Archive Monthly Archives: August 2024
Sherry Lipp & Karyn On… SCD 2.0
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What happens when two SCD experts join forces to thoroughly examine the Specific Carbohydrate Diet to make it better than ever before?
This episode. That’s what happens!
In this week’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we’re diving into all things SCD with guest, Sherry Lipp. Sherry is a certified holistic gut practitioner, SCD expert, and a seasoned IBD warrior. Sherry’s journey through the ups and downs of Crohn’s disease since her diagnosis in 1999 led her to discover the healing power of SCD, which played a crucial role in her path to remission.
In our candid conversation, we not only celebrate what we love about SCD, but we also explore its limitations and how if we were the masterminds behind a more modern take on the diet (SCD 2.0), it would be more accessible for IBD skeptics and would also boast even bigger results for those who go all in.
Whether you’re new to the SCD or a seasoned follower, this episode will provide you with fresh insights, practical tips, and thoughtful critiques that could change the way you approach your IBD diet plan.
Join Sherry and me as we talk about everything from how the SCD gave us structure and clarity in our dietary choices, to the evolving science around the microbiome that suggests areas where the SCD could benefit from some modern-day tweaks. We’ll also share our personal experiences with SCD, discuss how it has empowered us and our clients, and brainstorm what SCD 2.0 could look like.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [00:03:45] The pivotal role that the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) has played in both Sherry’s and my IBD journey, and why it remains a go-to strategy for many.
✅ [00:07:18] The structure and clarity that SCD provides, making it easier to navigate what can often be a confusing world of dietary restrictions.
✅ [00:11:56] The limitations of the original SCD book, Breaking the Vicious Cycle, and why some people struggle to follow it.
✅ [00:19:22] How modern science, particularly our growing understanding of the microbiome, suggests that the SCD might benefit from updates—especially in areas like the inclusion of bifidobacterium.
✅ [00:26:34] The importance of not just what we remove from our diets, but also what we add in—an aspect that often gets overlooked in the SCD approach.
✅ [00:31:08] Why a more personalized and less restrictive approach could make the SCD more sustainable and effective for different individuals.
✅ [00:42:40] How the SCD has evolved in our lives, including the foods we’ve added back in and the adaptations we’ve made over time.
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Mentioned in the Episode:
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Other Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
>> Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall
>> Bifidobacterium in IBD Study
>> Another Bifidobacterium Study
Connect With Karyn:
Connect With Sherry:
The Happy Gut for Life Website
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:00]:
Well, hey there, my friend. We meet again. I’m so happy you’re here. As we both know all too well, living with Crohn’s or colitis, it can be a constant battle. So my goal for today is let’s just go ahead and dive in. Let’s see if we can just move the needle, move it just a little bit for you today. Anyway, that’s my hope, you know? So I have to start by saying that one of the things that I get asked about most as a veteran IBDer, it’s about the specific carbohydrate diet. And, you know, if you’ve ever done this, once you start branching out from your doctor’s advice, you’re wondering what else is out there to help you heal.
Karyn [00:00:45]:
Inevitably, you will stumble across something about the specific carbohydrate diet, and you’ll enter this rabbit hole that’s part aha and part confusion. But you’ll definitely leave that rabbit hole wanting to know more. So, as a long time SCDer talking about the specific carbohydrate diet, it’s something that I’ve become known for. So imagine my delight when I got the pleasure to meet a kindred spirit of a gal who’s also known as an SCD champion. And once we got to gabbing, we realized that SCD isn’t all we have in common in this. In this episode, I’m going to introduce you to Sherry Lipp, fellow IBD gal SCD coach and recipe developer extraordinaire. Sherry is a certified holistic gut practitioner and an expert in the specific carbohydrate diet, the SCD. It’s helped Sherry find relief and remission from Crohn’s disease.
Karyn [00:01:54]:
Diagnosed in 1999 after a challenging battle with her health, Sherry was able to find her path to healing through the diet when those traditional medical treatments, they failed her. Now, her journey, which includes overcoming an allergic reaction to mesalamine and also a bowel obstruction that led to a surgery, it has really shaped her holistic approach to gut health. Today, in our conversation, we dive deep into what makes SCD such a powerful tool in your IBD healing toolkit. And we talk about what we love about the diet, but we also get really honest and real as we explore its limitations and what we would change if we could be the masterminds behind SCD 2.0. Sherry shares her incredible insights on how she has adapted the diet to suit her specific needs while maintaining a balanced approach to food and health. This episode, it is packed with valuable information, whether you’re a seasoned SCD follower or you’re just curious about the diet and how it can impact your IBD journey. If you’ve ever ventured down the SCD rabbit hole and you wondered, is this the gut healing diet for me? This is the episode for you, my friend. Sherry’s wisdom, passion, her practical tips.
Karyn [00:03:30]:
It makes this a must listen for anyone navigating that complex world that we’re all navigating here, the world of diet and chronic illness. So let’s go ahead and dive in and explore everything we love and everything we change about the specific carbohydrate diet with the amazing Sherry Lipp.
Hey there, mama. Welcome to season two of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD. I’m Karyn Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment, and all of us advocating the hell out of our illness. We’re in this together, and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms.
Karyn [00:04:34]:
Let’s do this. Welcome to the podcast, Sherry. I’m so, so excited to have you join us today.
Sherry [00:04:47]:
Thank you for having me. I’m excited, too.
Karyn [00:04:49]:
This is gonna be a fun conversation because you and I are both SCD veterans, both as patients, but also as coaches helping people on the other side of STD. So basically, guys, today you’re getting two for the price of one. What we’re gonna talk about today is everything that we love about the specific carbohydrate diet. And then we’re going to get into some things that Sherry and I would change. We’ve actually talked about this before, the two of us. Some things that we might change if we wrote Breaking the Vicious Cycle 2.0. What would we change about it? What would we improve about it? So that’s what we’re going to do in today’s episode. But before we get to that, Sherry, I would really love to hear about what brought you to the specific carbohydrate diet.
Karyn [00:05:39]:
Tell me a little bit about that. And I know a little bit about your story, and I’m absolutely amazed at all that you and I have in common. It’s fascinating to me. So kind of just take us through your journey and what led you to the SCD to begin with.
Sherry [00:05:54]:
Okay. Yeah. And the same for me when I. When I found your videos. I was like, oh, wow. It’s always exciting. I’m sure all of us know. And it can be isolating to have IBD, and especially if you’re doing a special diet.
Sherry [00:06:06]:
And so what led me to SCD? So I started in the year 2000. So it’s been a long time now. And I. I had surgery. I got diagnosed with Crohn’s in 1999. That was pretty much my whole bad experience was 1999, and I just wasn’t reacting to medication. Of course, medication was very limited at that time, and there was no biologics or anything like that. It was prednisone.
Sherry [00:06:35]:
And as soon as I tapered off prednisone, my symptoms came back bad. I ended up having to have. I had a full bowel blockage, so that put me in the hospital and surgery. And then basically, when you have surgery, they’re like, you’re cured, you know?
Karyn [00:06:51]:
Right, right.
Sherry [00:06:53]:
And they put me on mesalamine and for maintenance, but I was allergic to it, so. And they’re like, you’re on your own. There’s nothing else right now. And so. And they’re like, 50 50. You’ll be fine. But I started feeling symptoms, probably within the year, mild ones, and I was really afraid. I went to the doctor and probably not crohn’s.
Sherry [00:07:18]:
It’s probably the effects of having surgery. And your bowel is shortened, so you’re going to be sensitive. But I was very paranoid because it was starting to become disruptive to my life again. Then I started trying to do research. Of course, online was in its infancy back then, too. But I did find. I actually saw it on a. I think it might have been the Crohn’s colitis Foundation forum.
Sherry [00:07:46]:
You know, the early days of message boards. I saw somebody. It was just a general Crohn’s group of some kind. And I saw one thread about diet, and somebody mentioned this one, you know, a cd diet. So I had to go down to my university bookstore and special order books, and that’s where it started. So I didn’t start it immediately. I read the book. It seemed overwhelming.
Sherry [00:08:10]:
And then the symptoms were bothering me more and more, and so I was like, I’m gonna try it for 30 days. So. And then I kept going.
Karyn [00:08:20]:
And that was that. And then I kept going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s really so similar to my story, and I can relate to you. I didn’t put it down for as long. I put it down for longer than you did when I first read it, which we’re going to get into, because that’s one of my thoughts about the book in general, is that’s a little bit confusing, but, yeah. So I have such a similar story to yours after having. I had two bowel resections, and then that’s how I came to the specific carbohydrate diet finally.
Karyn [00:08:51]:
But I had Crohn’s and was in the whole medical world, again, pre biologics for 20 years before I came to SCD because I was diagnosed back in 87. So they had nothing. You know, there was, like, nothing. Nothing in terms of that back then. And there was certainly no Internet. But then, yeah, it was like a forum that. Where I heard about it for the first time, and then it kind of, you know, it just went from there. And so you and I, I would say, both have had pretty good experiences with a specific carbohydrate diet.
Karyn [00:09:23]:
It really brought our disease into remission.
Sherry [00:09:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely keeps it there. I mean, you know, I had the surgery, and so they called it. They call it surgical remission. And for me, I was lucky that it didn’t. So for some people, I know it blows right back up, but I was lucky enough that mild symptoms scared me into really doing something.
Karyn [00:09:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. I love it. And so you and I have talked about. There’s lots of things that we really like about the specific carbohydrate diet. So I today was thinking about all the things that I love about it, all the things I tell clients that I love about it, all the things I preach about it, because it has really been helpful for me. And so I have five things that I want to just kind of proclaim before we get into things we would change.
Karyn [00:10:11]:
I have five things that I love. How many things do you have?
Sherry [00:10:15]:
I kind of have ten, you know? Yeah, I think there’s ten. Some of them kind of tie into me personally, so.
Karyn [00:10:23]:
Okay, so here’s what I’d like to do. Let’s go through our lists. Let’s have you do two, and I’ll do one. And possibly, let’s just see if there’s some overlap in what we think, because that would be cool. So let’s start with you. Tell me something you love about the specific carbohydrate diet.
Sherry [00:10:39]:
Well, I’ll say the first thing I loved, and that was that it gave me a guideline because I felt lost. I felt like I wasn’t eating poorly because I had already been through that experience. And I eat soup in it would throw me off balance, and I just didn’t know what to do. So it gave me some. It gave me a very specific guideline to go with the title. Yeah, yeah, that was. That was definitely my love of it. And so.
Sherry [00:11:08]:
And I think to go along with that, it was structuring how I wanted to eat.
Karyn [00:11:16]:
Who say more about that?
Sherry [00:11:18]:
It gave me, like, I didn’t have. I just. I planned out what I was gonna have in, like, in the first couple of months. I mean, it was boring, but I knew exactly what I was gonna eat.
Karyn [00:11:31]:
Instead of wondering, what should I eat? What’s good for me, it gave you this. The boundaries and the structure of this is what I eat, and I don’t go outside of it.
Sherry [00:11:41]:
Exactly. Yes. Very determined. And luckily, my husband was. Was very supportive, so he was just like. And he. He kept me going.
Karyn [00:11:52]:
I think it’s really. I don’t know if I would say you have to have a supportive spouse or family, but I would say it’s. It’s huge. It’s really. At least for me, I had a really supportive spouse, and my kids were little at the time, and so I just took everybody along for the ride. And I don’t know about you, but I find my clients who are able to do that, it’s so much more doable, rather than, well, I make this for my spouse, and I make this for my kids, and I make this for me. That is absolutely unsustainable. And so I would make the same food that I made for me.
