From Bloating to Eczema: The Gut-Skin Connection Demystified with Loredana Shapson, PharmD

Welcome to The Perfect Stool: Understanding and Healing the Gut Microbiome. This is your host, Lindsey Parsons, and today I'll be speaking with Dr. Lauradonna Shapson, PharmD, FNTP, who is the founder of LifeMod Solutions, a holistic health practice in Newton, Pennsylvania. She's a pharmacist turned holistic and bloating expert, and today we'll be talking all about bloating, gut health and hearing in detail about how Dr. Shapson works with patients with bloating and all sorts of gut health issues. But before our conversation, 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 ebooklet, Finding Your Root Cause Through Stool and Organic Acids Testing, when you sign up. And if you haven't yet done my quiz on which stool test would help you get to your root cause, you can find a link in the show notes and take that. Now on to the show. Welcome to the podcast, Loredana.

Hi, thanks for having me, Lindsey. I'm excited to be here.

It's my pleasure. So why don't we start with your gut health story? I know your history involved taking a lot of antibiotics, much like mine and many of my listeners.

Yeah, yeah. Which ends up taking the turn for the worst after that course. So I suffered from constipation, I'd say most of my life since I was a teenager, where I would only go to the bathroom maybe once or twice a week. And if I did, it wasn't very satisfying and it was small little pebbles, nothing. And then eventually, as I got older, I started to bloat and it would happen real randomly, unpredictable with certain foods and sometimes not others. And so like anybody else, I started to look on the internet, what's causing my bloating? What could this be? I started putting myself on supplements. I started working with a couple of gut specialists and even after working with some of these people and doing a lot of stool tests and SIBO tests and all of that, I still wasn't getting some of the results that I had desired, but I'd spent a lot of money seeing some of these people and eventually I got put on an antibiotic and after I got put on that antibiotic, diabetic, my gut symptoms actually got worse, not better. So when I was bloating randomly was now happening every single day. So when I would wake up in the morning, I would have a flat stomach, and then I would drink water, and then boom, I would look like I was 9 months pregnant. It was that drastic. So I had extreme food restrictions. I couldn't even take a bite of avocado, not even a teaspoon of fermented food liquid, nothing. I was so triggered by all of that. And then when I had my bloating, I also had the mood issues too, like the irritability and the anxiety and the focus issues. I couldn't sleep very well. I had trouble losing weight. So it was just realizing that my gut, making the connection, also affects my entire body and affects all other parts of my body. So I eventually, with my background in pharmacy, I've researched how to fix gut health and I found some shortcuts. And now I'm using everything that I did with myself with my patients. And I've been treating patients for about 2 years now specifically for gut health and that particular focus. And it's been really awesome to see the increase the less supplements that are needed, the more food they can bring back in sooner. It's, it's been exciting to be here. So I'm happy to be on your show today to share some helpful tips for your listeners.

Yeah, that's awesome. So did you figure out, was it SIBO for you? Was it methane, SIBO? What was going on?

Yeah, so I did take a SIBO breath test and it was both. I had a mixture of, of everything. I had 4 stool tests over the course of 2 years and the stool tests didn't really provide much data. For me. I mean, it did show that inflammatory markers were up, but obviously if your gut's imbalanced, your inflammation's gonna be up as well. So it, it didn't, and it showed dysbiosis, but it didn't really change the way that my functional medicine doctor at the time was gonna go after helping me. But yeah, it was, it was methane, SIBO, and I just remember spending a lot of money on supplements. I think at one point I was on like 18 different things. It was crazy.

I can believe it. So we did agree to focus on bloating in this episode, and that's I guess where you've started focusing practice. So talk to me about the different causes of bloating.

So I like to funnel bloating into two sections. So first and foremost is imbalanced gut bacteria, whether that's overgrowth of something and not enough of another. We can have SIBO, which you just mentioned, right? The bacterial overgrowth. And then there's also SIFO, which is fungal overgrowth. I see a ton of that in my office. And then we also have SIPO, which is parasitic overgrowth. So all of these can be imbalanced from, from one level to another, and they can cause bloating. Now, off the imbalanced gut, well, the question is, how do we get an imbalanced gut? I mean, I'm sure you've talked about this on your podcast before, but it's antibiotics in prescriptions, antibiotics in our foods. Other prescriptions can cause bloating. There's things like the pesticides and herbicides, preservatives, all of these things that kill bugs, chlorine in tap water. All of these things are going to create imbalances in our gut. So that's first and foremost. And then Kind of the secondary part of this picture is low digestive enzyme release. So what causes that? Well, first, it is the gut imbalance can lead to that. The secondary thing is stress, and stress can— and I like to funnel stress into 3 little tubes where first is physical stress. Say you fell, you had a surgery, whatever it is, your body's in physical stress and it's turning on your sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight response. The next is emotional stress. Maybe you have a really big project at work or you're fighting with your partner. That emotional Emotional stress triggers your fight or flight response. And then the next is chemical stress, which is things like the pesticides, the herbicides, the antibiotics, the— I mean, it could even be heavy metals. And the things that are in our personal care products are causing stress on our body. And the bottom line here is whenever your stress is on, whenever your fight or flight is on, your digestive system turns off, which we call that your rest and digest nervous system. When I approach healing my patients, it's one, one, we gotta give you digestive enzymes now because you're not making enough right now. Whatever your cause is, it doesn't matter. We want you feeling good. So digestive enzymes come on first and then we work on imbalancing the gut, which has to do with your diet and supplements and probiotics and that and, and so forth.

So how do you approach testing in your patients? Are you running stool tests and seeing their enzymes low?

