcasts on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. And you can look for those links in the show notes. Thank you for joining me today. And here's wishing you all the perfect stool.