Karyn [00:12:28]:
I would make that for my family, and then for them, I would add in rice or a potato or something. Did you do that, too?
Sherry [00:12:36]:
Exactly. That sometimes my husband will get his own thing. I don’t have kids. You know, he would like, and I didn’t. Well, I think in the early days, maybe I did resent that a little bit, but sure, he didn’t do it. I think now we fall into such a routine that it’s like sometimes we’ll just go grab something so he can go grab what he wants, and I get what I want. But in the early days, yeah, since I was. I was primarily the cook, as it was.
Sherry [00:13:02]:
So it’s like, you know, we’re having our protein, our vegetable, ours, you know, I’m having squash. He didn’t like squash, so he loved rice. I actually wasn’t that big of a rice fan in the first place, so I didn’t mind. I was like, okay, have the rice. I’m not that into rice, so I don’t care, you know, but I think.
Karyn [00:13:20]:
That makes everybody healthier. Like, I feel like my whole family is healthier because of it, which is something that I did not write down. But I think that’s a huge thing to say, is that I feel like my whole family is healthier because of the specific carbohydrate diet, because it’s just healthy food for the most part. Healthy food. Okay. Yeah. Give me another thing you love about it.
Sherry [00:13:44]:
Well, I think that for me, it was an immediate result.
Karyn [00:13:49]:
So that is one of mine. Yep.
Sherry [00:13:52]:
I felt better. So I have on. There was a reduced inflammation. I could definitely tell immediately that I, you know, all of us, I would just. Even though I wasn’t having a super amount of symptoms, I just was like. I just feel all over better.
Karyn [00:14:09]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was awful. I was feeling awful. I was. I was looking at another possible bowel resection, and I had already had two. And basically my doctor just gave up on me and said, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing that I can do for you. And that’s when I said, oh, I’ve got to go back to that book that I read years ago, because that’s the only path that I see forward. And within a week, I actually felt.
Karyn [00:14:37]:
And I was really, really sick. But within a week, I felt better. And so I wasn’t fully healed in a week, but I just felt like me in one week, which is quick. I don’t typically have clients that feel better in one week, but it’s pretty quickly that you start to feel better, and so that’s just to piggyback on what you said. I feel like it’s a quick win. Food in general, in my opinion, is the low hanging fruit in the gut. There’s a lot of other things you can do that are harder, but food is something where you can get it. If you’re doing it right for your gut, you can get a quick win, and so the SCD can give you that quick win.
Karyn [00:15:20]:
And so when you’re really desperate, you’re really looking for something. Or, like, in your case, when you’re just having those mild symptoms and you want to nip it in the bud quickly, I think it’s a great thing to try. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we definitely align on that. Give me one more that you have.
Sherry [00:15:37]:
Okay. So this might sound like a weird one, but at the time and early on, it actually helped me not feel awkward about my condition, because I. It gave me a concrete thing to say why I wasn’t going on the team lunch or why I was. I mean, interesting. I made food. So it got me out of my, actually, my work mates at the time were super supportive. They’re the most supportive co workers I’ve ever had when I started doing it, and so they were all in. And so it gave me that concrete thing to take the pressure off of me for feeling awkward.
Sherry [00:16:14]:
I know a lot of people like, it causes awkwardness, but when I started it, at the very least, it took that awkwardness away. Now, awkwardness came later as I continued it, as in that I went to new jobs and stuff like that. But in the early days, I just found, I think it all ties back to that one thing. It was a guide, and I was able to stick to it, and I was like, I just felt very confident in it. So that’s what I tell other people, and they’re like, oh, this person’s not supportive, or what do I do? I’m just like, you have to be confident and this is what you’re doing.
Karyn [00:16:45]:
Yes. You have to have faith in it. You have to have the confidence that it’s the right path for you. I really love what you’re talking about because I think it brings in the whole support system aspect, which is actually one of mine, which is the strong community piece of it. And I think you were really lucky. I, on the other hand, was very much known for my bread in my pasta and my italian dishes. And so my friend group, my coworkers, my family, they were all like, what the hell? Like, who is this person? Like, I don’t feel like I had that support, but I think when you do have that around you, I think that really makes a big difference.
Sherry [00:17:24]:
Mm hmm.
Karyn [00:17:24]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:17:25]:
Especially, I mean, I had family members that weren’t supportive of it, you know? And somebody was asking me about that, and he’s like, you know what? Some of those family members who weren’t super supportive have now passed away. So it’s like, I don’t care anymore, you know?
Karyn [00:17:38]:
Right.
Sherry [00:17:38]:
That’s the thing to keep in mind. It’s like it’s, you still feel confident, your choice. And unless it’s causing fights and arguments, I would hope not. But, you know, if it’s just somebody’s like, whatever, and handing you a candy bar and you just don’t eat it, you know?
Karyn [00:17:53]:
Exactly. Exactly. They may not cook for you in that way when you go to their house, but you just bring your own food, you know? Yeah, they might not get it like that. It’s rare when somebody gets it like that much that they’re like, yes, I will cook that meal for you?
Sherry [00:18:08]:
Yeah.
Karyn [00:18:08]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:18:08]:
Like, pretty much only my mom, you know, was doing that. She was always an adventurous cook anyway, so she was kind of excited to. To try out new things.
Karyn [00:18:18]:
That’s so awesome. I love hearing that. For me, it was my spouse. He was the super supportive one that was, like, you know, cheering me on and excited about it. Now, I think a little behind the scenes, he was a little bit resentful because he kind of went through that carbohydrate withdrawal initially, like I was going through. But up front, he was really, really supportive. And I think everybody needs somebody in their corner to kind of really walk this path with them and just say, hey, I am 100% in this with you. As long as you have at least one person, and it sounds like you had many of those people, it’s more likely that you’ll be successful.
Sherry [00:18:57]:
It makes up for the ones I mean. Yeah, I mean, there were hard times. There were times when I, like, sat home while everybody went out for a birthday dinner because it’s like they wanted to go to a restaurant that was, like, not gonna be anything, you know? So. And then I like. And so you hate to be the one that, like, well, I have to go to this, you know, because I know I can order what I need, and that’s like, well, I want thai food or, you know, or something like that. And I had no clue. And so sometimes, yeah, I’d be. I’d feel left out, or I’d be like, they’re getting pizza for a movie night, and I’m eating my plain chicken or whatever, but.
Sherry [00:19:34]:
Or sometimes waiting till I got home. So those things are hard, but so it definitely does help to. To have some support.
Karyn [00:19:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. And that goes along. Actually, I’ll mention one of the things that I have, because that goes very. Ties into very much what I wanted to say, and that is that, you know, back when you and I started SCD, maybe it was your coworkers or your family, but I think today that’s really changed, because there are so many online communities, and they are so supportive of each other. So if you don’t have anybody in your life, in real life, you can go online. You can go to online forums, you can go to online Facebook groups and all kinds of places, even live conferences. You can find people that are SCD people like, you can find your people where.
Karyn [00:20:20]:
When I was doing it, the only person I knew doing it was my coach who worked with me. That was it. I didn’t know anybody else. I would tell people about it. They had no clue what I was talking about. But I feel like nowadays, if you do start it, there is a built in community that you can very easily find.
Sherry [00:20:37]:
Yeah. That was the next thing on my list, you know?
Karyn [00:20:39]:
Okay, fantastic.
Sherry [00:20:40]:
Yeah. Nowadays, you’ve got the online community, so. And I tell people, I’m like, just reach out to me, you know, ask me questions, you know, because I don’t mind, you know, if you’re gonna send me a message, because I’ve read some. You know, you read this tragic thing where people are, you know, struggling with their spouse or whatever, and you don’t want that, you know?
Karyn [00:21:05]:
Exactly. Exactly. Yes, me too. I always reach out. I will, because I know what it’s like to not have those people in your corner. So I will be in your corner. I always feel really strongly that. Yeah, reach out because there are people out there that are willing to help.
Karyn [00:21:20]:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Give me another one on your.
Sherry [00:21:22]:
Listen, I think, you know, this one. I think some people are surprised you. But the variety of food that you can ultimately get to.
Karyn [00:21:33]:
Yes. They don’t see that initially, but it is there. Yeah, yeah.
Sherry [00:21:37]:
I didn’t see it initially either. Part of it’s because I didn’t really know how to. I grew up. I love cooking, but this was foreign to me from, like, you, what you’re talking about. You’re used to making pasta, and, you know, I was making my tuna noodle casserole or whatever, you know. You know, it was foreign, so I felt bored. But then it just led me into just researching more food and then trying things I wouldn’t have tried, you know? And that’s what led me to writing recipes and sharing those.
Karyn [00:22:11]:
Yeah, I completely agree. There’s so many things that I eat now that I never would have eaten before. I think I was very much a creature of habit. I mean, even all, like, the squashes and things like that. I didn’t eat any of that avocados. Like, I was very limited in what I ate, and it kind of forced me out of my comfort zone into different foods that I now just love. And so I’m really grateful for that.
Sherry [00:22:37]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely my mom, like, I would not touch squash, hardly. And so, you know, I remember calling her, and I was like, how do I cook this acorn squash?
Karyn [00:22:48]:
I have no. What the heck, right?
Sherry [00:22:50]:
Like, I think breaking the vicious cycle just said, cook till it’s done. And I’m like, I don’t. I’ve never cooked one, though. I don’t know.
Karyn [00:22:55]:
What does that mean?
Sherry [00:22:56]:
Right? And so she was laughing, you know, so. But then, of course, if we try spaghetti squash, which is my favorite one, I still love it. Love squash, but I love spaghetti squash and there’s a few kinds. And if you get it, if I get it cooked just right, I like it. But, you know, for a while, they hadn’t seen them anymore. They had those boxes of frozen butternut squash in the freezer. And that’s what I was, that’s all I knew what to do. And so I was heating those up and putting a little butter on it.
Sherry [00:23:27]:
And that’s it. That’s why I was like, I gotta learn. I gotta learn how to do a.
Karyn [00:23:30]:
Little more here and now. You can. It’s like you and I started this so long ago that there weren’t recipe blogs or there wasn’t, and we were just doing this all on our own. In a time before, people didn’t even know what gluten was. But now it’s like, just search SCD recipes and so many will come up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, give me another one.
Sherry [00:23:53]:
I think. Well, probably one of my favorite one is that the empowerment that you have, you know, and that’s what I talked about earlier a little bit, is that you feel like you’re doing something, you know? And as a coach, I mean, there is that you can feel a little bored more than you should. Like, you can’t control everything, but it does empower you to feel like you’re doing the best you can for your body. Now, that’s. As a coach, I have to coach people to be like, sometimes you can’t know, you know, it’s always like, what did I eat? Because I feel bad. It’s like, it might not be. So you can’t get. You can’t get too mentally overboard on, like, it’s all food.
Sherry [00:24:34]:
But you do. For me, it was that empowerment of doing the best we can for our body.
Karyn [00:24:41]:
Yeah, that’s one step. And this disease, I think it robs us of our control, of our. Of this control that we feel like we have over our lives. And this is something that we can take control of. And so, yes, hugely empowering. And I think that’s so important to be our own advocate, to feel empowered in this, to feel like you can make a difference in your health. You’re not a. Oh, I don’t.