No. So I actually don't run any stool tests on any of my patients, and I'm still getting pretty awesome results. And so the reason why I do that is because the clinical research is showing that, yes, stool tests are great in clinical research because they're understanding what therapies do and how it affects the gut microbiome. But I want to bring up one particular study. It was a meta-analysis, and this— a meta-analysis, for those of you who— is like almost like the second best type of research that you can use to apply to patients versus randomized clinical control trials. There was a study done in 2019. This was a meta-analysis that included 11 trials and it had over 729 patients. And what they wanted to look at was, does prebiotics help IBS symptoms? And they compared prebiotics with a placebo group. I know we're not talking about prebiotics right now, but what was interesting in this study was that they looked at stool tests. Stool tests from patients before and after. And when they looked at the study results, prebiotics did not improve GI symptoms. It didn't improve quality of life. It didn't improve functional bowel disorders. It didn't improve bloating or gas or abdominal pain. But what they did see was in the stool tests that the bifido group did grow. So even though the stool test looked a little bit better from when they got started, it still didn't equate to the patient feeling better. Symptomatically. So that's one study that really stood out to me to say that we need to maybe step away sometimes from taking all of these stool tests and all of these lab works and focusing on the numbers for patients. And maybe what I particularly focus on is how do you feel? Are you getting better? Is your bloating going down? And those are more of what I focus on in a lot of my patients. Just to show you another study about testing and why I don't really use it. There was another study done in SIBO patients. They did a SIBO breath test and they wanted to see if a low FODMAP— if they could use a SIBO test to determine how they would respond to a low FODMAP diet. And after this study, what they found was it wasn't the levels of methane or hydrogen that really determined the response rates. What determined whether somebody was gonna do good on a low FODMAP diet was their symptoms at the time that they were started. So the more severe the symptoms they had, the better that they would respond to a low FODMAP diet. So that was an interesting kind of a study too, cuz it shows us that the test, even though they're positive, it doesn't always show that they're gonna feel a certain way.

What about H. pylori? I mean, that's one that I really like to know about when I go into working with someone without a test. You can't know if they have it, if it's overgrown.

So H. pylori, definitely something that I, I haven't had to test it here in my office. I like to know if my patients have had it done with their GI doctors because that does change things a little because H. pylori can cause ulcers. And so one thing that I ask my patients whenever we think H. pylori is an issue is, are you having pain? Is it really harmful? Like, are you having cramping and it really is uncomfortable? And another thing that cues me into that is, are you taking a betaine HCl supplement or an acidic supplement for digestion? If that's causing you pain when you take that, or even if vinegar bothers your stomach and it causes you pain, then maybe you have an ulcer. Maybe that could be from H. pylori. So that would be a different scenario. I haven't seen too many H. pylori patients in my office, but I know that at the end of the day, what we find is that as soon as you come in with the good probiotics, everything starts to rebalance.

And what about testing for, for SIFO and using organic acids? Do you do that at all?

I have, yeah. I definitely— that's probably the test I run the most in my office is the urinary OAT by Great Plains. And I will check that in my patients when they have severe issues or if they really want to know, because it's not typically covered by insurance plans and you're going to spend at $300 or $350. So if the patient really wants it at the start, I will give it to them. And otherwise, if we go down this course of taking care of SIFO, usually I'll pull that urinary test about 4 to 6 months in so that we can just kind of see, hey, how, how are we doing? Is there still an issue there? And we always want those numbers to be in the lower 20th percentile for the markers 1 through 9 is the goal that we wanna get to.

So how do you approach treating people with gastrointestinal issues if you're starting without a test?

Yeah, I mean, we look at symptoms. I mean, first and foremost, it's digestive enzymes. That's key. We, we start with diet and enzymes to get things moving. So one, if they're not pooping, we get them pooping. That's key number one. If they're having diarrhea, we try and stop their diarrhea cuz they're not absorbing their nutrients efficiently. So that's correction number one is fix their stool frequency, whether it's constipation or diarrhea. Usually once you add a digestive enzyme, those can rebalance on their own. So constipation gets better with digestive enzymes because you're breaking down your food better. And we find that once you start increasing the acidity of the stomach, that you're actually already beginning to correct the imbalance of the gut, because we know that stomach acid is important for killing bad guys that aren't supposed to be there. That's why we have stomach acid. You know, we're bringing in a ton of microbes through our mouth and our food and everything we're touching. So once we start increasing the stomach acidity, that now all of a sudden we're rebalancing the gut just inherently, just by doing that. So we got some benefit there. For sure. So I usually start with enzymes and then either something to help them poop if they're not pooping, or whatever I need to do to slow down their pooping if it's diarrhea. Once they're on that for a couple weeks, then we start thinking about probiotics.

Are you doing enzymes then that have betaine HCL in them, or is that separate?

So we're doing betaine HCL separate. And then if they require another enzyme, depending on how severe their bloating is, then I'll add another enzyme that has all the other everything for protein and fats and other carbohydrates and different fibers and cellulose and all those. But generally I do really well with just a betaine supplement.

Oh, okay. So, so when you were saying enzymes, really you're talking about betaine HCl?

Yeah. Like generally betaine is a big fix because if you think about the way the digestive system works, we have— I call it like the three-legged stool, right? You got your stomach, your pancreas, and your gallbladder. And if one of those legs are kicked out, the whole system kind of collapses. But the core of that that three-legged stool is the stomach, because once you have enough stomach acid, that triggers the pancreas to release appropriately. And then once that happens, the gallbladder releases appropriately as well. So it's, it's really the stomach acid that determines the next chain of events down below. So if you fix the stomach acid, you're automatically going to fix the enzyme release.

