9: Why Your Gut Overreacts to Everything

Episode 9: WhyYour Gut Overreacts to Everything

Mast Cell Activation, Histamine, and Perimenopause: When Bloating Isn’t About Food

The Team Gut Girls podcast, hosted by naturopathic doctors Dr. Whitney Baxter, Dr. Christina Carew, and Dr. Dominique Vanier, discusses mast cell activation (distinct from mastocytosis) as a lesser-known driver of rapid, inflammatory bloating and multi-system symptoms such as flushing, itching/hives, anxiety, heart palpitations, headaches/migraines, heat intolerance, and skin reactions.

They explain mast cells’ mediators (including histamine) and how triggers can include foods (wine, leftovers, fermented foods, avocado, spinach, kombucha), stress, infections, procedures, environmental exposures, and hormone fluctuations—especially estrogen changes in perimenopause—helping explain why some people feel better on antihistamines.

They note limited reliability of testing (e.g., tryptase) and emphasize pattern recognition, symptom and cycle tracking, nervous system regulation, gut barrier support, and differentiating MCAS-like presentations from IBS/SIBO, with downloadable questionnaires and related episodes referenced.

00:00 Welcome
01:01 Mast Cells and Bloating
01:59 Mastocytosis vs Activation
03:55 Real Patient Clues
06:07 What Mast Cells Do
08:06 Why Testing Misses It
10:30 Histamine Food Triggers
11:57 Beyond Bloating Symptoms
12:50 Gut Barrier and Motility
17:59 Hormones Stress and Flares
22:17 Looks Like IBS or SIBO
26:27 Tracking and Talking to Doctors
33:20 Wrap Up and Next Steps

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Team Gut Girls – Episode 9 – Why Your Gut Overreacts to Everything

Mast Cells and Bloating

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Welcome back. So today we’re gonna talk about, mast cell activation, and this is a big one that we’re seeing a lot of people talk about in relationship to perimenopause, ’cause we’re seeing all these people posting on your various favorite platforms about H1 and H2 blockers and how it’s making their lives so much different.

And it would be really interesting, I think, to talk about how mast cell activation affects bloating and why it’s working, with this hormonal component piece because, knowing why something works is just as important as having something work. so today, we’re gonna talk about sort of people that may have felt that they’re getting bloated from foods that used to feel like they were safe, or getting bloated without eating much at all, or feeling, anxious or itchy, or heart racing, or headaches, that comes alongside of the bloating symptom.

Mastocytosis vs Activation

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: [00:02:00] And one of these sort of important pieces in the bloating cycle that maybe is less talked about is mast cell activation, and mast cell, is different than mastocytosis. We’ll just start with that. mastocytosis is a, cancer, and that’s often what your family doctor might be familiar with because of that’s what they learned in med school.

but what we’re talking about today is a completely different situation that uses similar, components of the cell, so don’t… You’re not dying, but you might just be reacting.

maybe we’ll start off with, what is mast cell activation and how do we even know that’s going on. and not everyone that has bloating has mast cell activation, but for some women this may be an explanation of why nothing else has worked, and men as well. and so this, [00:03:00] for me in my practice, and you guys may have some different experiences as well, shows up when people feel like their bloating shows up really fast, or with things that, maybe shouldn’t cause bloating, like water, or that they get a lot of symptoms that come alongside of it, like feeling, heart racing or anxious or, really f- a lot of fear that comes up around it because it’s a bloating that isn’t really related to digestion.

It’s actually more related to the immune system. And so it’s more of an inflammation, system. And in the previous episode where we talked about disorders of gut-brain interaction, we talked about how inflammation and motility are really affected by the immune system, and so this is another piece of that component.

And this is more of an inflammatory bloating rather than a gassy bloating. Make sense? Okay.

Real Patient Clues

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Um, why don’t… Do you guys have any, [00:04:00] mast cell patient stories that you wanna share as a way to, get people familiar with what we’re talking about, and the starting point today?

Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: I have a few cases that have popped up where people, aren’t presenting this way.

It could be more subtle, and a couple of times they’ve just been on anti-inflammatories every day for years. That was the solution that fixed these, very hive-like or allergy-type symptoms. So for example, a, patient of mine had hives that would show up all over her hands, and the doctor said, “Here’s a solution,” which worked, but that was years and years ago.

And now since then, all of these other subtle things have started to pop up, like you’ve mentioned. Flushing, anxiety, absolutely indigestion. So that’s always a little bit of a clue.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: Yeah. Yeah, I’ve had, varying degrees of mast cell patients, [00:05:00] and so the one that stands out is significant digestive issues.

So we’ve had the bloating and the constipation, but a lot of the skin involvement, too, so significant eczema, react- reactions to foods, not being able to have baths or showers, like there being a kind of temperature reaction. When the weather gets warmer, this person has reacted, where their symptoms have been exacerbated just because of the temperature outside.

So we’re seeing, like, you mentioned, Christina, this, immune system overlap with digestion, and it’s, a bit, it’s a bit messy

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: I actually, had a patient this morning who was one of the ones who had gone for a pelvic venous assessment, and in the stenting, it actually triggered her body into this crazy mast cell reaction.

And so this morning we were talking about, like, how do we calm down and reset the body. And it’s been weeks. [00:06:00] but it basically created this, safety issue in her body where her body, hyper-responded or hypervigilant, and that’s really what it’s about.

What Mast Cells Do

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: So, mast cells are cells that are in the body, and they’re filled with all kinds of mediators, so histamine, prostaglandins, leukotrienes, cytokines.

they’re all things that cause different reactions in the body, and their job is to respond to threat. And so a threat, may be the something like the surgery or a, procedure, but it could also be, like, a dog barking. It could be eating strawberries. It might be, having a glass of water. And so the threat is not determined by what we think is, a threat to ourselves.

It’s what our body sees as a threat to the system because it’s very much intertwined with the nervous system. And so if our nervous system is on edge, so anyone that feels burned out or has had a lot of stress, it’s a little bit easier for the body to, escape and go into this sort of threat pattern.

and [00:07:00] sometimes we’ll notice that. if you notice when you walk into a room and you kinda, get startled by someone coming in behind you, right? Or some… Or even, like, when you see them, you can see them, and you’re still startled, that’s a good indicator that your nervous system feels a little bit on overreactive potentially.

I used to work, share an office with a guy, named Anthony, and every time he walked in I would, and he was like, “This is also my office.” And I was like, “Yes, I am aware.” And so definitely been there so these cells are in our gut, which is part of why we’re getting a lot of these gut symptoms, but also in our skin, in our lungs, in our bladder.

And we have a handout that’s gonna be posted in the show notes that talks about all the different areas that mast cells can trigger in, and it’s really wide-ranging. And so it’s everything from endocrine disorders, like endometriosis or PCOS, to things like having traditional allergies or [00:08:00] skin symptoms, which we talked about earlier, to…

and even things like headaches or stomach pain.

Why Testing Misses It

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Um, and so it’s not really super clear because it passes so many different parts of the body, what piece is this or not, and there’s not great tests. And so that’s part of the challenge is that there are some blood tests that can tell us, and there are some criteria that say, this is what traditional mast cell activation syndrome is.”

The challenge is that a lot of those tests are only positive if someone’s able to catch the blood in a flare and get it tested really quickly, and that’s really unlikely in our current healthcare environment that’s gonna happen very easily. And so a lot of the treatments and a lot of the even diagnosis is really based on trial and error and understanding what’s going on with someone.

In my practice, we see it a lot around people with complex chronic illness, so they have already this really overloaded bucket of other things that are going on, and [00:09:00] this, safety system, is the way that I like to describe it, is actually preventing them from getting better because something that they might be very tolerant to, they’re suddenly having a reaction.