Karyn [00:25:13]:
I was going to say victim, but I don’t know if that’s the right word. But you’re not completely powerless. Like, you actually can take this by the reins and there’s a lot that you can do on your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, let me give you one of mine. I feel like the STD is a great starting place when you’re ready to move beyond medicine or add an adjunct onto medicine. I think that when your doctor is only offering you medication and you might say to yourself, you know, that just doesn’t fit for me, or it’s just not enough for me, it’s either one of those scenarios that it is the best starting place.
Karyn [00:25:55]:
I just don’t think there could be a better starting place than the specific carbohydrate diet.
Sherry [00:26:00]:
Totally agreed.
Karyn [00:26:01]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Sherry [00:26:02]:
That was kind of the last one on my. On my list. Okay. I combined a couple, I think, when I was talking, but it was the holistic approach. You know, it’s one corner. If you take the holistic thing as the three circles, mind body experience, it’s one corner of those that you can, and it’s the most easy one to manipulate. To control, manipulate, figure out. I know a lot of people have a hard time figuring out, but it is figureoutable.
Karyn [00:26:33]:
Yes, I completely agree with you on that. Yep, absolutely. Yep. Agree. I have a couple more. Let’s see. I love that it inherently cuts out many of the culprits that a lot of us with ibdan have, you know, in common. So gluten, grains, refined sugar, lactose, it immediately cuts those things out, and a lot of us need to cut those things out.
Karyn [00:27:00]:
So I like that it does that. You may not need to cut all of those things out, but it’s a great starting place, and then you can start to add in as you go. But I like that it just immediately. It just, like, takes those things away, and at the base, it’s just gut healing. Right. It’s like, we’re gonna take away everything that could possibly be a trigger, and we’re going to just build you back up, and I love that part of it. And then the last thing I have is, I love that I’m gonna. There’s a little caveat here.
Karyn [00:27:32]:
I love the intro part of the diet with some. With a more modern. I kind of change it a little bit and do a little bit more about what I call a modern version on it. It’s a little bit juice heavy. Anyway, there’s just a couple issues, I feel like, but the idea of the intro in general, to really help shed those toxins and set your body up for success, I really like that part of the diet. There isn’t another one that has something like that. It’s like, you just start. But SCD has this intro that’s like this pretty toxin release.
Karyn [00:28:12]:
I don’t want to say detox, because I think that sometimes that can be challenging for people with Crohn’s and colitis doing a detox because it’s a little bit too harsh on the system. But the idea of you’re just, like, setting your body up for those mucosal layers to start populating new epithelial cells, I love. I love that the intro part of it does that. So I really like that as well. Anything else that you can think of that we didn’t talk about, that you really like about it before we get into our 2.0 of SCD, you know.
Sherry [00:28:48]:
I think I just like that it exists, you know?
Karyn [00:28:50]:
Yes.
Sherry [00:28:51]:
It’s a foundation.
Karyn [00:28:53]:
It’s a foundation. I think that just wraps everything we set up in a nice, neat bow. It’s a foundation. Yeah. Very foundational. Okay, Sherry, so you and I were getting to put on this hat, this imaginary hat of if we were to make some improvements to the specific carbohydrate diet based on someone who’s both of us who have been there for a long time, based on coaching clients for a long time, what would we want to see different? And I have. I don’t know about you. You tell me how many you have.
Karyn [00:29:23]:
I have ten of these. How many do you have?
Sherry [00:29:26]:
I think I have ten. I didn’t write these down as concretely because I feel like the conversation would evolve on them. I definitely have my core ones that I talk about a lot.
Karyn [00:29:39]:
Okay, cool. All right, cool. So tell me, what’s one thing that you feel like you would change if we were to modernize the specific carbohydrate diet?
Sherry [00:29:51]:
I think the main thing I would change about the structure of it is that beyond the intro, I would have a little more guideline for what you eat at certain points.
Karyn [00:30:02]:
Amen. That’s on my list, too.
Sherry [00:30:05]:
It’s, um. I think that I don’t. I used to think this way, but now I don’t. Is that there’s the. The idea, like, all foods are. Anything on the STD list is, okay, go ahead and try it. Um, whereas I. And I used to be like, yeah, just do it and figure it out.
Sherry [00:30:25]:
But I think, actually, if you really start to break down that list, you can find things that would not be appropriate. And the book lists on things like nuts and the obvious ones, but I think even beyond that, I think it’s. You could actually break down not just food, but the way to cook it, because you’re going to need to cook your vegetables, and you’re not going to maybe want to do that forever because you want as much new. You want to start, you want to build your nutrients, so you need to modify as you go. And so just finding your safe foods is not enough.
Karyn [00:30:59]:
Exactly. Oh, yes. And I can’t tell you. Tell me if this is true for you, too. I cannot tell you how many clients come to me and they have already tried the specific carbohydrate diet, and they’ll tell me it doesn’t work for me. And I’ll say to them, okay, well, how. Tell me about how you went about doing it. And they’ll say, well, I did the intro, and then I went hog wild, and I’m like, okay, I know the problem right here.
Karyn [00:31:20]:
And because. And I was really lucky because the coach that I worked with on the specific carbohydrate diet, when I started, she knew that that was a bit of a problem with the book. And so she really broke things down into a step by step. And I am a teacher at heart. I love a good step by step. And so this kind of goes along with actually my number one, which is that I feel like the book is a little bit confusing. And so I really feel like in a revamp, it needs a better guideline, a better approach to not just what foods you might want to start with that are really easy to digest, easy to absorb, things that are really best when you’re in that repair, restore phase, and then moving all the way into, you know, raw and seeds and nuts and all those lentils and beans and all those beautiful things that you can eat down the road, but really are not the best things initially. So, yeah, 100%, I completely agree with you.
Karyn [00:32:24]:
I think there needs to be something a little bit more concrete that takes you through what to put in when and how to make it in that way. And one of the reasons why I did not, I picked up the book and I set it down for five years was that very reason, because I just felt so overwhelmed. I didn’t. I needed more. Like, I take my hand, hold it, and give me the step by step. And that’s probably why so many people come and work with us, because they read the book and they’re like, okay, that’s great. But now what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sherry [00:32:58]:
And for me, you know, it took me a while on that because I had the mild symptoms and I felt better right away. I could eat most of those foods myself right away. So I was like, oh, what’s the problem? You know, but as I’ve talked to more people who are dealing with those symptoms and they haven’t had surgery and so they’re trying to, they’re trying to avoid surgery, you know. And so I’ve come to realize, and then my own research, you know, on nutrition and gut health, I’ve realized that there needs to be more and with a guideline and then a tailorable way to do it because obviously people are going to have different needs.
Karyn [00:33:37]:
Exactly. Maybe like an overarching guard guideline, but with information that you’re going to make this your own, you know, this isn’t the one size fits all, but these are just some guidelines that can help you along the way, you know, that kind of thing. And then maybe a good list of these are the people that you can get in touch with if you want further guidance to help you really step by step this to help you do it, you know, something like that would be great, I think. Yeah. Okay, what else?
Sherry [00:34:07]:
I think that I know we talked about, you know, it’s a stuck in time, so I wish there was a steward of it that could update it with more current research. There’s so much research on the microbiome now and nothing else in health do we say, well, they said this 30 years ago, and we’re not going to listen to anything else that’s come since then. I mean, you know, even with antibiotics and penicillin and stuff, we know a lot more than we did when it came out. Even though we’re still using those things, we know that they wipe out our microbiome. We know that we got to be careful. We know that we need probiotics. We know people are allergic to them. And so, you know, we can’t overuse them.
Sherry [00:34:55]:
We know that we have to take the whole dose. So, I mean, science evolves with everything, even our oldest medicine that still works, we still have to update it. So I wish there was a way to do that. I think that there’s two prongs of problems. One of them is that people stick to it kind of blindly because they’re like, this is the book and this is what I’ve chosen and this is what I’m going to do. And it may harm them, which is what I hate to see the most. People won’t do it because they’re like, this is all outdated, right?
Karyn [00:35:33]:
Yeah, I completely agree.
Sherry [00:35:35]:
Go on to Amazon and look at the reviews and you go to the negative ones. It’s like, why would I do this? This is ridiculous. She said this, and it is an outdated concept, but it doesn’t negate the whole book or the whole concept.
Karyn [00:35:47]:
Yes, it doesn’t negate the concept. It’s just some of the theories in there have evolved. And I think you’re like, so spot on with this idea of the microbiome exploding. The code of the microbiome changed so much about how we perceive gut health. And so one of mine goes right along with what you’re saying, and that’s about the whole idea of bifidobacterium being not allowed, being one of those illegal things on the diet. And so Elaine, in her wisdom at the time, was talking about how bifidobacterium has the power to ferment carbohydrates. And so when we ferment carbohydrates in the intestine, we can increase symptoms. Right? That’s the whole thing.
Karyn [00:36:33]:
You’re trying to prevent this extra fermentation. So that causes symptoms like bloating and gas and abdominal pain. And so I can see where she’s coming from. But then we learn all these things about the microbiome. And I’m looking at research from recent, like 2017, 2023, and I’m seeing some really cool studies that are very IBD specific. And actually, I’ll link these in the show notes that talk about the power of bifidobacterium. And I wrote down some of the things. So bifidobacteria, there’s a study that looked at it, bifidobacterium, looking at how it produces short chain fatty acids in the colon.
Karyn [00:37:13]:
So we’re talking like, butyrate there. And so that’s really nourishing for the colon as well as it boosts your immune system. So that’s a big benefit of the bis bifidobacteria. Other studies look at it improving lactose digestion, reducing pathogenic bacteria, having a more diverse microbiome, as well as improving the gut barrier function. So there’s just so much research now that talks about the benefits of it that if I were to rewrite it, I would add that bifidobacteria in.
Sherry [00:37:49]:
Yeah, I would definitely, totally agree. I’m kind of on a little personal crusade to, not to get people to use it, but to get people to think about it or read about it. And yes, I wish it would. I wish it was there because in reality, when we have very severe symptoms, we shouldn’t be doing any probiotic, probably, you know, especially if you have sibo. So it’s like just one. So you’re not wanting fermented food, so you’re not going to take a probiotic, you’re not going to make the yolk right away if you’re very severe. I mean, that’s what I would tell somebody because we’re going to wait until we’ve given our gut a rest. And so, and so, and she, and also there was a study at the time that showed a correlation, they thought showed a correlation between bifidus and overgrowth and people with IBD and colon cancer.
Sherry [00:38:37]:
And so they, so she was kind of like this, and she even said herself, this needs more, more of a look. But right now, I’m not going to recommend it. Well, unfortunately, you know, that never got a re look as far as breaking the vicious cycle. But we know now that that’s, you know, I’ve looked up many times and some, I think the same study that you were just talking about where they’re saying it does not cause, it’s actually, it doesn’t cause an increase in IBD symptoms. It doesn’t. It’s not correlated with a cause of colon cancer. It’s actually a byproduct inflammation that you might have some more bifidobacterium in your system, but that’s not bad. It’s just that you’re, you’re out of balance.
Sherry [00:39:19]:
And actually, I think some people have actually speculated it’s actually doing some good in there.
Karyn [00:39:24]:
Exactly. It’s actually doing good.
Sherry [00:39:27]:
Yeah.
Karyn [00:39:27]:
People who have, not taking it as a probiotic, but when they, when you look at someone’s microbiome and you see that they have extra amounts or good amounts of bifidobacteria, it actually is reducing inflammation, inflammation in their body. So there’s just too, in my opinion, there’s too much research that just negates that. And so in an update, I would definitely change that. Which brings me to another something that I would change, and it has to do with the yogurt. But in general, some foods on the diet, I feel like, actually create more problems, then benefit. And yogurt, to me is one of those. Yogurt is not for everybody, especially in the beginning, just like you said. So I 100% agree with you on that.