And will you give Betaine HCl to someone who is actively suffering from what seems like reflux?

Yes. That's actually what I recommend to patients who have reflux. It's often a difficult conversation to have. They don't understand. Wait a minute, I have acid reflux and you want me to add acid? And I say yes. So I often tell my patients too, and what you can use in your kitchen is vinegar. You know, I like apple cider vinegar because it is a probiotic, but any vinegar works as long as it doesn't have sugar. But tablespoon of vinegar in 1 to 2 to 3 ounces of water, take that down, and then you wait at least an hour before you really drink any other liquids because you want that acidity to do its job. But ideally, if you, if you're feeling acid reflux, reflux. You're, you're not digesting your foods properly. It's sitting for too long in your belly, and it's pushing that valve open and causing that acid reflux. And little drops of acid are getting into the esophagus where they shouldn't be. So if you just keep things moving downward and you do that with acidity, boom, you're not going to have that problem. So I definitely recommend that to all my patients when they have acid reflux. Either use vinegar or betaine, and it'll get rid of it.

And are you using the vinegar then before the meal? Because you said not drinking anything else after that.

Yeah. So you could use vinegar to help with your acid reflux symptoms in that moment. And then also you can take it with mealtime. And I'm not particular with beginning of the meal, during of the meal, or after. As long as it's with the food, it's going to do its job. So I like to simplify things. There's a lot of— one of the things that bothers me about some of the gut health stuff that's out there is they make it very complicated. Empty stomach, not empty stomach, before food, you know, 1 hour before food, an hour after eating. And I find that compliance with my patients becomes very difficult. So for me, I don't care. Take your vinegar before, during, or after. Either way, the patient always seems to get benefit. And so clinically, I'm seeing that it doesn't really matter. But obviously everybody's different. You have to try for yourself to see what works for you and your patients. I mean, do you notice any patterns or trends in your patients before, during, after?

I usually don't know that level of detail. You know, I say this is something that you take with a meal and that's how I tell them about it. And whether they take it at the beginning or the middle or the end, I don't know. Yeah.

So that's the thing. Like, I hope people can, can see that it doesn't have to be as complicated as everyone makes it out to be.

Yeah. No, it was just because you said not to drink anything else. So you're basically telling people to eat without drinking.

Oh yeah. Uh-huh. 100%. Like, you don't want to drink a lot of liquids with your meals because it's going to dilute your stomach juices. So we want to maintain that acidity in our stomach. And so the more water you're adding to it, you're going to slow things down. It's going to increase your risk for bloat.

It's going to—

you're going to feel full. Distended belly. So what I always tell my patients, when you're hydrating, it has to be between meals, room temperature water, about a half hour before you eat or an hour after you eat is when you should start drinking anything again.

Yeah, I find that very challenging. Personally, I take all my supplements with my meals, so I have to drink because I can't get them down.

You can certainly sip as needed, but not chugging like a full glass of water.

Hey, this is Lindsey here, just letting you know that if you're tired of dealing with digestive issues, like bloating, indigestion, soft stool, diarrhea, constipation, reflux, IBS, IBD, or the numerous health conditions that come about when your gut is off, like brain fog, weight gain, UTIs, fatigue, mental health issues, or complex conditions like fibromyalgia and ME/CFS. That's my specialty. With my 3 or 5 session gut health coaching packages, we'll discuss different stool and functional medicine tests to find out the root cause of your symptoms. I'll interpret the results and provide clear explanations, empowering you to make informed choices for your gut and overall health. And together we'll develop a customized action plan based on your test results so you can find relief and regain your health and vitality. I come from a functional medicine perspective, trying to incorporate the latest peer-reviewed research and educating you on protocols used by functional medicine practitioners, but devoting lots of time and support to my clients the way a doctor simply can't. If you're interested in a 3 or 5 session coaching package, you can sign up for complimentary 30-minute breakthrough session. Or if you can only afford one appointment at a time, you can book an initial 60-minute consultation. Links for those are in the show notes. Now back to the show. So is there a particular enzyme product you like?

I like Standard Process. I use Zypan.

What's it called?

Zypan. Yeah, I like Zypan because it has betaine in there, but it also has some pancreatic enzymes. That's what the Zypan stands for. Zy for enzyme, pan for pancreas. So there's a little bit of pancreatic enzymes in there plus some betaine. And there's also some organ meat tissue in there too, which is really healing. So there's some spleen tissue. They all help heal the gut.

And do you do the betaine with a challenge approach? Start with one pill, then increase?

No, I usually find patients do really good with two. If they have severe bloating, we'll do three with each meal. Two seems to be like the magic number. And then once we get probiotics on board, I find that the Zypan ends up coming down to one. One with each meal and then only as needed if they have acid reflux, which typically at that point it's usually not an issue. And then eventually once the probiotics are on board for a couple of weeks, Xipan falls off. I think the probiotics start coming in, they start helping you break down your food. You don't need the enzymes anymore.

So what, what kind of probiotics are you using?

Ooh, my favorite one is Megaspore Biotic by Microbiome Labs. They're my flagship probiotic. They just, it's so well tolerated in a lot of my patients. They're non-histamine forming probiotics. So that's the one I always start my patients on. And, you know, everybody's a little bit different on the starting dose. I mean, I don't follow the directions on the bottle. I never do for any of my gut supplements. I always start at usually a quarter of the dose that it's recommended on the serving size, because any time you're doing anything with the gut, slow and steady. So even if it says 2 capsules, you're not going to start there. Maybe you'll do 1 capsule every other day. You'll be on there for a week and then you go to 1 a day. But I find that slow and steady wins the race here and you're less likely to have like those Herxheimer, you know, those those, you know, negative feeling sick reactions that most people hate, you know, when they occur, you'll lose a patient quickly if they have a bad reaction.