And so often this email goes back to someone and says, “That is a really unusual reaction that you’re having.” However, this might give us an idea that this other thing is going on. and to think about that when you’re… if you’re having an unusual reaction to something or, as a practitioner, if you’re having a patient that’s having an unusual reaction to something, this might be a piece to think about.

and so one of the myths I think that fits into this bloating category around mast cells is like, “I have food allergies, and I’m sensitive to this food because it makes me bloated.” And so this classically looks like someone who has a really short list of s- foods that feel safe, and sometimes even those foods that feel safe may still be causing [00:10:00] triggers.

And it’s not a classic allergy. It’s actually just an immune system that feels super overwhelmed. It’s it’s the child that, has seen someone a million times that has come to your house, and then suddenly they freak out. And you’re just like, “Why are you freaking out? That’s Grandma.”

and so same kind of idea. It’s just like maybe they’re really tired that day. Maybe they didn’t have a nap. Maybe Grandma was wearing a kind of perfume that upset them. there’s… you’re trying to f- keep thinking about that.

Histamine Food Triggers

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And so one of the reasons that we talked earlier about foods, healthy foods that might worsen bloating could be some of this, like histamine component.

And so if you think about those foods, with your patients, like what, would those typically be? What are people telling you?

Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: I always think it’s like the tasty thing. Charcuterie board. Yes. Glass of wine, beer, [00:11:00] leftovers. It’s really talked a lot about, but that can release some histamine. And then in some, good healthy things too.

Yes. avocado, spinach. Kombucha is a big one. There’s a lot of stuff going on in kombucha, everybody. There’s the sugar. There’s It’s like for sure. Fermented, yeast. Fermented, yeast. Yeah. So yeah, so that, that’s where some histamine-like things can show up.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And histamine’s one thing, but it’s a thing that we all understand, like what is histamine.

And so I think that one’s like a n- nice one sometimes for people to get some, comprehension around. And a lot of the initial treatments really do focus on histamine. It’s the more predominant one. so we thought about a, a sort of things that we might suspect.

Beyond Bloating Symptoms

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: So flushing we talked about, [00:12:00] and heat intolerance, itching and hives, anxiety.

some people say they feel like an internal buzzing sensation or heart palpitations, headaches and migraines. So we often will tell people to avoid some of these foods during migraines is ac- this is actually why. and it may be something that really changes from day to day. So today everything feels, super overwhelmed, and tomorrow after a good night’s sleep, it doesn’t feel like anything’s happening at all so what else?

So what are things that mast cells, cause beyond bloating? when we think about the disorders of gut-brain interaction and some of those things that we talked about earlier, what are some of the things that we want people to think about?

Gut Barrier and Motility

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Um, so hypersensitivity, gut motility, fluid shifts, permeability, things like that

[00:13:00] so increased intestinal permeability, like leaky gut, can be an indicator of mast cells. So things like, gas, distension, bloating, food irritations, this is intestinal permeability. We have a show coming up on that. Is sometimes where we think some of these food allergen-type testings might be showing up, like why you’re getting these things on your test.

it can also be, reasons why we’re seeing things like, uh, true allergies, anaphylactic allergies. So intestinal permeability is one of the pieces where mast cell can actually loosen some of those tight junctions up and create more reactivity in the body

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: It’s interesting with that one because, it goes back to s- of this paper that I was reading recently about the FODMAP diet.

And as we know, MCAS patients really overlap with digestive [00:14:00] issues. And so we can see patients come to us who’ve tried the low FODMAP diet, and they’re like, “Oh, I s- I saw, an improvement with the low FODMAP diet.” So the low FODMAP diet, the most common diet for IBS, but it also lowers, food, food allergens too.