Karyn [00:40:16]:
Sometimes people need to just not do yogurt at all right away. Maybe they have sibo, maybe they have candida. There’s so many comorbid conditions that go along with Crohn’s and colitis, and some of them do not lend themselves to bacteria initially. We have to do some healing first before we introduce those ferments, whether it’s food or in probiotic form. So. And even maybe it’s. Maybe it’s that you’ll never do well with it. You know, we can remove the lactose from the yogurt, but we can’t remove the casein.
Karyn [00:40:50]:
And if you’re sensitive to casein, well, then that dairy yogurt is never going to be okay for you. And so maybe it’s about switching to a coconut milk yogurt or an almond milk yogurt or. I don’t know about you, but I have clients that have severe constipation. And so I would never recommend yogurt for them because it can be very constipating in their cases. We actually start with sauerkraut, which is a whole different ferment. Right. And so this. You must have the yogurt right away.
Karyn [00:41:17]:
I think that’s something that, for some people, causes damage that. And also, I would say it can actually be a pretty high sugar diet because of all of the fruit, the bananas, things like that. And like we were mentioning people with sibo, people with candida, that’s just not what they need. They don’t need that much sugar. So I feel like there are some foods that are on the diet that maybe it just needs to be more individualized. Maybe that’s what I’m saying. Because there are some foods that I think are detrimental to some people. Not everybody.
Karyn [00:41:47]:
Like, for me, yogurt was like. It was like a big warm hug every time I ate it. It works for me. It doesn’t work for everybody.
Sherry [00:41:55]:
Yeah, I totally agree. And I think that that goes along with kind of making the book, if it could be expanded more of a personal touch, more. I mean, it’s very scientific based. Like you said, it’s kind of confusing. And I think that it’s not up to date with modern thought on the food managed food restriction, food eating disorder, disordered eating. That’s very rampant in people. And so I think that there needs to be more of a. Maybe a gentle touch to the book.
Sherry [00:42:33]:
Like we.
Karyn [00:42:33]:
I.
Sherry [00:42:33]:
You know, I think I told you when we first talked, I was like, I would take some of the language and change it away from fanatical adherence.
Karyn [00:42:42]:
Oh, yes. That phrase is gotta go illegal.
Sherry [00:42:45]:
Legal. Where it’s like I always tell people, this is SCD. This is not a CD. You’re making the choice. And if you choose a not a CD food, it’s okay. But let’s talk about what it is and why.
Karyn [00:43:03]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:43:03]:
And not just you failed, you know.
Karyn [00:43:07]:
Yes. I feel like the book makes you feel, feel like such, if you ever stray, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, I think you feel like a failure. So I completely agree with you. A different kind of more supportive language. Maybe some, I’m trying to remember because it’s been a while since I read the book, but maybe some more case studies of, like, real people and what they did and how they made changes and how that worked for them. Something like that, I think would be really helpful. People learn through story, and so I think more of that in the book would be helpful. I love that.
Sherry [00:43:47]:
Yes, definitely. Stories are definitely a powerful, probably the most powerful influencer over how people, you know, emotionally connect to things. So definitely stories and some allowance that there’s going to be differences. And I think the way it’s written, though, the science is that we do these types of foods, we do monosaccharides, so there’s no room for a polysaccharide, even if it’s not harmful. And so I don’t know what you can do there. You know, I think it’s actually broader for people with IBD to kind of consider their options because there are more. There are more than one option. If you look at some stories, if you look at, like, Danielle Walker, who was like, I tried SCD and it wasn’t, I took my food allergy, you know, test, and I was, like, reacting to everything on STD, so I had to change, you know, or there’s a couple other people I’ve listened to where it’s like SCD was not the answer.
Sherry [00:44:49]:
And I think for, you know, sometimes you get into that STD world and you’re like, well, I must just be doing it. Right.
Karyn [00:44:56]:
Right.
Sherry [00:44:59]:
You start restricting more because there’s only room for more restriction, but no expansion.
Karyn [00:45:04]:
Oh, amen. Oh, I love what you just said. There’s only room for restriction, not expansion. Yes, 100%. And sometimes, and I know I have that somewhere in my notes here, that same exact thing. Sometimes it’s not about limiting, it’s about actually, what can I add to? Not what can I take away? And I feel like that needs to be an update in the book. I 100% agree with you there.
Sherry [00:45:32]:
Yeah. And so, and I don’t know, you know, unfortunately, there’s not a new researcher who can, who can revise those concepts because it would need a whole conceptual revision on some of those points to really, you know, to offer that kind of expansion and more personalization, whereas, you know, so it’s like, I guess this would be my dislike of SCD, not necessarily breaking the vicious cycle. Unity. The whole package is that if you are not, you’re either doing it or you’re not doing it.
Karyn [00:46:06]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:46:07]:
And so you get that it’s a line in the sand, it’s black and white, where I can’t really, as a coach, I can’t approach things that way.
Karyn [00:46:15]:
No, I did. I really am sorry to say, but I did approach that way because I had such success with fanatical adherence and I didn’t stray from the diet at all, like literally at all for two years. And so when I first started my coaching practice back in 2000, 920 ten, I, that’s what I did. I was, I thought, everybody needs to do it this way. And I very quickly realized, no, actually, just because it worked for you does not mean it works for everybody. And so that’s kind of when I was like, oh, there’s little chinks here. Actually, there’s some things that need to change about this. And I’m going to do a little differently because, yeah, we don’t need to be so fanatically adherent.
Karyn [00:46:59]:
And with that, along with that, I think in some of these communities comes a lot of. I don’t think that it’s bullying, but I don’t what, you tell me what word you think comes to your mind about it, but it’s like saying, well, you’re not doing it right. Is that bullying? I don’t even know what the right word is.
Sherry [00:47:16]:
I don’t think it’s bullying because I think it’s coming from a point of wanting to help. Yeah, you’re right, but it’s. It’s kind of some peer pressure. I think it’s that idea I get a lot, and I used to be this. I used to be the same way. You know, it’s tough love.
Karyn [00:47:30]:
Right. And they just need to be tougher, stronger.
Sherry [00:47:35]:
But I realized the more people I interacted with, the more kind of, that’s not the right for some people. It might be if somebody came to me is like, I want that. You know, I want you to help me stick to this. And because I do tell people if you’re going to try STD, try it for a month strict, if that’s what you want to do. I have alternatives from people who are like, this is too much. But if that’s what they want to do, I definitely say stick to it 100% for a little while.
Karyn [00:48:04]:
But it doesn’t take that long. I’m with you 30 days. You may not be healed in 30 days. Right. But you should know, in 30 days, do I see improvements? It doesn’t take very long.
Sherry [00:48:15]:
And so, yeah, I don’t. I think people are like, well, this worked for me, so I don’t understand. This person must be doing it wrong, you know? And so. And that comes from that point of. But I also come from the point of, you know, as a holistic thing, I’m like, you. You have a whole life, and if you are going on vacations, is important to you, because I saw somebody say, don’t go on the vacation. How could that be more important than your health? Oh, my gosh.
Karyn [00:48:42]:
That’s your mental health, which is so important, too.
Sherry [00:48:45]:
So. And so I’m like, I’m gonna say, how do I. How do we make this work? This is. I mean, I’ve done a lot of traveling. I had to travel a lot for business.
Karyn [00:48:52]:
Me too.
Sherry [00:48:53]:
This is how I made it work. And it’s not 100% percent FCD. Yeah. But I never had any single problem while I was doing it.
Karyn [00:49:00]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:49:01]:
And so. And that’s what. That’s one thing I probably change about breaking the sister cycle. She has a little bit of the mind gut connection in there, and at least the last edition that I bought. But I think there needs to be more.
Karyn [00:49:13]:
Absolutely, yes. It isn’t just about food. You know, there’s, like, I have all my pillars that I work with, and food is just one of them. And mind body is huge. Huge. And I have never met somebody with IBD that doesn’t have an anxiety component in their life. And I don’t know if it’s the chicken or the egg. It doesn’t matter to me.
Karyn [00:49:36]:
I just know that our gut is impacted, and I’ve read a lot of studies about it, about how people with IBD actually have more sensitive guts that are more prone to, like, emotional, like, highs and lows. And so that makes it. That makes sense to me. And so having that gut brain connection is even more important to us than other people that don’t have gut disruptions. So, yeah, that would be great if that could make its way somehow into the book as well. It’s not just about food. There are other things.
Sherry [00:50:07]:
We know so much more about that. That whole system that it’s actually a system of our body. The enteric nervous system.
Karyn [00:50:15]:
Exactly. Vagus nerve, all that.
Sherry [00:50:18]:
Yeah. We know so much more about our gut health’s connection to our brain. Not just for emotionally, but for cognition.
Karyn [00:50:26]:
Yep. So, you know, the gut affects the brain, the brain affects the gut. It’s all connected through that super communication pathway. And so we need to be thinking about that all the time, you know. Yeah. I had to learn that the hard way. I thought it was all about food and, you know. Yeah.
Karyn [00:50:45]:
And I kind of realized, wow, this is not. It lasted for a while, but I kind of crashed. And I said, well, what’s missing here? Oh, it’s that gut brain connection. It’s me realizing how important my mind and my body are in this whole equation. And I had to really do some retooling.
Sherry [00:51:05]:
I did, too. When I was. I went, like, seven years before I did other things, but then. And that was. That’s my other. That’s my thing with the illegal legal is that people treat illegal as all the same, you know, whatever it is. And so then that’s what I did. I was like, well, I’m not following STD, so I’ll just have whatever.
Sherry [00:51:25]:
And that was. That was, like, twelve years ago now, 1213 years ago. I just was like, I’m gonna have whatever. And I ended up in a very mild flare. The first one. The only one I’ve ever had in the last 24 years. Wow. So.
Sherry [00:51:44]:
And so then I went back to STD. But I. I know a lot of people are like, I’m going back to STD on 100% forever and ever, but I knew even then that I wasn’t going to be 100% forever. I just. It wasn’t realistic. There was a reason, and. But the stress levels around the time my mom passed away, so it just went a little crazy. And I.
Sherry [00:52:05]:
And I discounted the emotional impact that had on me. And I was using food as comfort, which is a totally normal thing to do. And that’s something I, too, have to take that into consideration, something I’m a huge proponent of, because if we try to force ourselves to not, that’s when we’re gonna. We grab the whole bag of cookies and scarf them down and be like, well, I’m never doing that again. You know?
Karyn [00:52:29]:
Yeah. And then all the guilt and shame that goes along with it.
Sherry [00:52:32]:
Oh, it’s okay to eat for comfort. And so then I started teaching myself how. And how it would work for me, and then. So now I have, like. And when I think about the non sed foods I eat, they’re not that many.
Karyn [00:52:46]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:52:47]:
That balance. But I also have allowed myself a completely non sed thing from time to time on a special occasion or something like that. I. There’s another blogger who I was listening to, and he’s like, I have a celebration meal every once in a while, and this person was, like, on there in the hospital, like, near death from Crohn’s, you know?
Karyn [00:53:07]:
Yeah.
Sherry [00:53:09]:
And I’m not saying people should have. Should do that or not do that, but I’m saying if you do, it’s. It’s not. I always give the it’s okay.
