Hi, it's Eric Bakker, the naturopath from New Zealand.
Thank you for coming back.
How can you analyze your stool test result?
Is it possible to look at a comprehensive stool analysis from say doctor's data in Chicago
or maybe from Genova Diagnostics?
Or it could be any other stool test that you're looking at.
Particularly from the better companies.
How do you go about analyzing this information and working it out?
Well, it's not that easy.
It's a difficult one.
People often ask me how they can do it.
It's not a paint by numbers thing.
You can't just see, wow, my beneficial bacteria are down.
Let's just take a pile of those and see what happens.
You know paint by numbers?
You got a little horse on a paddock, number two is brown, number three is blue.
Doesn't work like that.
It don't work like that.
A lot of caution is required, really.
You need to take a lot of care when you're doing this.
One of the difficulties with stool testing is the complexity of the information.
Because you'll get overwhelmed by all these names and numbers.
And to me, that's like saying, "How can I repair my own V6 motor fuel injectors and
make them better?"
Or, "I want to repair a parachute.
Can you show me how to repair it?"
You can do it, but it could be a little bit suspect.
Many people do analyze stool test results themselves at home.
And they're particularly looking for pathogens, they'll be looking for parasites, looking
for high levels of bad bacteria.
And then they will go straightaway to the panels, what we call the susceptibility panels,
or what actually helps to kill those bugs, the pharmaceutical agents and the natural
agents.
People will often jump straight to those and just take, for example, oregano or garlic
or whatever it is that's indicated.
That's not a bad way to start, especially if you take it really easy and go very, very,
very cautiously with taking a supplement like that.
But the problem lies in, you won't have a clue on how much to take of something and
how long to take it for and then went to stop it and when to start another treatment.
That's why it's really best that you work with somebody who can guide you through that
process.
Because it's not a simple thing to do.
Our clinics completed over 3,000 stool tests so we've got a reasonable level of experience
with it.
And the best information I can give you, if you're very, very interested in doing it yourself,
is to talk to someone from the laboratory first, even a technician from the lab and
ask, "Well, how do I prep myself?
How do I prepare myself for it?"
Because some tests have got different ways of preparation.
And then guide yourself through a preparation process for several days before you do the
test.
For example, if you've taken antibiotics on a Friday, there's no point taking a stool
sample on a Sunday or Monday is there?
You need to really understand these principles.
But don't change your diet.
Whatever you're eating, don't all of a sudden go on a brand new diet, just because you're
doing a stool test.
You stick with the original diet.
If you're taking medications, you really need to let the lab know that on the form, what
you're taking.
Particularly if they're gut kind of medicines.
And oftentimes you won't get a great outcome with a test result if you're taking pharmaceutical
drugs anyway.
The two key things that you look at will be the beneficial bacteria and also the imbalanced
flora.
What's out of kilter?
If you're going to go for a complicated stool test like the GI360, I think that's way out
of most people's scope.
That would be like me getting an average person and giving them a clinical study or a meta
analysis involving 50 studies and saying, "Just give me the really good analysis of
this paper, please."
Most people look at it and tell, "What the hell is all this?
All these words, I've got no idea what this is."
Just not the right kind of thing to do.
There are professional people out there that will guide you through it.
But unfortunately they are few and far between.
I've met too many practitioners who tell you they know about stool testing, but they use
it sort of a little bit of an advanced paint by number system.
If you're going to do the test, one's never enough.
You need to do one upfront, you need to do some type of treatment cycle and generally
you're going to wait three to six months.
You're going to repeat that stool test result and then see what the outcome is.
Of course, with all medicines, usually anything for seven or 10 days, do it again, repeat
it.
And then you may want to wait a year or so and repeat it again.
Now you've got a nice analysis here of several tests and you can actually see what's been
happening.
And if you're intelligent, you'll actually also document any medicines you're taking
or supplements and your diet through that process so you can see what worked and what
didn't work.
It's all about cause and effect.
There's no point doing a test if you're not going to really understand the process of
elimination in taking things out of your diet or your life, doing a treatment phase and
then having a phase where the body is going to work with that treatment, then you're going
to repeat the test to see, to validate what we call the clinical efficacy of the test.
What I'm trying to say is, was a test worth it?
Did you actually get off your butt and do something to improve the outcome for the following
test?
Or did you do nothing and pop a few pills and expect to be amazing within a month?
The test is a very smart way to guide you through a process of improving your gut to
the point where you don't need to test anymore.
It takes time, it takes money, it takes commitment and a good understanding.
And that's why it's good to work with somebody else who's on your side.
If you can't do it yourself, which in my opinion, 95% of people can't, and it's not your fault.
You didn't spend several years at medical school and learn microbiology.
Don't blame yourself for it.
It's complicated.
It took me years to get a handle on stool tests.
And even now I'm still an amateur at it compared to some people out there.
But there's a big difference between an academic and a clinician.
They're two different animals altogether.
I've got very dear academic friends in the States, microbiologists at a high level that
loves studies, but these buggers have never spent one day in a clinic.
They've just studied bugs, basically all their lives in Petri dishes and microscopes.
They're very far removed from a guy like me who's on the front line, working with the
problems.
Big difference.
It's a little bit like the guy in the office in the White House and then the soldier there
with the AK47 with the bad guys.
There's a huge, big gap between them.
Contact the lab.
If you live in the States, for example, contact the lab and say, "Hey, I'm looking for someone
who is pretty good in, and I live in Wisconsin."
Or I live in Philadelphia.
Or I live in, I don't know, I don't know many places in America, Idaho, is there a good
practitioner here?
And they'll point you to that.
That's to me, that's the smartest thing you can do is go to someone who's got a skillset
because it's going to save you a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of misery.
I've had some patients who did try and work with the test results on their own back, trying
to use the results and the outcome wasn't really good in a few cases.
It was quite bad.
Person created more problems that other practitioners had to solve for them.
It's a bit like your car, it's not really good to work on that V6 by yourself, is it?
And then you end up stuffing it up and then a mechanic's got to fix it all up for you
and charge you more money.
Think about it.
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Thanks for tuning in.