And so from, an allergic standpoint is, we may see an improvement in this intestinal permeability just because they’ve lowered their food allergens. which again goes into the second point of altered gut motility. So we’ll see what can, be, like, rapid transit or slow transit or back and forth, and that has to do with the shifts in gas and bloating, fermentation, pressure in the gut, those sorts of things.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah, constipation. constipation actually can be a piece of this puzzle.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: Definitely.

Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah. depends on, yeah, what’s going on in their system, other triggers. It’s overlaps of so many things. But we’ve also talked about this piece in our previous episode on disorders of gut-brain interaction, is [00:15:00] the visceral hypersensitivity.

So like Christina, you mentioned, the system is in, alarm mode for some reason. So the nerves are just getting triggered, and the gut and the brain are yelling at each other for some reason. and this, can just make normal things going through the gut, like our gas and our food, which should be there, it’s all moving through, it can feel more intense, and bloat inappropriately, or feel painful.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: Yeah.

Yeah, and we talked about this pain disinhibition aspect too, which is where we feel this pain more inappropriately because the signals are, essentially miswired. and another thing that occurs is this fluid shift and vascular changes. So we are, histamine is able to increase blood vessel permeability, so we can see abdominal swelling even without excess gas.

y- so that can maybe speak to, the redness and the kind of the temperature issues that we [00:16:00] discussed earlier

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah, so really this is a bloating that isn’t really about what you ate, but more about how your immune system reacted, and the symptoms are very variable. So it makes yourself kind of crazy trying to track everything and figure out where it’s coming from.

And you may notice the bloating, but you may also notice other things. you might also be like, “Oh, whenever I get bloated I get a headache,” or, “I get this skin irritation,” or, “I feel really hot.” And so that can be helpful to narrow it down that this might be an area to look at. I definitely…

Actually, I had a woman, last week that emailed me that tried a probiotic, just r- in part of her treatment plan. It wasn’t a thing that I had suggested, but she had added it in, and had a crazy, mast cell reaction, but we couldn’t figure out what was going on because she thought she was, like, allergic to the probiotic.

And um, and her reaction was, like, it was very long-standing, so it [00:17:00] wasn’t just like she reacted that day. It was like two weeks and she was still reacting. And so some of that also is that security system, right? Your body isn’t sure, what happened, and it had this, really intense response, and then is so fearful.

We see this in kids, right? The kids fall off their bike, and then they’re really hesitant to get back on the bike again. And you’re like, you’re never gonna fall off every time.” you’re gonna fall off, but you’re never gonna fall off all the time. And same kind of thing happens in the body is, we learn one thing, and then we’re like, “Oh, that thing’s not safe,” or, “I can’t do that thing.”

Or, someone in my family thinks that whenever they drink Gatorade they get diarrhea, and it wasn’t that at all. but it was like, it just, it becomes this, pattern that becomes g- aligned in your brain, and it’s really hard to undo. And so certainly, some of this can hopefully, help your body to feel safer if everything isn’t so overwhelmed.

Hormones Stress and Flares

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: [00:18:00] Um, I would say in addition to, foods, there’s lots of things that can cause reaction, and this goes back to talked about in the beginning. Hormone fluctuations actually can cause lots of mast cell activation, and especially things like estrogen. So if we see people that are having endometriosis, we see patients that are having more estrogen symptoms because they’re changing doses of their bioidentical hormones, or they’re in this perimenopause stage, this actually can explain, and we’ll see a lot of overlap between some of the symptoms that they’re having- like headaches and mood changes and brain fog that may actually be related to the hormone changes are actually triggering other things in their, nervous system.

Because we certainly know this patient population, as they’re getting into the perimenopause stage, usually has the sandwich generation, right? They have their parents they’re looking after and their kids they’re looking after and their job that they’re trying to [00:19:00] do, and they just feel super overwhelmed really easily.

And so that nervous system overload becomes really easy to happen. And some people by happy accident, ’cause it’s allergy season in much of the country right now, are taking an antihistamine and they’re like, “Wait a second, everything else got better.” and so that’s like a one way that people are kinda finding out that maybe some of these things are more interrelated.