And so if you see someone with diarrhea that's not clearing up with enzymes and MegaSpore, where do you go from there?

So at that point I go to gut inflammation. So we'll use Biotics Research has a product called GI Resolve, and that one is, you know, your gut soothing healing nutrients with the D-glucosamine and the aloe vera, all of those gut healing nutrients. So basically reducing inflammation. And then another product I will try, and specifically for my patients with a lot of, I would say, immune issues, histamine reactions, or my Crohn's or all sort of colitis patients, I use Mega Mucosa by Microbiome Labs. That's a great one. But I find that the GI Resolve is my go-to, and then Mega Mucosa is what I'll bring in maybe a little later. And that usually repairs the gut. I find that 2 or 3 days after starting that, diarrhea goes away. It's so they start to have more formed stools, and I see that if they have blood in their stool, that goes away as well. So we're really healing the gut with those nutrients. We're sealing it, reducing inflammation, and that's gonna help with the bowels, you know, and you're not gonna be pushing your stool out so quickly.

So I'm curious, cuz I just had someone who told me they started GI Resolve and then like their gut went on fire. And I thought, gosh, that's funny cuz that's something that's supposed to sort of heal and seal. I don't know, what, what would you make of that?

So So my initial instinct is to say that they need a binder. So whatever healing reaction is occurring, they're probably releasing a lot of trash. And so oftentimes a binder is gonna catch and mop up any of that stuff. So I like GI detox biobotanicals. Oh my God, I can't think of the name.

Uh, Biobotanical Research. Yeah. I think they may have rebranded as BioCidin, but they do all the BioCidin products.

Yeah, exactly. But I like that GI Detox. That's a pretty good starter binder that you could add, but obviously have to separate 2 hours from any other supplements or food. But that's my instinct. If something goes awry, lower the dose, go extremely slow. Like, I'll start people on that at like 1 teaspoon. I've had to start at a half a teaspoon of that one, even though the directions say 2. I always, always, always start low and slow and increase every week, and then they'll be on it for 6 weeks, which is more than they ever need it. But it's still a good way to do it.

And how do you approach SIFO or Candida?

Yeah, so SIFO's interesting. I see, I see a lot of that in my office unfortunately. So what we do there is basically the same starting approach because as we correct the digestive enzymes and the acidity, you'll start to rebalance the gut. The next thing is, is that once you start getting in the probiotics, now you're bringing in probiotics, they're gonna start balancing out the SIFO and the fungal overgrowth.

Growth.

But sometimes, and in most cases, I do have to add in a fungal product that will start coming out. It's like an herbal product that gently gets rid of the Candida and the yeast. So my favorite product to start people on is Systemic Formulas has a product called Fungidex. It's a great product, really well tolerated. If you call Systemic Formulas, they're going to tell you to do 2 in the morning and 2 at night. I don't do that dose. It's too high. I find that people have negative reactions from die-off. So I start people on 1 a day. And what I have found is that SIFO, SIFO is like a, it's a long haul kind of a approach. I've had to care for patients through SIFO up to 8 months. It takes sometimes to totally eliminate. Unfortunately, it's a slow, steady process. So the more herbals that you add, you absolutely have to add binders, 110%. So because of the die-off, the mycotoxins that they release in general are some of the worst that they can cause so many issues between anxiety and weight gain, irritability, bloating. It can cause a lot of problems. So always paired with SIFO, if I ever put an herbal product on, is absolutely a binder the whole time they're on it. Oh yeah, 100%. I find that when I don't, you know, they have Herxheimer reactions, they have bad reactions from it. So one of my favorite, favorite binders, one of the best I found on the market, is by Cellcore, and they have a binder called Biotoxin Binder, and it's specifically formulated to catch yeast and mold toxins. And so that one is expensive but worth every penny because I have had patients in my office. As a case study, I had a 30-year-old female in my office and she had sores that would, I mean, all over her body, up and down. They would show up as red, inflamed, they would ooze, then they would heal over and scar. So she was embarrassed. Like summertime was coming up, she didn't want to wear shorts, she didn't want to wear anything. She's been to dermatologists, she had been to doctors, nobody was able to help her. I uncovered in my office that it was an overgrowth of fungus because she had had so many antibiotics since childhood for sinus infections that fungus overgrew. When, as soon as I put Biotoxin Binder on, all of her sores, new ones stopped opening up, which was a great sign, and they stopped forming. And unfortunately the ones that scarred over were still there. But just by adding that binder, we saw a huge shift in the amount of her sores that were coming out. So yeah, I, I can't rave about that particular product enough when it comes to SIFO. Yeah. Have you heard of Cellcore before? Have you used them before?

Yeah, I have used Cellcore.

Yeah.

I don't generally use them. They're not available through Fullscript, so it's like you got to send somebody separate and their products are not cheap too. So that's an issue. But yeah, I do have access to them and have used them with some people.

That's my limitation too with them is they're, they're great product line, but they're too expensive. So I only pull those big guns out when I need to.

Dig in a little bit more about that skin gut connection. People might be going, why? I don't understand what this has to do with that. Is it literally the yeast coming out of the skin?