Karyn [00:53:17]:
Exactly. And don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s not something that you should blame or shame yourself about. We’re just human. It doesn’t mean you just stop that. Well, I had pizza. Let me just stop the diet altogether. Nope.
Karyn [00:53:31]:
Tomorrow’s another day. Get right back on. And you keep going. And that’s another thing that you and I have in common, is I learned about the mind body connection when my mom passed away, too. Yep. All the stress and everything, of taking care of her and her passing and everything. My disease just really flared mega. It was.
Karyn [00:53:55]:
Everything held out until she passed, and then it was, like, now, okay, I have permission to fall apart. And I did. I fell apart, and I realized, oh, wow. It isn’t just about food. There’s so much more to this.
Sherry [00:54:07]:
Yeah, exactly. And I didn’t even. I kind of made the connection, but I didn’t make it. Really didn’t make it until later when I was thinking about it, you know? And, you know, more bad things we can’t avoid. Bad things are gonna happen in our life.
Karyn [00:54:21]:
No.
Sherry [00:54:23]:
Manage that stress.
Karyn [00:54:24]:
That’s right. Like, I get. I tell my clients all the time, it’s not about the stress, about trying to get rid of stress, because when I. When I bring up the idea of stress management, people think, oh, no, I have to. I’m never gonna get rid of my stress. It’s not that. It’s about knowing what to do with the stress that you have. You know, knowing that it will impact your gut, your mind.
Karyn [00:54:44]:
It will impact all of those things. So if we have these tools in our tool belt. So I really love the idea. I really had never thought about that. I always think of it, the SCD, the breaking the vicious cycle as a food book. So I had never thought about it in that way. And why not add it in there? It’s a perfect place to put that idea of mind body medicine.
Sherry [00:55:03]:
Yeah. I mean, if I. I have to think of STD now as part of a holistic treatment.
Karyn [00:55:09]:
That’s right.
Sherry [00:55:10]:
Not just. Not just a food treatment. I think all the things we’re talking about kind of, you know, as we talked about, like, doctors not accepting it. I think that, I mean, a lot of doctors aren’t into holistic medicine. Some are, but your GI doctor is not really even into nutrition. So I’ve just like, don’t fret about your doctor doctor telling you not to do it because they told you to eat whatever you want anyway. You’re eating whatever you want. It happens to be SCD, but I think to get it more taken seriously in the medical world, I think that it has to have some allowances for updates.
Karyn [00:55:48]:
Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other updates that we haven’t talked about? I think I have a couple that I could go over really quickly. What do you have anything else that we haven’t talked about as we wrap up?
Sherry [00:56:01]:
I think that for me is just adding that, like, what do we do? You do the diet, you reach a point of healing. Where do you go from there? There’s no real guidance.
Karyn [00:56:12]:
That’s on my list, too. Yeah. Moving beyond, what do you do? Beyond, there is nothing like that. When you do autoimmune Paleo, you then move on to Paleo, and maybe from there you move on to something else. There is a moving on. Where is that? I can’t tell you. You probably do this too. In my practice, I work with all kinds of people who tell me, okay, I’ve done it.
Karyn [00:56:32]:
I feel great now what do I do? And I have a whole protocol for that because it’s not in. It’s not in the book. There needs to be something. I think the book is saying do this for life because it’s healthy. My opinion is there’s actually some nutrients that you might be missing out on if you do it for life. Some people might be. You know what I mean? Who am I to judge? There is no one size fits all. Some people might do great for life.
Karyn [00:56:58]:
I know I’m not one of those people, and most of the people I work with are not. My goal is not to have you on this for life because it is very strict. My goal is to get you as healthy as you can be and to move you off of it and to help you move away from it step by step, just like you got into it step by step. I’m going to help you move away from it step by step. And so that should absolutely be a part of the book that’s on my list, too.
Sherry [00:57:25]:
I totally agree, because our bodies change as we age and we might have different conditions that require different dietary treatment. But I see so many people, oh, my cholesterol is high. I mean, high cholesterol is a huge part of a CD if you continue to eat it, you know, if you’re concentrating on meat and cheese and high fat dairy. And so, and so I had high cholesterol, and I just had just had blood work done last week, and it was 15 points lower.
Karyn [00:57:57]:
Wow.
Sherry [00:57:57]:
I changed my, I kind of made it. I focused more on vegetables. I decreased, you know, some of those saturated fats. And, and I think that, you know, so that was a change because. So I eat sweet potatoes. I eat quinoa. Those are, you know, healthy.
Karyn [00:58:15]:
Me too. Yeah.
Sherry [00:58:16]:
And so, and so I started concentrating more on that, and I started really thinking about grains. And even though quinoa is really the only one I added in, I think having, you know, we might not need, we have the same protein needs as we were getting older and not moving around as much.
Karyn [00:58:31]:
That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Yeah. For sure. Yes. So there should be some sort of. This is where you go next. And maybe it’s not in that book.
Karyn [00:58:40]:
Maybe it’s a sequel to the book. Maybe it’s an addendum. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a part of it, but something about. Okay, where do I go from here? I would really love to see that in an updated version. Where do you move on? I have read some research that talks about nutrient deficiencies in terms of vitamin D, in terms of calcium, especially in the pediatric population. And so pediatrics that are, you know, children that are on it for a long time are struggling to get some of those nutrients. But I know grains, fiber, things like that. I’ve seen some people in my practice with non alcoholic fatty liver disease after doing SCD for a long time.
Karyn [00:59:20]:
So there’s definitely some challenges. And so people, if they want to move on, should be able to have some, some guidance in that, just like you mentioned earlier, that word guidance, they should have some guidance in moving beyond.
Sherry [00:59:34]:
It’s moving beyond, and like you said, during and during, because it is just eat as much as you want of all of anything that’s SCD. And like I’ve talked about and we talked about, what we talked before is that that could be, you could be eating ten bananas and 28 and some honey and that’s a huge amount of sugar.
Karyn [00:59:54]:
That’s right.
Sherry [00:59:55]:
Eaten, you know, a lot of cheese. Because, like, for me, cheese has always been a very agreeable thing to my gut. For some people, it’s not. But I don’t have an issue with dairy and so for me, cheese has actually been a comfort. And so I can find myself reaching for that when I want a snack or I need a comfort food or, you know me to like, well, I can eat this beef patties and so I’m having four or five of them a day because I need food, because I need the calories. For me, it’s like you got to have the calories. You got to figure out ways to get calories.
Karyn [01:00:25]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody wants to do that with IBD, right? You got to get the calories.
Sherry [01:00:29]:
And so, yeah, guidance, I think. Yeah, more, more guidance.
Karyn [01:00:33]:
Yeah. I’m just going to look and see if there’s anything. We didn’t talk about that I have down here. We talked about. Yes. The, it just goes straight from the intro to the full diethouse. I would like to see some more guidance on eating organic, local, pesticide free, if you can possibly do that. And what are the most important things to eat in that way? I know that from what I’ve read that Elaine knew about the importance of eating organic, but she really wanted it to be accessible for all and so she deliberately, from my understanding, left that out.
Karyn [01:01:11]:
I’d like to see a little bit more, more about that in a new version where you talk more about, you know, farming practices and things like that, trying to eat foods with less chemicals and herbicides and things like that. So I’d like to see that. Let’s see, was there anything else? Oh, it’s so meat heavy. I find that it’s a really difficult diet. You kind of alluded to this, sherry, about how you might eat a lot of meat on it. So maybe some tips for vegetarians or people who even just want to eat less meat. And maybe you’re not a vegetarian, but you just know that it’s healthier to eat less meat, especially when you’re trying to get your protein in. I think later on in the diet you’ve got your lentils and your beans and seeds and nuts and things like that.
Karyn [01:01:55]:
But earlier on it’s a little bit challenging. So how about some guidance and that? Like, if I’m a vegetarian, how can I do this diet? What’s the best way to do that? I would love to see that in an updated version. And this kind of goes, I guess, a little bit along with your mind body medicine. Part of it, I feel like it takes into account your symptoms, but in my practice, I work with moms exclusively and we need to not only take into account our symptoms, but our lifestyle. And so I guess that kind of goes along a little bit with your mind body. It’s another facet to it. But sometimes we need to meld the diet around not just our symptoms, but our life. And so that means not fostering this radical adherence, but figuring out how can I fit this into my life? In what ways? Because if I’m not radically adhering to it, can I still do it? And I think the answer is yes.
Sherry [01:02:47]:
Yeah, that’s definitely my thing. I mean, I have some. Some stuff written out for people. It’s like, I can’t like, do it as written, but here. Here’s some guidelines. Food accessibility is of course, a huge issue. So, yes, I have grass fed eggs and milk for that. I use to make my yogurt and beef.
Sherry [01:03:06]:
I always get grass fed except for the occasional restaurant one and organic chicken and stuff. And for me, that’s very important to me. But yeah, I am very cognizant that the people can’t afford that or they don’t have access to it. And that’s very sad to me. I mean, I also. So, like, as I’m thinking about this, I always start thinking about, like, how can food accessibility be improved? Because if you live in the inner city area, those people have diabetes too. And, like, what do you have access to? And like, how would I help somebody who’s like, I don’t have access to a lot of fresh produce and fresh meat, so what do I help them to decide on? So. And I think that’s important.
Sherry [01:03:44]:
But, yeah, I would definitely like to see more written about it updated. If we were going to update that book, I would say, here are some benefits to grass fed.
Karyn [01:03:53]:
Yes. So that people can make the decision for themselves what they have access to, what they can afford. But just so it’s there. Just so that information is there. Because we do know now that people with sensitive guts are more prone to the chemicals and dyes and even just the things that are put on plants, you know, the herbicides and the pesticides and things like that. So just the information being there would be great.
Sherry [01:04:21]:
Yeah, definitely. And then so I was like, I’m going to eat less meat. I’m going to buy more expensive meat. I’m going to eat less of it.
Karyn [01:04:28]:
Yeah, exactly. We all have to figure out how that can fit in for us. In what way, you know, but having the information there is important. I think we’ve covered my list. Anything else you want to add?
Sherry [01:04:41]:
No, I think I’ve covered my list, too. I think it’s just, you know, I think it’s being the big picture is what I want to see a little more of.
Karyn [01:04:49]:
Yeah. A great diet with a great foundation. I love that word you used early on. Wonderful foundation with some key modernized updates. I believe that this could be a best practice diet for IBDers. It just needs some updating.
Sherry [01:05:08]:
Yep, I agree. I think the principles of it. I think there’s some core principles that can fit most people.
Karyn [01:05:14]:
Yeah, exactly. I love it. What a great conversation. Sherry, before I let you go, I have a quick lightning round, if you don’t mind. What we talk about here on the podcast is usually just really kind of heavy, and I like to just finish up with something light. So is that okay with you if we do that real quick? Okay. It’s ten questions, and you can answer them as rapidly or as slow as you want. It’s completely up to you.
Karyn [01:05:36]:
But they’re quick, easy questions. Okay. What’s your favorite? Go to gut healthy.
Sherry [01:05:42]:
My favorite go to gut healthy snack. Sorry, I don’t understand.
Karyn [01:05:45]:
Siri is talking to me.
Sherry [01:05:48]:
We have to have it. Okay. This is not an ACV snack, but no worries. Healthy. My plantains. My plantains.
Karyn [01:06:00]:
Oh, I love plantains. Yes. Love it. Okay, cool. What is one piece of advice you wish you received when you were first diagnosed with IBD?
Sherry [01:06:11]:
I wish that somebody would have. Well, I wish I had gotten advice on dietary advice, because that was nothing.