Stress certainly can be a big trigger. infections, and then in, in my practice I see lots of people with environmental exposures, mold exposures, Lyme disease. anything where the body is like trying to keep something under control, and this outside in, challenge comes in. And that might just be literally drinking a glass of water, that your body is just s- feels so overloaded that it creates this mast cell response or this And what that really is that these cells break open and all the contents spill out, and it [00:20:00] causes this inflammation and sensitivity and all these symptoms to be exacerbated. and so the bloating may be coming from not even eating because of this.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: It’s interesting ’cause you just- it’s like a d- bit of a domino effect, right?

You, end up seeing the nervous system then permeate into sleep issues, and we need to sleep in order to have good digestion. They- like our circadian rhythm is very intertwined with our gut health. And so we can see a bit of like a snowball effect happening ’cause so many systems are involved.

Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Do we know why or do researchers know why it continues to, go in the loop? You know what I mean? Like, why does this reactivation keep happening? Is there a certain trigger or is it really multifactorial?

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah. I think part of it is, if we don’t identify it as an issue, like sleeping for instance, if we don’t get good night rest the [00:21:00] one night, the next night if we’re doing the same thing, we’re watching TV, we get to bed late, we eat late, then we’re not getting sleep the second night, and then w- it feels like it snowballs, right?

There’s people that come into our practices that say, “Oh my gosh, I haven’t slept in two weeks. I haven’t slept in three weeks.” and so I think the same thing is true in these, allergy loops or in these histamine loops, is that you then become so fearful and questioning of everything else. You increase the stress which increases the bucket load, and so now a little bit of something is, pushing the bucket over.

It’s no different than when you have a great night of sleep. you’re way more tolerant to the people around you even though they haven’t changed at all. It’s just like you’re like, “Oh, yeah, n- I don’t feel as, as fragile as I maybe did the day before.” Or during menstrual cycles, sometimes people will say, “I’m very mean,” or, “I’m agitated,” or, “My family doesn’t wanna talk to me.”

Same kinda idea, right? It’s like the system [00:22:00] becomes so overwhelmed by all the things that are going on. and we live in an environment that’s really stressful right now. the world is crazy. And so add that into the stuff that’s already happening in your body, and we’re just seeing so much more reactivity

Looks Like IBS or SIBO

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Um, so this sometimes why I think this was important to talk about is this can look like SIBO, on paper. So it’s like you’re getting this delay, you’re getting upper body bloating, you’re getting rapid transit, you’re getting this distension, you’re getting urgency, you’re getting constipation, you’re getting diarrhea.

but maybe your SIBO test was negative or you’ve already treated it and it’s still happening. is this part of the nervous system’s reaction? Because we know the nervous system plays a big role in the gut. And is, mast cell degranulation causing this bloating, which is causing this, neuroimmune system kind of loop?

And [00:23:00] thinking about, like, all our overlapping diagnosises, constipation, diarrhea, IBS, SIBO, as, these are maybe all intermixed. And just because you have one problem with your gut, like constipation, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have another thing that’s layered into there. So as much as the traditional medical system is like one issue, one problem, one solution, what we really see is probably less of that, is that a lot of things really do overlap.

And the more information that we can get from our patients really helps us to narrow in on is this a piece of the problem. I would say especially, women, estrogen plays a huge role in this. And so worse around ovulation, worse before a menstrual cycle, worse during perimenopause, worse during hormonal birth control.

Worse, worse at times that when progesterone is highest, like [00:24:00] pregnancy, that suddenly, things may feel like that they improve. but it can also worsen things because now we have a foreign thing that’s in our body that’s also creating our nervous system to react. So not simple.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: It’s, it’s interesting.

