Today, I'm going to talk about how long it takes to heal from IBS, constipation, and
other digestive challenges, so stay tuned.
If you're new here, welcome, my name's Amanda Malachesky, I'm a Certified Functional Nutrition
Health Coach and Digestive and Allergy Detective.
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I recently had a few questions from some viewers who wanted to know how long it takes generally
to heal from digestive challenges.
Well, everyone's different by the end of this video, you should have a sense of how long
it might take you to heal, because I'm going to divide up the answer into three broad categories.
Certainly everyone I work with wants to know the answer to this question, and so you'll
get a chance to see how I help my clients think about these questions for themselves.
So let's get started.
So here's the question Joshua wrote to me, thank you for your question, Joshua.
I'm going to read it to you.
"What's the average amount of time with your clients.
It takes to heal them from sibo or other intestinal problems like IBS and others.
If of course they were to stick to the plan diligently.
The reason I ask is because my functional medicine doctor told me it can take up to
about a year or so to be completely 100% healed and back to gut balance.
And then again, I've heard of people healing their sibo in 12 weeks."
Well, I imagine this question is in the forefront of your mind because you've likely already
invested a good amount of time, effort and, or money in trying to sort the solution out,
and maybe you've interfaced with several or more doctors, GI doctors and whoever, who
may or may not have a lot to offer you.
So totally an understandable question.
And the short answer is of course, that it really depends.
Every single person is different and what they need to solve their problem is unique.
In functional nutrition and functional medicine, we work within the context of everything going
on for you.
So depending on what your problem is, the timeline for solving it may be really different.
So the first category I like to think about are simple imbalances, and these are going
to be things like really basic food intolerances.
So maybe something like lactose intolerance, or maybe you're just a little sensitive to
some FODMAP foods or histamine foods, and if you remove those foods, you feel better.
And often people with these conditions, it's a new problem, it hasn't been going on for
that long.
And just by making some simple adjustments, you might see some positive change within
maybe only two to three weeks.
Often in this case, the tool that really makes a huge difference is the right elimination
diet, so just removing some foods that we think might be causing the problem and then
reintroducing them to challenge and see if we're right.
So if you need a little bit more help choosing an elimination diet, you can check out my
earlier video, how to choose the right elimination diet.
The second category of challenge that I see for people is often related to dysbiosis.
And in this case, this might be a problem that's been going on for several months or
longer.
And it's sort of looking like chronic or intermittent diarrhea or constipation or alternating constipation
or diarrhea, and you've already maybe tried some things and you haven't been able to solve
it yet.
So depending on the severity of this problem, it can take several months and longer to figure
out what you need to do.
It really depends on the severity of the problem and what the underlying causes are.
Sometimes we invest some effort in clearing dysbiosis and all of those usual techniques
don't do a darn thing.
And so then we have to kind of go back to the drawing board and try and figure out why
isn't this working?
Why aren't the usual techniques working?
So in this situation, finding a solution might take as little as two months, or it could
take longer up to a year or more depending on how severe the situation is and what we
need to do.
So the third category is much more complex cases or diagnoses.
So in this case, you may have something like an autoimmune disease or some other diagnosed
conditions.
So some examples of these might be things like Crohn's disease, celiac disease, rheumatoid
arthritis, autoimmune thyroid disease, and your symptoms may be digestive, but they also
may have an immune component, things like joint pain, headaches, heavy and intense fatigue,
brain fog, that kind of come and go without warning, and they're pretty continuous and
they affect you daily to weekly and really disrupt your life.
So diet and lifestyle changes can and do help resolve some of these symptoms.
Sometimes they can create remission entirely and they can certainly improve your quality
of life.
But for people in this situation, this is often a long-term project.
It's often a long-term investment in changing your habits and your diet, and these often
need to be considered non-negotiables for you to maintain your symptom remission and
your quality of life.
But by taking charge of the situation and doing the best you can, you live the best
life that you're able to, given the situation.
And I just want to share briefly that I seem to be in this position.
I have ongoing digestive challenges.
I've tried just about everything and I'm largely have them under control.
They don't bother me all the time, but they do periodically flare.
I'm still trying to learn exactly what's happening and pursue a diagnosis.
But in the meantime, my lifestyle habits with diet, with sleep and exercise and all of the
things that I preach and practice with my clients, I do for myself as well.
And they helped me live a decent life and have a good quality of life.
And I've even learned how to quickly turn those flares around when they happen.
So, I may not be perfect, I may still have challenges, but I'm going to consider that
a win.
So after watching this video, which category do you think that you're in?
Tell me about it in the comments.
So I hope this video has helped give you some perspective of how long it might take you
to heal from your digestive challenges.
For some, you may be better in a matter of weeks.
For others, it could take months to a year or longer.
And for some of you, you may need to, in the long term, make changes that are ongoing to
maintain your symptom remission and quality of life.
But I'm here to help you do this work is what I specialize in with my clients.
You can learn more about how to do this process for yourself in my roadmap to gut recovery,
I will leave a link for that below this video.
It's a guide that gives you some steps you can take right away to get started trying
to understand what your symptoms are telling you and how you need to adjust your habits
to feel better.
So you can check that out by going to confluencenutrition.com/roadmap, and you can get your free copy there.
Or if you've already tried a lot, and you're a little confused about what to do for your
next steps, I would love to meet with you and help you sort that out.
You can schedule a free 30 minutes assessment session with me by visiting confluencenutrition.com/contact.
We'll get together, we'll talk about what your situation is, and we'll talk about whether
or not I feel like my services can help you and we'll talk about what it might be like
to work together.
Well, that's all I've got this week, so thanks so much for watching.
If you have a question about something or health-related that you would like me to answer,
please leave it for me in the comments below.
I definitely read them and would be happy to speak to that in the future.
And if you liked this video, please consider liking and sharing it with someone who you
think could use it.
Until next time, be well, have a great week.