Karyn [01:06:21]:
Yep, that’s me too. I would say the same thing. So, since we are both coaches, but also patients as well, how do you advocate for yourself? We’ve talked about this today about empowerment and advocacy. When you go to the doctor’s office, how do you advocate for your.
Sherry [01:06:39]:
I tell the doctor, I kind of just say what I. My expectations. Like, I had a doctor. He’s like, are you in the medical field? Not really, but my mom was a.
Karyn [01:06:55]:
Nurse, so my mom was a nurse. Oh, my gosh. We have so much in common. It’s crazy.
Sherry [01:07:00]:
So I did learn that from her a little bit about how to talk to doctors. But I think it’s you ask your questions and you kind of say what.
Karyn [01:07:11]:
Your expectations are from the get go. Set those expectations. I like that. That is definitely advocating for yourself. I love it. So what’s one thing that you do on a regular basis to help you connect with yourself? We’re talking about this mind body connection, self care. What’s something that you really, you know, you always make sure that you do something that really helps you get your mind and body in connection with each other?
Sherry [01:07:35]:
Well, recently I’ve actually taken a bullet or rapid journaling? Bullet journal. And I love it. It’s not. I was never good at journaling. Where you’re writing out a whole passage.
Karyn [01:07:47]:
Yeah.
Sherry [01:07:47]:
Yeah. The rapid journaling, where you’re bullet pointing it out, it has helped me tremendously with, like, knowing what’s going on in my day, but then, like, planning things. I’m a big. I like to write, so I, like, start bullet pointing that out. My projects.
Karyn [01:08:03]:
I love that. I love that. That’s really cool. And what do you think is the most misunderstood thing about IBD?
Sherry [01:08:11]:
I think the most misunderstood thing is that. How would I put it? I think the most misunderstood thing, actually, is that how sick you are? I think when you have that, when you’re first, you know, I remember one of my co workers, she’s like, I wish I had what you had. So I could lose 20 pounds.
Karyn [01:08:32]:
Oh, my gosh.
Sherry [01:08:33]:
I lost 20 pounds in, like, three weeks. And I can barely stay awake at desk. But stuff like that. I know that you see those memes a lot where people are like, it’s the hidden illness. Unless you’re running off to the bathroom.
Karyn [01:08:45]:
That’s right. Even then, it’s still. It’s the invisible illness. And a lot of people just don’t get it. I wish I could lose weight like that. Well, not really, actually. Yeah. Yeah.
Karyn [01:08:56]:
That’s absolutely true. Okay. When somebody says to you, what book should I read? What do you have? That book that you recommend over and over? What? And it doesn’t have to be gut related. It could be fiction, it could be nonfiction. What is a book that you just.
Sherry [01:09:09]:
You know, a book I just love. I recently read it, but I’m advocating for it. It’s called pink goldfish.
Karyn [01:09:18]:
I’ve never heard of that. Okay.
Sherry [01:09:19]:
Yeah. Dave Randall. And so. And I’ve seen him speak many times. That’s why I read his book. And he actually. Not pink goldfish. He has one called that the freak factor.
Karyn [01:09:29]:
The freak factor.
Sherry [01:09:31]:
Yeah. So he’s talking about using pink goldfish is a marketing book, but the freak factor is about using your calling, your weakness.
Karyn [01:09:41]:
Oh, wow. That is cool.
Sherry [01:09:43]:
How, like, you know, how do you. How do you. Instead of trying to correct weaknesses, how do we use. Maybe they’re actually what makes us great at what we do.
Karyn [01:09:55]:
Yeah. Oh, I love that concept.
Sherry [01:09:57]:
That’s cool.
Karyn [01:09:58]:
That sounds like a good one.
Sherry [01:09:59]:
It’s one of my favorites, even though I read it recently. But I’ve been watching Dave Rendell speak for the past many years. He’s at many conferences that I go to. So that is cool. He’s great.
Karyn [01:10:11]:
Okay, awesome. And you said that you love to travel. What’s your favorite travel destination?
Sherry [01:10:16]:
My favorite travel destination, so I love to be on the road, which is why I like road trips, people with planning that out, because you can, can only make so much. You know, I had, I made muffins once, and they all were moldy by the time I got into it.
Karyn [01:10:34]:
Oh, no.
Sherry [01:10:36]:
Okay, how do, how do I work this? But. Okay, so I used to grow up in Seattle, and so our favorite road trip was down to the southwest, but now I live in Las Vegas, so now we road trip around the area, and it’s pretty fun to drive out to California, but I love the southwest. Now we, now we live in that.
Karyn [01:10:56]:
It sounds like for you, it’s not even just about the destination, it’s about the road trip. The journey.
Sherry [01:11:02]:
Road trip is my favorite.
Karyn [01:11:03]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.
Sherry [01:11:05]:
I love my grandparents and their motorhome, but, yeah, me and my husband, many road trips.
Karyn [01:11:10]:
I love it. I love it. Okay, coffee or tea and how do you take it?
Sherry [01:11:14]:
Tea, I like it. I actually just like it most of the time. I’ll put a little honey in sometimes, but I’m good. I love black tea.
Karyn [01:11:25]:
Yep, me too. What is one cheap food that you just cannot resist?
Sherry [01:11:30]:
Cheat food I cannot resist. So I try to keep it healthy, but it’s the unsweetened cocoa something.
Karyn [01:11:36]:
If I can unsweetened cocoa, that’s a pretty healthy cheat food. That’s pretty good. But it’s so good.
Sherry [01:11:43]:
A candy with.
Karyn [01:11:45]:
Oh, nice.
Sherry [01:11:46]:
Don’t have anything that I, that’s, like, too far outside the diet that I would eat on a regular basis. But I do have the date sweetened chocolate chips that the brand makes. And then I’ve got some wafers, I’ve got the powder, so.
Karyn [01:12:02]:
Yep. Yeah. Sweets. I love it. I love it. And so then, last question is the name of this podcast is the Cheese podcast. So to me, that means a little bit sassy, a little bit quirky, and a lot badass. So how are you cheeky in your.
Karyn [01:12:19]:
What?
Sherry [01:12:19]:
Am I cheeky? Oh, man. Um, well, I think that I, you know, I am. I just say what I’m thinking. Not always cheeky online, especially, you know, I had to, like, make a patch and not go into comment section sometimes, but I think that, yeah, I mean, like I said, I’m on a crusade about the bifidus, and I have been. I just, like, this is what I think.
Karyn [01:12:50]:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. That is definitely cheeky. Sherry lib it’s such a great conversation that we had today. I loved every second of it. If people want to find out more about you, can you tell us where can we find you online?
Sherry [01:13:04]:
The best place to find me directly is my Instagram page at Happygut for life. That’s the best place to message me. Also Facebook. But I love Instagram more, so I’m on there more and otherwise I have my website. It’s happygut four life.com. it’s scd four life.com as the parent. But since I named it before I decided that I was employee, I thought I wasn’t gonna ever go off SCD. So yep.
Sherry [01:13:34]:
So I had to change the name a little bit, but the URL is still that gotcha.
Karyn [01:13:40]:
Okay. Yep. I will make sure that that is linked in the show notes. Sherry Lipp, thank you so much for joining us.
Sherry [01:13:46]:
Thank you. It was fun.
Karyn [01:13:56]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things. First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now. It’s at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap. And then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD.
Karyn [01:14:30]:
The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. I love being in community with you and I appreciate you, my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, I think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital h huge. And the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day. And I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together.
Karyn [01:15:13]:
If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the Gut love community@karenheathy.com. community the GLC is my free and fabulous space dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTS secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong. This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that, my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com community that’s karynhaley.com community. I can’t wait to meet you.
Why Don’t More IBDer’s Prioritize THIS Gut Healing Technique?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Have you heard about my F.L.U.S.H. Formula Framework? It’s the beating heart of my IBD coaching practice—a game changer for many—and its aim is to be the catalyst that finally propels you to a place of long term healing, thriving, and flourishing.
Can I get an Amen? We all want that in our lives.
Food
Lifestyle (momstyle)
Unconventional Treatments
Supplements
Higher Mindset
These are the 5 pillars that make up the F.L.U.S.H. Formula Framework.
Can you guess which of these pillars gives clients the hardest time? Which one is the hardest hurdle to embrace fully, to own deeply, and to unapologetically and fiercely commit to?
If you said “H” higher mindset, you’d be right my friend!
It’s not food, it’s not supplements, it’s not even embracing a new momstyle or unconventional treatments that give you pause. It’s the higher mindset piece of the puzzle—the mind/body (gut/brain connection) component that leaves you stuck, uncomfortable, and afraid about moving forward.
I’ve seen it time and time again. Hell, I know this fear well because I lived it for years and years and had to hit rock bottom before I acknowledged that I was never going to fully heal without a higher mindset action plan.
In today’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we are exploring why this pillar is such a stumbling block for most of us with IBD. We are demystifying fact from fiction about what’s actually accurate about what a solid mind/body practice can bring to your IBD life.
If you’ve ever struggled to get on board with mind/body medicine for your personal gut healing journey; if you just can’t seem to find the time to commit to this life changing technique; if you would benefit from a step by step plan that walks you through the easiest way to make this game changer a simple daily habit in your life (where it doesn’t take up too much time, it doesn’t require you to “quiet your mind,” and it can easily be done while you’re doing other things)…
This is the can’t miss episode for you, dear one.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [00:03:45] The reason why the “Higher Mindset” pillar in the F.L.U.S.H. Formula is often the hardest for IBDe’rs to embrace
✅ [00:07:18] Common misconceptions about mind/body techniques like meditation, mindfulness, and breathwork, and how these myths might be holding you back from full IBD healing.
✅ [00:11:56] The disconnect between perceived “facts” about mind/body practices vs what the scientific research actually finds to be true about this topic.
✅ [00:19:22] My step-by-step plan on how to gently and effectively incorporate breathwork into your daily life, even if you’re short on time, feel overwhelmed, or need to multi-task while you do it.
✅ [00:26:34] My “Do it Like a Mom” practical tips to help you overcome resistance to mind/body techniques and ensure you stick with these practices long enough to ensure your gut and whole body thrives and flourish’s under their life transforming effects.
✅ [00:31:08] Why addressing the mind/body connection is essential not just for symptom relief, but for preventing future flare-ups and achieving long-term remission.
Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Mentioned in the Episode:
>> Your Breathwork 101 FREE Resource
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Connect With Karyn:
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:08]:
Hey there, mama.
Karyn [00:00:09]:
Welcome to season two of the Cheeky podcast for moms with IBD. I’m Karyn Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment, and all of us advocating.
Karyn [00:00:35]:
The hell out of our illness.
Karyn [00:00:37]:
We’re in this together, and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms.
Karyn [00:00:42]:
Let’s do this. Well, hey there, my friend. It’s an honor, as always, to connect with you. I want to jump right into our topic because it’s a controversial one. And I have to be honest with you.
Karyn [00:01:00]:
I don’t get.
Karyn [00:01:01]:
I don’t get it why it’s so controversial. I don’t get why this topic is so misunderstood. I think the best place to start today’s episode is just with a question. Have you heard about my flush formula framework? If you’ve been around the podcast or you’ve worked with me, you know what I’m talking about. My flush formula is the guiding principle that I built my coaching practice around. It’s deeply rooted in five crucial pillars for health and well being, and those pillars are the basis of a thriving, flourishing life. And these pillars are very specific to IBD healing. So, of course, flesh is an acronym, and it stands for food, lifestyle, unconventional treatments, supplements, and higher mindset.