I’m sorry I keep ref- referring back to research, but of course you- we’re all evidence-based here. So there is one supplement for endometriosis on the topic of talking about estrogen and how this- Yeah … can potentially overlap with MCAS. So one supplement known as PEA, which is… I’m not even gonna try to pronounce it, ’cause I always butcher it.

But it’s known as PEA for reducing pain in endometriosis, and there is a generally a newer research paper that is now studying PEA in MCAS in digestive patients for decreasing pain. So it’s pretty cool we start seeing this convergence of conditions where they’re responding basically to the same type of mechanism that the supplement is, working on.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Which is why we’re seeing the women [00:25:00] responding in the perimenopause, like TikTok space, to the antihistamines because it’s working on the same receptors.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: So neat.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah. One problem can have multiple solutions, and one solution can have… solve multiple problems okay, so what else do we wanna know about this?

Certainly, the testing we talked about is questionable at best. there are some tests for what’s called tryptase. tryptase sometimes, as a practitioner, if people are getting tons of symptoms, we do wanna see that it’s, a normal or low number just because that could be the genetic sort of part markers for, things that are m- more, sym- more complicated than just having a immune system reaction.

So we’re thinking about mastocytosis or those cancer markers or even genetic disposition. but we shouldn’t just [00:26:00] rely on the labs because certainly, as we can see, the pattern really fluctuates, and so a normal response in a lab doesn’t mean that you’re clear. or, taking histamines out of your diet, like some of the foods Whitney mentioned earlier, doesn’t always clear you, both from having symptoms, but also to say, “Oh, I took those histamines out and it didn’t make any difference.”

because remember, histamine’s just one of the mediators that’s released.

Tracking and Talking to Doctors

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And so it is a plentiful mediator, but not everyone is responding to that one so how, as a patient, can you help your practitioners figure out if this is going on for you? I would say certainly, tracking symptoms, both symptoms that happen, during the bloating and not bloating time.

And, during the bloating, if you also have other symptoms like flushing or heart palpitations or skin irritation or menstrual cycle. [00:27:00] certainly looking at hormonal timing and the impact of sleep and stress and other things that are going on. So if you’re like, “Oh, I’m getting these reactions on days when I am very stressed out,” or, “I got stuck in traffic,” or, “These things also happened,” that can tell us a little bit about how your system might be a little bit overloaded.

and maybe Dominique, do you wanna talk about how this re- relate to IBS, since that’s your jam?

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: Yeah. Uh, it- so the- there are… Maybe I’ll preface, it with, so- some patients truly do have IBS, but we also can see the literally the clinical diagnosis of IBS show up in other kind of more umbrella conditions, right?

So patients with disorders of gut-brain interaction, yes, meet the diagnostic criteria for IBS. A lot of patients with MCAS meet the diagnostic criteria for IBS, and maybe the mechanisms for group one versus group two is just totally different, or there’s more of a dominant mechanism. So it doesn’t [00:28:00] mean that the symptoms aren’t real, but for some people that do get the diagnosis of IBS, it means we just don’t know why they’re having these symptoms.

So when it comes to bloating, and let’s say they have the diagnosis of IBS, and this bloating is mast cell driven, we wanna be thinking about, several things like calming the immune reactivity, stabilizing mast cells. We’re really just trying to calm, just calm the whole system, supporting that gut barrier function like we talked about earlier, that intestinal hyperpermeability.

So we are reacting to all these proteins, and we’ve got a bit of a cytokine inflammatory storm happening. we wanna slow that down or calm that down. We want to make sure we’re focusing on motility, if motility is an issue, as in like the speed at which things are moving through the digestive system.

We don’t want them to be too slow or too fast. And then lastly, we definitely wanna focus on regulating the nervous system. So like we’ve talked about in other episodes, it’s really not just chasing that [00:29:00] next food, to help us feel better. It’s- it goes, beyond that. And ideally, we’re not cutting foods, so we’re g- because we’re focusing on other areas.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah, and bloating in this case can really help and improve without having these really aggressive interventions. It’s actually the opposite, right? It’s about calming the system and not, destroying the system by adding in more and more antimicrobials or antibiotics or things along those lines.