Yeah, so it's a great question. And so whatever's happening on your skin is a representation of what's happening in your gut. And this goes for acne, for eczema, not just sores and all of that, but the gut lining and the skin and even, even your nasal passages, all those mucous membranes are made up of the same cells. So they're responding to this, to the same influences, which is the fungal infection. So for me, I, you know, I think it's just an imbalance in the gut. And then yes, I mean, you could be releasing mycotoxins through your skin and it's just coming out as irritation. So, you know, anytime you have a skin thing, always think of the gut. And once you start rebalancing the gut, the skin always gets better.

I have had some people with super persistent skin issues like eczema that just keeps coming back, keeps coming back. Back through multiple rounds of every possible probiotic you can imagine, every possible antifungal, antimicrobial, still just keeps coming back.

And how long, how long have they been on probiotics? I dive in a little more, like how long have they been on the probiotics and going through this?

No, continuously for years, probably.

For years. Okay. And then what products do you use for fungal?

So a lot of times, you know, you have clients who go off on their own and get their own products. So a variety of products. But there was one in particular that was, it was a combo antifungal that had berberine, it had caprylic acid, it had undecylenic acid, it had grapefruit seed extract, which I try and avoid cuz I know that that really decimates the microbiome and particular Akkermansia. But that was something that he had taken on his own.

Oh, interesting. Cuz I use grapefruit seed extract in my, in my mold patients, but I'm, I'm not getting negative results to their gut health after using it.

It. Well, I mean, they, yeah, they very well make you feel good. I just see like on the, on the stool reports that after that, then their acromancia disappears.

I would say that one thing to look at is their eczema's still coming back is I would look at the type of probiotic that they're using and the quality of it, how long they've been taking it. So a minimum of 3 months every single day, and they should have a blend of the spore-based probiotics and the lactobifido is gonna be probably even more important than the spore. And then you gotta rotate your SIFO products every 2 months. You should always be changing your SIFO herbals because of resistance and that kind kind of thing. And the other thing to think about is environment. So are they continually exposed to something wherever they're living or where they work that maybe there's mold that they are not aware of that they're being exposed to? I personally went through a mold infection. I had two different exposures, one at work and one living with my in-laws for a little bit when my house was under construction. And I noticed it because my gums were bleeding every morning, and it happened like day 2 of me moving in. And I was like, this is weird, why? And then I started to develop anxiety, and I started to have irritability and everything. I just felt completely couple months in, I found out they had mold in their basement and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, so I figured it out. I'm like a little mold thermometer now. So I was able to help them with that. But yeah, it takes a long time. So I would say time to the SIFO products rotating every 2 months for a minimum of 8 months and, uh, checking their environment.

And would you continue the SIFO products that long for anybody who who's, who's positive, or is this more in proportion to the numbers that you're seeing on the test?

Yeah, I would say numbers on the test is where I go with the length of treatment, but I have seen that 8 months is usually my average. So patients that you kind of are still struggling with eczema, do you find that you've been on up to 8 months worth of SIFO stuff?

Yeah. Okay. At least 3 months of Megaspore, 2 a day, and CanXida Remove for, I would guess, at least 6 to 9 months.

I find a good combo that I like to use is Candida Complex by Klaire Labs. And I do use grapefruit seed extract twice a day with Candida Complex, and I find that that combo works really well.

It's powerful. That's the dilemma, right?

Yeah. I, you know, I think that while akromancia goes down, I feel like the short-term benefit of getting rid of that yeast and mold is more beneficial than worrying about akromancia because it's gonna be very easy to bring back akromancia. After the fungus goes away. So I think that the risk outweighs the benefit in this situation, and I would use grape seed. And I'm speaking from my clinical experience too. I've had patients do really well, but again, I'm also not pulling stool tests like you are to see the difference. But all I know is my patients are feeling better, their pain's going away, their headaches go away, you know. So I would maybe try something different. Another thing I would think about too is a gut healing nutrient again, like GI Resolve, any of those products just to seal the gut end.

But the funny thing in this particular case was the thing that would clear this eczema or seborrheic dermatitis or whatever it was, was doxycycline. He would keep going back to the doctor and getting doxycycline. So I'm thinking, okay, is it bacterial? Is it not fungal?

Yeah, interesting.

Tricky. I'm sure you have tricky cases. Everybody does.

Yeah, it's almost like, I mean, doxycycline is such a big gun to use because it's a broad-spectrum antibiotic. And so I feel like in the long run that's making the SIFO go up too. Like, that's not helping the long term.

I certainly tried to get him off it, but he's like, the only thing that would clear it, then it comes up on his face. So he's— of course he's worried about that. Of course.

Yeah. And then topically, grass-fed tallow is really soothing for skin stuff. So give that a shot too. That may just keep the issue at bay while you're working on the underlying stuff.

I've never heard of that. That's interesting.

Yeah. Um, gotta go back to animals and animal fats.

When I have clients dealing with diarrhea or loose stool, I always tell them about tributyrin, which is the best absorbed form of butyrate, which is normally made by bacteria fermenting fiber in your colon. Supplemental tributyrin can help slow your motility down and feed the cells lining your colon, firming up stool and helping create an oxygen-free environment in the colon, which helps the butyrate-producing bacteria to survive and multiply. Supply. Those bacteria are often wiped out after taking antibiotics, which is why Tributyrin is a great accompaniment and follow-up supplement if you have to take antibiotics. My new supplement, Tributyrin Max, has 750mg of Tributyrin, which is the highest dose currently available in a capsule. You can find it at tributyrinmax.com— that's T-R-I-B-U-T-Y-R-I-N-M-A-X dot com— and use code INTRO15 for 15% off your first order. Order. So you mentioned lactobifidobacterium probiotics. Which ones do you like there?