Karyn [00:01:57]:
So here comes my question. Guess which pillar I get the most push back on when I just know you’re not going to be surprised when I tell you that it’s the last pillar. It’s pillar number five. It’s H. Higher mindset. And that’s why when I work with IBD gals and I sense that there’s just a little bit of pushback, a little bit of resistance with this pillar, I always probe deeper, and I ask, why? Why is this particular healing pillar? Why is it the last thing that you want to do? And most of the time, the answer I get absolutely mirrors what the scientific research is finding on this topic as well. So recent research shows that there’s a disconnect between the patient and the perceived benefit of mind body techniques like meditation, breath work, and mindfulness. So let me give you a few stats here.
Karyn [00:03:00]:
A 2018 study found that while 70%, that’s a lot. 70% of patients with chronic conditions are aware of mind binding techniques like meditation, breath work, and mindfulness, only about 20% regularly use these practices to manage their health challenges. And then yet, in another study, it found that over 40% of people with chronic illnesses believe that the mind body techniques that you can use, they believe that they don’t have any significant impact on their physical symptoms, leading to lower adoption rates, despite the evidence that shows that they have benefit. And then another study found that 50% of individuals with chronic conditions reported that their healthcare providers, they don’t discuss or recommend mind body interventions. 50%. And so of course that reduces the likelihood that these techniques are going to be integrated into their treatment plan. Another study found approximately 30% of people, they indicated that the lack of access to trained professionals and resources, that was a significant barrier to them practicing mind body techniques. And then lastly, about 25% of people in another study reported that there’s a cultural or even a social stigma associated with using mind body techniques.
Karyn [00:04:36]:
So even though many adopt these negative belief patterns surrounding mind body techniques, the reality is actually much different. So we have all this research saying one thing, but what’s actually real, what’s actually true is completely different. These statistics that I just rattled off, they don’t play out in the real world. In fact, there’s just enough research that shows the complete opposite. There was a study published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology that found that mindfulness based stress reduction, they call that MBSR, it led to a significant reduction in the severity of symptoms in those with both IB’s and IBD. And research shows that mindfulness and meditation practices, they can lead to a 22% improvement in the quality of life for people who live with chronic conditions like IBD. We’re talking about both physical and psychological well being here. So the double whammy, hitting it from all sides.
Karyn [00:05:44]:
Another study, this one was from the behavioral Medicine journal, found that patients who engaged in regular meditation or mindfulness practices had a 43% reduction in their number of visits to their healthcare providers. And then in 2020, a study published in neurogastroenterology and Motility, it highlighted that mind body practices, particularly those that focus on breath work, can improve the gut brain connection in patients with chronic digestive issues. This resulted in a 25% improvement in their gastrointestinal symptoms, symptoms like pain, bloating and irregular bowel movements. Meditation has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety levels by 58%. That’s just not. That’s not just a little bit, that’s a lot. 58% of those with chronic conditions. And this reduction has the potential to have a profound impact, of course, on those of us managing our Crohn’s disease.
Karyn [00:06:51]:
Or ulcerative colitis. So, with all those stats in mind, the research is clear. The research is clear. Mind body medicine, it works, it matters, and it makes a statistically significant difference. Think about your own perception about mind body techniques. What comes to mind? What comes to your mind when I say mind body medicine, what’s your relationship to using the power of your mind to affect change within your body? Are you open, but maybe you’re just confused about it. Are you open, but you just feel like, I don’t have time for that. Maybe you’re just closed to all of it.
Karyn [00:07:40]:
Just doesn’t make any sense to you. Having insights around how you see this pillar, how you see it fitting into your healing plan, that’s really the first step. And there are so many practical, logistical, even emotional reasons why people have resistance around this area of being physical and mentally being well, being physically and mentally well. I’m going to give you some of those reasons. I want you to see. See if any of these reasons resonate with you. These are reasons given by our GlC moms, our gut love community moms. See if any of these resonate with you.
Karyn [00:08:22]:
So these are the ones I hear about all the time. The first one is time constraints. I don’t have enough time. I don’t have enough time in my day to dedicate to a practice like this. Meditation, mindfulness, breath, work. I just don’t have the time. Another thing I hear is like, I just can’t do it. I can’t do it.
Karyn [00:08:40]:
It’s not that I don’t have the time. It’s just that I can’t. And this is a really big one. I hear this one all the time. When people hear the words higher mindset, they often think of meditation. That’s always what comes to your mind first. And then, of course, that often triggers anxiety, because you think about sitting still and you think about, well, I couldn’t even sit still for ten minutes. That seems impossible.
Karyn [00:09:05]:
So I hear that a lot. I can’t do it. Another reason I hear is skeptic, pure, pure skepticism. I don’t think it’s gonna work. It doesn’t work. And this can typically happen when somebody tries this one or two times and they don’t see immediate results, and they’re like, well, it didn’t work for me. I tried it one or two times. Didn’t work.
Karyn [00:09:26]:
All right. Another thing that I hear a lot of the time, see if this one resonates with you, is just lack of knowledge. I don’t know how to get started. I’m not really familiar with it. I don’t know how to do the techniques properly, so I just don’t know how to get started. Also, I mentioned this actually when I was talking about the research, that cultural stigma that surrounds mind body medicine. Some cultures, some communities, even they see this type of practice as, I’m going to put this in air quotes, alternative or maybe not legitimate, not as legitimate as traditional medicine. This was such a fit for a reason, for my mom.
Karyn [00:10:06]:
She absolutely fit into this category as a life long, I would call her a traditional nurse if she didn’t hear about it from her own doctor. She wouldn’t do it. She just wouldn’t do it. A doctor knows best. You know, that kind of mentality. Okay, what else? So maybe another reason that it’s kind of foreign to you or, or it doesn’t work for you is because you have misconceptions about what mind body practices are. Many people believe that mindfulness or meditation requires a clear mind. We hear that all the time.
Karyn [00:10:40]:
It’s about clearing your mind or it’s about complete stillness, which that can seem really daunting to us b mamas with squirrel brains. I fit into that category. Maybe you fit into that as well. Maybe you just feel uncomfortable or just discomfort with the idea of stillness. So sitting quietly or doing nothing, it might actually give you a physical uncomfortable response. It might even feel distressing to you. I find this one to be especially true when anxiety, stress or even unresolved emotional issues are at play. Because you think, well, if I sit quietly, those things are going to come up and I don’t want them to come up.
Karyn [00:11:28]:
Right. Another thought might be maybe you’re just impatient and we’re all guilty of that from time to time. We live in an impatient society. Mind body practices, they often require consistent long term effort. This is not a quick fix. And we live in a world of, isn’t there a pill for that kind of culture? Right? We live in that. Give me a pill. Give me that magic fix quickly.
Karyn [00:11:54]:
Some people might just have a fear of failure. They might feel like if I do, it doesn’t work, well, then I’m just a loser, right? If it doesn’t work for me, if I don’t see results right away, I’m not worthy. This gets right to the heart of your perfectionism. You’re overachieving nature. You’re overthinking nature. All those emotions really play in there. Maybe you prioritize other treatments over this. I can’t do this because I have to prioritize something else that my doctor told me to do.
Karyn [00:12:27]:
Mind body techniques are supplemental. Maybe you tell yourself that, so that just means that they’re less important. So I’m going to prioritize something else. So those are several. I think I maybe even mentioned like ten of them. Those are several reasons why this type of technique might just give you a little bit of trepidation. So tell me, can you relate to any of those? Did any of these? One did. Maybe two of these, maybe more than two of these resonate with you? Are any of these factors holding you back from incorporating the higher mindset pillar into your IBD healing regime? You’re in good company if these resonate with you, because these are the most common reasons that I hear when someone has resistance with this pillar.
Karyn [00:13:17]:
Now, I always believe that I have to be absolutely candid and upfront with you. That’s always my goal. So in the spirit of that sentiment, it’s time for a little bit of tough love here, especially if any of these reasons rang true for you. If you aren’t using some type of mind body technique, or even techniques, if it’s not anywhere in your wheel of wellness, and here’s the tough love part, you are going to fail. You’re going to fail at health. I know that’s harsh. Did she seriously just say that? Karen, who’s always so positive, so encouraging, so there is no one size fits all approach to healing? Yeah, I did say it. I said it and I don’t regret it.
Karyn [00:14:11]:
I am just keeping it real with you. I have been doing this a really long time, and although I didn’t get it at the beginning either, if you’re feeling that way, that’s what I was like a few years ago. But through the years, the experiences that I’ve had in this field, helping people in this field, it has made me an absolute convert on this topic. And it’s not even a choice, mama. If you want full, long lasting healing, especially from a digestive challenge like inflammatory bowel disease, others with chronic illnesses, maybe somehow with dealing with their emotions, maybe they don’t have to. But we don’t get that luxury because the gut and the brain are intimately connected. So some type of mind body practice that gets to the heart of your stress, your anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, denial, trauma, insert your emotional turmoil here. It’s essential.
Karyn [00:15:20]:
It’s nothing optional. It’s essential. All the other pillars in your gut healing framework, they can’t touch a candle to these emotions like a higher mindset pillar. Can that mind body practice. That’s what we’re talking about here. But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, let’s just say that you haven’t embraced this because maybe you haven’t. Let’s just say you haven’t embraced yet. A mind body practice pillar number five in my flush formula, higher mindset.
Karyn [00:15:55]:
But you have embraced other pillars on your healing journey. Let’s just say that you’ve gone all in on the gut healing pillar of food. Let’s do that one. Let’s say that you put all of your eggs in the food basket, or maybe you put everything, all of your energy into a supplement plan. And maybe you’re saying, Karen, you’re just full of it. You’re full of crap. My chosen path works. My food path, my supplement path.
Karyn [00:16:27]:
Maybe you feel better than you have in a really long time. Trust me when I tell you that if that’s the case, no one is happier for you than me because eradicating the pain that’s associated with chronic. And you see, that’s my ultimate goal in life. And I know, I know all the hard work and dedication that it takes to get to that place, to get to a place like that because I’ve been there. I’ve seen this also countless times. I’ve seen it countless times. I’ve had my own experience with it in my own life. But here’s the thing.
Karyn [00:17:03]:
Guess what? It doesn’t last. Okay? It might take a year, it might take two years, it might take five years down the line. It was almost ten years down the line for me. But those emotions, those emotional emotions that I mentioned earlier, the anxiety, the trauma, the stress, the anger, it’s still there. It’s still there when we don’t deal with it, it’s still there. It’s simmering beneath the surface. It’s waiting for just the right life event to trigger it. It might be taking care of a sick loved one, it might be chronic work stress, it might be family drama, it might be the death of someone close to you.
Karyn [00:17:53]:
It might be childhood trauma that you never dealt with. And then bam, bam, flare up city, you are right back where you started again. Can you relate to that? It may not happen right away. It may take many years. You might have lots of years of good health. But trust me, trust me, if you don’t have that pillar in place, the good health, it doesn’t last. And so this was my experience years ago, like I just alluded to as an IB deer in healing because I put all my eggs in, in the food and supplement basket. Hey, at least I had two baskets.
Karyn [00:18:36]:
It wasn’t just one. I put all my eggs into the food and supplement basket only to have my world come crashing down about ten years later. And now that that happened to me, I see the pattern. I see it over and over and over in my coaching practice. I see this over and over with my GLC friends, my gut love, community friends. Please. Okay, so take this. Let me just say this.