Whit, do you wanna talk about how someone could talk to their practitioner about investigating this, or that it might even be a piece of the puzzle?

Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND: Yeah, so just kinda… ‘Cause w- if you are experiencing, mast cell or, this overloaded system, sometimes, yes, bloating might be a piece of your puzzle, but other things we’ve talked about too, like headaches, that can really take over your life, so sometimes that’s the main chief [00:30:00] complaint.

I have headaches, I have migraines. so just kinda, w- track your symptoms. Headaches around your cycle. What’s your digestion like around your cycle? are you noticing other allergy-type symptoms that may be linked, like your itching, your hives? So just start to be more curious about your whole body.

It can get a little complex, but tracking it down, old-fashioned pen and paper, using an app. These period-free apps like Clue, as an example, are great ’cause you can often track a whole bunch of different things, and it can just really be, like, more pieces of the puzzle to bring to your practitioner. And even with the digestion piece alone, so we’re really focused on bloating here, but if you’re noticing that it’s not really correlating with a typical timeline of when you should bloat, it’s not happening 90 minutes to two hours after you’ve eaten a meal, once it hits, the intestine or the microbiome.

So it might be mediated by something [00:31:00] else, like your immune system, if it’s happening more quickly. So tracking and timing is great for us.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: And we built a, a questionnaire that you can download in the show notes by visiting our website, so teamgutgirls.com. And, in there, there’s, some of these, clues that you can kinda check off and, test so you don’t have to try to read through this podcast, breeze through this podcast and figure out all the things that we said.

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: And we also have episode two, which is on SIBO. So we’ve crossed over, discussion about s- small intestinal bacterial overgrowth a few times in this episode, so feel free to listen to our SIBO one because that may make a little bit more sense.

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: Yeah. I would say one of the big things in going to see your practitioner is, be aware that lots of practitioners will have not heard about this at all, and they’ll think that it’s a TikTok trend or something you read on Facebook or [00:32:00] because your labs are normal that they missed it.

or that they, you can’t have it. So keep in mind that it may be certainly a cause of what’s going on, and this may be a little bit of a tricky part to get some treatment for. certainly there are lots of things that can help, both in the herbal field and in the medication field. We’re not here to give advice or to help you to diagnose yourself.

We’re here to help you to figure out, what are other things that should be considered. And in that, we wanna make sure that you’re informed and educated, but we can’t tell you exactly what to do. and so working with a practitioner that does understand it and using some of, those questions when you call, to book in with someone, just be like, “Do you have anyone with this?

Do you have any experience with this?” that can be really helpful, especially if you’re finding that you’re seeing people about your bloating and the [00:33:00] things aren’t helping or not, changing anything. this definitely is a place to look, and certainly if there are other things that have gone on in your life at the same time.

So lots of stress, lots of other things going on, lots of comorbidities or other diagnosises. certainly this rises higher to the top of the list of things to be investigated

Wrap Up and Next Steps

Dr. Christina Carew, ND: So sometimes bloating isn’t about what you ate. Another episode on that. It’s about activating, in this case, your immune system. Sometimes some of the other cases, it’s actually a functional or a structural problem. but you can see that bloating is not super easy, and that’s why we’ve dedicated this whole first season just to, helping you to understand different things that might be contributing, causing to your bloating.

And always… you can always go back to the YouTube channel or our webpage to get more information and insight, and find out, put in your own symptoms, see which podcasts talk about the symptoms that you’re [00:34:00] experiencing to see, what should your diagnosis list look like. don’t give up.

There are practitioners that do know stuff. even if it feels like you’ve, hit a wall, there is a reason for your bloating, and it’s just about working through what’s going on. Any parting words?

Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND: Better gut changes everything.