Yeah, so I like Designs for Health Probiomed 50. So when it comes to probiotics, I'm glad we're touching on this. It's, it's really interesting. The question I get is, oh my gosh, there's so many probiotics out there. There's, you know, how much do I take? 10 billion, 25 billion, 100 billion? There's all these doses that are out there. Do I take it on an empty stomach? Should it be refrigerated? It's become this intimidating thing. And here's the, here's the answer. Here's the summary. It doesn't matter what the heck you take, just take it every single day. It doesn't matter. Once a day is all you need. And the clinical research is showing that a lot of these meta-analyses, when we pull together these trials where we're studying 4,000 patients, 7,000 patients, all of these trials, the average dose is about 25 billion. It's not that high, but range is from 10 billion up to 100. You'll see 100 billion in some of the more like IBD cases, like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, but still the average over all of these is about 25. So what I use in my office at start is Probiomed 50. That is a 50 billion. And I find if I use anything higher than that, they get negative reactions. So I avoid that.

And that's a combo lactobacillus though.

Yeah.

There's a, I think, multi-strain. Yes. Kind of a— Yeah. Yeah. And does it have streptococcus strains in there?

No, I avoid streptococcus and I avoid, I actually avoid Saccharomyces boulardii. As well.

It's so funny. There's people who love Saccharomyces boulardii and people who hate it.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's like, it's like a catch-22. I don't like it because of the urinary OAT tests that I've run. I've also run some food sensitivity panels on some of my patients and a lot of them show back for antibodies against Saccharomyces. So I try to avoid more fungal stuff. That's a fungal strain. And so the body doesn't want fungus right now. And I find that 100% of my patients are overgrowth or overgrown with fungal because of the way we live our lives and the diets that we eat, high in sugar and refined carbs and the antibiotics and environmental exposures as well. So I really just focus on the, the bifido and lacto and the bacillus, the spore-based species. And I get really good results. Then after that, eventually a couple of months in, we'll start adding fiber supplements and that'll help also with the growth of the good bacteria as well.

Okay. So not, not prebiotics, but fiber in particular.

Yeah. Like in the beginning, I'll start with soluble fiber that are— there's basically two types of prebiotics. There's the inulin type type, which is like your FOS, the fructans, and the galactooligosaccharides, the GOS. Those can cause bloating and they can— they're fermentable. I mean, that's just what they are. They're inulin type. The others are non-inulin type. So these are things like guar gum and pectin, and these are the ones that won't cause bloating. The 2FL, the HMOs. Yes, exactly. Yep. So the human milk oligosaccharides. And so they're not fermentable. They, they don't cause gas or bloating. So I'll usually start my patients with fiber like that first after they've been on the two probiotic types for at least a month or two, and then we'll start bringing in some fiber. And again, that study I brought up earlier in this conversation, that was the study that really was like, wow, prebiotics are not the fix when you're trying to feel better now when it comes to IBS and bloating and abdominal pain.

Well, yeah, no, the last thing you need is to add more food for microbes.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. So we do that later on once the good guys are back in. Very interesting. So yeah, so my, my favorite product to start, which is really well tolerated, is by Thorn Research, and that one's FiberMend. That one I do— my patients do really well with that on the start. But again, the directions say 1 scoop. I never start there. I go to 1/4 of it, and then we stay there for a week or 2, and then we go up a little bit. Here's another thing too. A lot of the research with prebiotics and fiber the doses that they're using, the average dose is about 5 grams. So when you look at some of these, these fiber products, one scoop is sometimes 11 grams per serving. That's too much. So we're even seeing in clinical research less is better. It's just kind of a slow and steady thing.

So where do you max out then?

So eventually I'll usually keep people at a half a scoop, but I have worked people up to one. It takes about a month to get there, but we'll get to one scoop and we stay there for a little bit and then eventually I'll, I'll add mega And if they take more, then they end up getting bloated again? Yeah, like, like sometimes they'll just have negative reactions. So everyone's a little bit different with how they respond. But obviously, they don't feel well. So okay, that was too much. Go back to what you were doing. We're going to stay there for 2 more weeks. And then we'll increase after that. You know, like, think of your gut, like I tell my patients, it's like you're working a muscle out at the gym, you're not going to go into the gym lifting a 50-pound curl weight right away, you're going to start at 5 pounds, you're gonna start at 10. And then after a couple weeks, you go a little more, you go a little more. Your gut's the same exact way.

So without doing stool testing, how would you approach parasites?

Parasites I usually uncover in the other testing that I do in my office, which it's the muscle testing that—

okay, we haven't talked about it on the show. I'm not big on muscle testing, but go ahead and just tell me what you, what, what you do to, to determine if someone has parasites.

Yeah, sure. So I do something in my office called muscle testing, and it's taught by chiropractors, Science of Applied Kinesiology. But basically I put things near your body, and using the strength and the weakness of your muscle, it tells me whether your body likes it or doesn't like it? Is this something I want to talk about or not talk about? And so the reason why we're able to do this is because we have this energy field that comes out around our body. We cannot see it, just like we can't see our phones talking or the oxygen that we're breathing, but we know it's there. It's this nice big bubble. And, you know, people can take a picture of it. Some people call it your aura, whatever you want to call it. That's in the medical literature, it's called the biofield or the morphogenic field. So when I'm putting things near your body, now it's making an assessment. Do I like this or not? Or is this significant to me. And so in my office, I have parasite vials, and it has the digital imprints of what parasites' frequency is, what it vibrates at. So we're energetic beings. Everything around us is vibrating. Everything in the universe has a unique frequency down to its decimal point. You can actually measure it, just like every human has a unique fingerprint. So aluminum vibrates at a particular frequency. Mercury is different. So parasites are also different. They're their own little living beings. And so in my office, I have parasite vials for flukes, amoebas, egg layers, and non-egg Like live parasites? Nope, they're— it's just the digital imprints in water. So it's a vial. They have found that water has a memory just like a computer system. So it's, for lack of a better word, it's like electrified water, but it's containing that digital frequency. So when I bring the parasitic frequency into your energy field, your body tells me whether this is significant or not. And if it shows up, then I know that they're dealing with parasites, and that's how I start my parasite protocol.

