Is it my hormones? my cortisol? my thyroid? or am I going crazy, doc?!
It was March of 2022 and a young man in his late 20's was sitting across from me asking me these questions. He had been dealing with anxiety, insomnia, fatigue, uncomfortable gas, bloating, and frequent eructation for several months.
Truthfully speaking, this sentiment is very common with a lot of my patients. It's total mayhem- a plethora of symptoms.
So what is it? It usually is not just one cause. The good news is that most of the time, we can take action to remediate the issues. And it doesn't usually take extreme actions. My approach is to first gather the history- what does your day-to-day look like? what do you eat? what do you do before bedtime? how is your stress? etc. Then I do an extensive lab analysis. For others I also do gut testing. Then we go over the results and decide from there what the next steps are.
But here's what interesting, the longer I am in practice, the longer I realize that one of the main driving forces for this plethora of symptoms is a nervous system that is stuck in high alert. You may have heard of this as the "fight, flight, freeze and fawn response." And I know what you're thinking- "it can't just be that I am stressed" or "but I am in therapy and I do breath work." In the beginning I struggled with this concept as well. But it wasn't until I was thrown into a loop of terrible, constant, ever-changing symptoms, that I was able to understand this. More on that later.
For a lot of people their blood work comes back with needing some sort of temporary support. For others, their driving factor went on for too long that they did have a hormone imbalance, or a low thyroid function, or blood sugar instability and at that point did benefit from treatment long-term. Each case is different. But the goal here is to support the body in all the different areas so that you actually get to living a healthy and fulfilling life. It is possible!
For the young man that I mentioned in the beginning, his lab results were relatively normal. He tested positive for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). This is literally an overgrowth of bacteria in his small intestine. The cause of it? You guessed it, his stress. Please note that this is not the only cause for everyone, but it is a common one. What helped? One, treating the overgrowth with a combination of herbal antimicrobials and antibiotics, a biofilm disruptor, motility, and repairing his gut lining. Second, retraining his brain and supporting his nervous system.
Our brain was beautifully designed to keep us safe and alive. But did you know that our brain can’t distinguish between reality and our thoughts? That it learns on repetition? Our thoughts and the processing of emotions and experiences shape what our brain believes to be true and safe. These experiences create neural pathways that express into our reality. Stress, worry, fear, or negative emotions signal our brain to perceive threat or danger, and it puts our nervous system in high alert. This can then lead to an array of symptoms: insomnia, chronic fatigue, headaches, anxiety, digestive symptoms, heat intolerance, chronic pain, and much more. Fortunately, God designed our brain to be able to rewire itself, this is known as neuroplasticity (Romans 12:2- do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” So this means that we can teach our brain to feel safe again!
Life and health can feel very overwhelming but it doesn't have to be that way. It's usually not that complicated given the right knowledge and tools. I wrote this free short guide called- Simple Rhythms for Healthy Living, to give you a framework. Download it, implement it, and tell me what you think! Stay connected for the latests blog posts and updates!
Remember what John 10:10 tells us- the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I (Christ) came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I believe this to be true for every believer in Christ. Claim it for you!