If they're weak in response to a parasite, does that mean they've got it? Or if they're wrong?

Depends on the test that you're running, but generally weakness is what is gonna say like, yep, this makes me weak right now. This is an issue.

Yeah, no, that's something I've just sort of strayed away from because I don't understand or necessarily know about the science behind it. I'm open to anything that's got peer-reviewed research.

Yes. And this does, I got 3 studies I can send you about muscle testing and it's been paramount in my way that I approach my patients and it reduces Herxheimer reactions and helps me individualized nutritional supplements too.

So is there— we sort of discussed it, but if you want to summarize, is there a treatment order you follow in terms of things like parasites, yeast, bacteria, etc.?

When it comes to patients with bloating, I generally start with the enzymes and the probiotics. I used to go right in with an herbal product like DysbioCide or FC-Cidal by Biotics Research and like more herbals. And I really stepped away from that because I went through that. I overdid it myself with herbal products and what that was doing was tearing down my gut even more. It wasn't rebuilding it back up. And so I just kept in this cycle of herbals and herbals and herbals, but never building, building, building. So I no longer do that approach with my patients unless I find that when I start adding probiotics and for some reason I can't get them to adjust to it, they're still having negative reactions, then I say, okay, they're fighting each other too much. Let's come in with a month of DysbioCyto or FCcyto for the SIBO aspect of people, and then we'll bring in the probiotic and see. But I actually, since I've made that switch, I haven't had to really go back to the DysbioCyto or FCcyto. I find that the digestive enzymes, the diet that we recommend, which is usually a paleo diet, and then the probiotics on board, I find that bloating goes away. I don't need to use herbals and everything's okay. When it comes to SIFO, I generally like the Fungidex and the grapefruit seed extract along with a binder like Biotoxin Binder. And then when it comes to parasites, Parasites, I really use a variety of products. Parasites are tricky. They are smart. They like to hide in biofilms. So especially for egg layers, I'll do a cycle of 10 days on with parasitic stuff, usually at bedtime, cuz that's when parasites are the most active is at bedtime. And you'll know that because a lot of people grind their teeth at night, they're jittery, their nervous system is super activated, they twitch. Those are signs of parasitic, you know, infections. And so Usually dose at night, 10 days on, and then we stop for 4 days. And the reason why we stop is because that gives time for more eggs to hatch. And then once more eggs hatch, boom, you combat them again. 10 days, you take another 4 days off. And we do that for about 9 to 12 cycles. So that ends up being about 4 to 5 months. Products I like to use, I use a variety of stuff because I find that once we get one product on, you know, once that product's on, I have to switch to another one and I have to switch to another one because each of Each of the herbals can target the flukes or the amoebas or the egg layers. So it's, it's good to just rotate through them all. But I like Wormwood Complex by MediHerb is really great. They're, they're part of Standard Process. The other one I like is Systemic Formulas actually has some great, they're called VRM. It's VRM-1, VRM-2, 3, and 4. So 1 and 2 are for egg layers, 3, I can't remember if they're for amoebas and 4 are for, are for flukes, but they're gonna cover all the types of parasites. Parasites. So I usually rotate through those. Sometimes I'll double up and have like a 1 and a 3 on a board and then a 2 or 4. My muscle testing will usually indicate which ones the body wants at that time. And then sometimes I have to put a binder on for my parasite people. A lot of people don't realize that like the fungus and the parasites, they also bind to chemicals. Fungus in particular is a really great heavy metal chelator. So they're gonna bind to aluminum and mercury and cadmium. And so when you start killing these guys, guess what? They're gonna start releasing chemicals and heavy metals and trash. So binders again, the GI Detox is a really great product. I usually do that if I'm, if I'm having them do the parasitic protocol at night, then I'll have them do the GI Detox first thing in the morning as soon as they wake up on an empty stomach. Take 2 of them. I also like the binder by Systemic Formulas called Bind. That one's really great as well.

Did you ever use the Para 1, Para 2, the Cellcore?

Yep, I do like that. I find that Para 2 only does really well with Para 1 in my muscle testing, so I usually pair those 2 or Para 2 paired with like one of my VRMs. I usually find, I find that of the ingredients in Parasitic Stife, like wormwood, clove, artemisia, those are the ones that are really big guns for parasites.

And there's also the Bio Tonic.

I haven't used Bio Tonic actually.

Yeah. Well, what's nice too is it's got the adrenal stuff in there, so it's kind of a combo.

Yeah, I like that. That's another thing we haven't talked about is adrenal support through all this.

Okay, let's talk about it. What the heck?

I mean adrenal support. I mean anything that has to do— whenever your body is under stress, I call the adrenal glands like kicking, screaming children. They're the first ones to fall on the floor and start flailing and going out of whack no matter what you're going through. So they need support. So I really like ashwagandha and rhodiola as two herbal products that are wonderful for calming the adrenals down. And then I also really, really like Biotics Research has a Bioglycosine Forte. That product is for sugar regulation, but within it there's also organ meats like hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal gland, thyroid. There's a lot of organ meats in there, and organ meats are paramount in healing. It's one thing that we lack in our diet. Even if we wanted to get access to these things, it's hard to find. And if you ask our ancestors, they all ate it. They all prized the organ meats. They ate the brain, they ate the heart, they did everything. So So I find that when you strengthen the organs with organ meats, you're gonna get a better, stronger response hormonally and with the adrenals as well. So Bioglycosine Forte, I'd say like, I'd probably say like 99% of my patients start on that the first, at the first visit and they're on that one 3 times a day. Yep. And that's a wonderful product for blood sugar and adrenals. And then again, ashwagandha and rhodiola are some other ones I bring in, maybe some ginseng too.

And does that matter to you whether they show signs of adrenal dysfunction or are you just, that's just kind of everybody. Yeah.

Everyone's got blood sugar issues. It's just our diet and the way that we live our lives being so stressed out. We're constantly, so enzymes and, um, Bioglycosine Forte are, are my, my big guns that I always start with.

I'm not sure that you totally answered the question before in terms of order of operation. So if you find somebody has parasites, if they have fungi, if they have bacteria, is there an order that you address those?

Yeah, great question. So yeah, so I generally always go after parasites and fungus first.

First.

In terms of size, when we look at their size, they're the bigger ones that live in the body. So, and the smaller ones like to hide in the bigger guys. So I'll usually go after fungus and parasites first, or sometimes together, and then I'll go after the bacteria. And usually once the probiotics come on board, it really balances out the bacteria.

I mean, there's a lot of crossover really with herbals of what, what deals with what, right? Like, I mean, wormwood addresses bacteria to some extent too, doesn't it? Is it?

Yeah, there is crossover with a lot of these, like berberine, and berberine can do fungus and it can do bacteria. So there's, there is crossover. So you're gonna get benefits on both ends. I find that the ones that work for parasites can also work for fungus. So that's why you're gonna handle both together anyway.

Well, that was a lot of really good concrete information. I'm sure people are gonna love all the takeaways and yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot in there.

You could find all those products in my Fullscript dispensary, everyone.

Yeah, there is an order for when— to your listeners, an order for how these things should be added in. I wouldn't jump on all these things at once. It's a slow, steady process. That's what we're here for. Lindsey and I can help you through when to start what and for how long.

Yeah, you can waste a lot of money on supplements trying to figure this out on your own. And I've discovered that there is a lot of complexity to this stuff over time. And supplements are expensive. And if you take them in the wrong way, they, they can cause harm or they might not work. And then you think, okay, well, I've tried that. Unfortunately, then in your head, I've tried that becomes a narrative that you then give to the next person you work with, which puts them at a loss for thinking, okay, well, if you've tried that and that didn't work, but you know, maybe you didn't try it quite the right way, then I don't have that tool in my toolbox.

Yep.

Because I think, okay, well, they've already tried it, so, right, so it is better to get the help of someone. That's the, that's the sad reality Absolutely.

There's a lot of individuality here. Well, one final comment on like one thing is probiotics. A lot of the research is showing peak benefit of probiotic use is at 2 months and sometimes 3 months. And there's some studies showing 6 months when it comes to eczema and skin. To your point with your patient, that study was done in children, but still they showed that the longer that they were on it, the 6-month people did better than 3-month of probiotics. So know that time is a thing. And I find that a lot of people come into my office like, oh, I tried a probiotic for a couple of weeks and it didn't work. It didn't work. And I'm like, no, no, you, you didn't give it enough time or you were using the wrong one, like Saccharomyces boulardii, or, you know, one with strep that I don't really go to at the start.

So tell me where people can find you and do you see people who are outside of your area?

Yeah, I work virtually, in person. I'm in Newtown, Pennsylvania, but I do meetings over Zoom. I guess like for people who have bloating, I have a freebie on my website. You go to my website, lifemodsolutions.com. It's my belly bloating fixer. Elixir tea, and you drink that every morning, and that's gonna start fixing the underlying reason for low digestive enzyme release, part of your bloating problem. So I find that people who start that, their bloating reduces, their distension comes down. Some people have lost weight in the first week, 2 pounds. Acid reflux goes away. So really great things using stuff in your kitchen. So get your hands on that recipe for free on my website. And then I also just released a 2-week online gut course, and I basically structure everything that I do with my patients and the protocol that I use with my patients in this 2-week program with education and access to all the supplements that we just talked about today and when to use them and why. And it gives them also direct contact to me. So that's right on my homepage at lifemodsolutions.com. It's called Bye Bye Bloat, Eliminate Bloat in 2 Weeks for Good. So check that out. I specialize in women. So I mean, anyone can really do that program, to be honest with you, but women is who I typically work with in my office. And I have a YouTube page, lifemodsolutions.com. I got free health tips there. My Instagram and Facebook are also LifeMod Solutions.

Awesome. Okay, well I'll put all those in the show notes so everyone can find you. And thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge with us.

Yeah, awesome. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. Well, that was certainly very generous and very detailed of her in terms of her protocols. If you'd like to support the podcast, you can buy supplements at a discount from my Fullscript dispensary, order tests at a discount from my Rupa Health Labs store, use my affiliate links to eVitamins, Bulk Supplements, or Amazon. And 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, as well as find me on Twitter, now known as X, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Links for all those are in the show notes. Thanks for joining me today, and here's wishing you all the perfect stool.