Karyn [00:19:06]:
If you, if you take nothing else from this episode, if you take nothing else from this episode today, this is such a personal episode for me, I have to say. But if you take nothing else from the episode, I want to tell you that either food alone or whatever pillar it is alone. Please trust me when I tell you that you can’t go around issues like this. You can’t continue to stuff them down because they will catch up with you. They will catch up with you at some point. All the healthy eating, all the supplement taking in the world, it can’t prevent these unresolved issues from catching up to you. And I’m not telling you anything that you don’t already know. This isn’t life shattering, mind blowing news to you.
Karyn [00:20:03]:
I’m telling you what you already know. I’m telling you what you, just as a busy mom, you’re just not taking the time to really think about and bring into your life. And we’re all guilty of it, aren’t we? So here’s the time. It is time now. It’s time to take stuff. It’s just you and me here. Remember? This is a one way conversation. I can’t hear your response.
Karyn [00:20:29]:
And that’s okay, because it’s time for you to have an honest conversation with yourself. You may have been delaying this for a while even though you knew you needed to have it, but here’s that conversation. It comes in the form of a question. Where is your mind body health at? It’s just you. I’m here with you in this space, but it’s just you. Can you answer that question? Where is your mind body health at? Is it a dumpster fire with all kinds of past emotions never being let out or never being made peace with? Is it maybe just like, kind of so, so, you know, you put the time in here and there, but you just never are able to fully commit to the process. Or are you truly healed, mind, body and soul? Now, most of us still have some work to do in this area. I have been working on myself in the realm of mindfulness for several years now, and I can say that I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re just never done with this.
Karyn [00:21:33]:
I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re never truly done with this pill. And I’ve also made peace with that because I feel like it’s okay. We’re always going to find things in our life that need work. Mind, body work. It’s a process. It’s about always making process, always making progress. And the important aspect of this pillar is that we’re working on it. That’s it.
Karyn [00:22:02]:
It’s just that we’re working on it. We don’t have to get here to this and place. We’re working on it. We’re not stuffing it down only to let those negative emotions or flare ups that it can cause, those ones that are rooted deep in our subconscious. We’re not letting them come out and just creeping up at the worst possible time. It doesn’t always happen at the worst possible time. It happens at the worst possible moment, doesn’t it? And I have to tell you, that isn’t a coincidence. It’s not a coincidence that you’re flaring when your world is in chaos.
Karyn [00:22:38]:
It’s your body’s way of telling you, hold up, hold up. Dear one, I’m about to break here and I need some tender loving care. Please, I need some care. Our body is always talking to us. It’s our job to listen when the whispers come in, not when there’s this tympanic drum pounding in your head.
Karyn [00:23:03]:
Just a quick interruption. We will get back to the podcast in a second.
Karyn [00:23:07]:
I’m wondering, are you, like many of.
Karyn [00:23:08]:
Us with Crohn’s and colitis, you’re turning to food to help heal your gut, but you’re just feeling really overwhelmed by the myriad of gut healing diets out there. There’s gluten free and dairy free and paleo gaps and it can be really confusing and frustrating and leave you feeling disheartened about which diet is the right one for you. And I’ve been there myself. That’s why I created the ultimate IBD diet decoder quiz to help you find your best diet for your unique needs. Now maybe you’ve tried one of these diets, but you gave up quickly because they were just too strict or they didn’t fit with your lifestyle.
Karyn [00:23:51]:
Here’s the truth.
Karyn [00:23:52]:
There is no one size fits all diet. But there is one best diet for you. And the best diet for you isn’t just about your symptoms. It’s about your lifestyle and your personality too. Are you ready to find the gut healing diet that fits you like a glove? Head on over to karenhaley.com quiz to take my ultimate IBD diet decoder quiz. It’s free, and it only takes three minutes. Discover what you’ve been meant to be eating to put your IBD in its place. That’s karenhaley.com quiz.
Karyn [00:24:32]:
And now back to the show.
Karyn [00:24:34]:
Okay, so what I was just talking about, talking about there, that is the insight piece. That’s the insight piece of this episode. The part where we say, yes, yes, this resonates with me. These are the issues I have yet to deal with. These are the reasons I have yet to incorporate mind body practices. But now that you have that insight, it’s time for you to begin to take action, to begin the necessary changes, and start incorporating mind body techniques into your daily routine. So we started this conversation with step one. And step one is for everyone.
Karyn [00:25:24]:
No matter where you’re at on the mind body train, step one is all about an agreement that you make with yourself. The agreement that this is important. It’s important for both my mental and my physical health. Mind body health is important for my recovery. And that’s it. That’s it for step one. Step one is all about insight. That’s it.
Karyn [00:25:50]:
And you did that work today already. So go ahead. Just check that one off your list. Give yourself a pat on the back. And don’t worry just yet about how you’re going to get there, because acceptance and insight, that’s the first step. Now. Now, for those of you who are ready to move beyond step one today, and it’s okay if you’re not, step one might be all that you can do right now. But eventually, step two is a must do.
Karyn [00:26:20]:
So let’s go ahead and go through this together. Step two is about embracing a slow and gentle pace, saying to yourself, yes, I’m in. But I want these new habits to stick. I want them to become part of me so that I can commit to them fully. And to do that, I’m going to be the tortoise. Especially for moms with IBD, we don’t need to go all in on day one. We don’t need to do it all on day one. If we want these new and sometimes mentally uncomfortable, like, I kind of.
Karyn [00:26:56]:
To me, sometimes it gives me the heebie jeebies to be in that place. So I call it, like, mentally uncomfortable. If we want to get to these techniques, we want them to work, especially long term. The best thing that we can do is start with baby steps. And while I would, I would probably need, I don’t even know, several days maybe, to go into all of the ins and outs of every mindfulness practice that’s available to us. I always believe in starting with the lowest hanging fruit possible. You hear me say that a lot about many things with healing IBd, because why would you not start with what’s easiest? So, in step two, step two, we commit to starting at a place that’s easy, where what I call flow. Like you’re in a flow state where flow comes naturally.
Karyn [00:27:50]:
We commit to starting with a mind body technique where I. You already know that you’re going to be successful. That’s your best starting place. And for you. For you, dear one, on this mind body pillar, the lowest hanging fruits of the mind body world. It’s breath work. Yeah, it’s breath work. Easy peasy.
Karyn [00:28:14]:
You’re already doing it every moment of the day. Breath work. It’s a small but mighty small step, turning the unconscious breathing that you’re already doing into a more mindful, conscious practice. And it doesn’t take much, it does not take much for this baby step to bring you huge, awesome results. And that’s why it’s always, always my go to number one first. Mind body technique. Even though breath work is easy, even though it’s a small step, if you’re consistent with this mind body technique, and the word consistent is the key word here, if you’re consistent, you will find that it makes a big difference in your life. Do you have stress? Breathe your way through it.
Karyn [00:29:09]:
How about anxiety? You can’t be anxious and let your breath flow. It’s physically impossible. Got anger, frustration at your situation, the situation that you’re in, nothing calms you down more like breath work. Dealing with sadness or even depression, nothing puts you back into the present moment and grounds your body like breath work. It’s the mind body gift that keeps on giving, and you can do it in any moment, in any place, in any way that supports and fosters your personal healing journey. Now, why does something so simple like breathing work so damn well? To quell not just our mind, but our body and its GI challenges as well. It works because breath work is all about the connection between the mind and the gut. And that’s why I have my mind body shirt on today.
Karyn [00:30:15]:
If you’re on YouTube, you can actually see it. I have my mind body shirt on today. It’s all about that connection between the brain and the gut. And the gut is the place we most want to heal. Right. That’s probably why you’re listening today, right? And you’ve got IBD and you want to heal. So how fitting is it. How fitting is it that we use the power of our mind to affect change in our gut when these two parts of our body are so intimately acquainted, so intimately connected? Now, this connectedness, connectedness that I’m talking about, a connection like no other in our body, it’s made possible through the vagus nerve.
Karyn [00:30:59]:
The super communication highway. I like to call it the super communication highway of the vagus nerve. Now, I’d like us to do just a really simple exercise together so that you can not just see, but you can actually experience what I’m talking about here with the vagus nerve. So go ahead, get really comfortable if you can. If you’re in a place where you can do that, kind of like shake your arms, shake your legs a little bit, and then just kind of just relax. Okay? Sink into your chair if it’s safe for you to do so. Okay, now go ahead and let’s put one hand on your diaphragm. It’s just below your belly button in the middle of your stomach.
Karyn [00:31:45]:
So if you’re watching, again, if you’re watching on YouTube, you can actually see me doing this now. And when I count down three, two, one. I want you to take in a really big belly breath. Don’t do it yet, but I want. Because I want to tell you how to do it. Take it from a place where take it from the place where your hand is from the diaphragm, not from the lungs way up high, but way down deep in your belly. The hand on your diaphragm, it should push out when you breathe in. Okay? All right.
Karyn [00:32:17]:
Three, two, one, go. Take that deep breath in from the diaphragm. Hold it at the top and then let it go. Awesome. Okay, we’re going to do this one more time, but this time, this time I want you to take that same hand. I want you to keep it on the same plane. So just below your belly button. But this time I want you to bring your hand around to your back, the back of your body, right on top of your spine, okay? So right in the middle.
Karyn [00:32:52]:
In the middle. We’re going to go ahead and take one more deep breath together. We’re going to take a diaphragmatic breath together. We’re going to take it really deep this time. And we’re going to go on three, two, one. So, three, two, one. Go ahead. Breathe in.
Karyn [00:33:10]:
Hold it, and then breathe out. What did you notice this time? Did you notice the breath moving through your spine as well? Your breath doesn’t just move in and out in the front of your body. When we take the time to consciously breathe, the breath actually goes into our back as well. It goes up and down our spine. And guess what? That’s exactly where our vagus nerve is. The vagus nerve is a literal nerve. So it’s like you. It’s like having your body’s own built in wiFi.
Karyn [00:33:52]:
It’s like Wi Fi right in your body, connecting the gut to the brain, seamlessly transmitting signals in both directions, like a super communication highway. And this vital nerve, it serves as a direct line of communication between your gut’s enteric nervous system. That’s the nervous system that’s in your gut. And the central nervous system, the CN’s, the one in your brain. It plays a major role in regulating everything from digestion to what mood shows up for you in any given moment. It’s like having a constant silent chat between your gut and brain, where they share updates and influence each other’s thoughts, functions and emotions in high speed, real time. When you think about it, it’s actually pretty cool. It’s really cool how advanced our bodies are.
Karyn [00:34:45]:
And I like to think of this complicated concept. I like to just think of it in really simple terms, and we can make this really simple. A happy gut equals a happy brain. A happy brain equals a happy gut. It can be that simple. The vagus nerve even gets involved in helping us manage the key gut functions that we have, like digestion and motility and inflammation. And most importantly, when it’s stimulated through mindful practices like breath work, it can enhance digestion by ramping up production of stomach acid, by ramping up production of enzymes to help you digest your food better and absorb those new nutrients more efficiently. Plus, it has an anti inflammatory effect, calming down gut inflammation and promoting gut healing.
Karyn [00:35:38]:
And we have the power to do a simple, a so simple, a baby step action to aid our body in healing and calming our gut challenges by just consciously breathing. All because of the link between our gut and our brain. All because of the vagus nerve pathway. And that’s capital H. Huge, my friend. Now, I have to say that I’ve got a little question for you. Another question for you. I feel like this is the episode of questions.
Karyn [00:36:15]:
How is all this landing for you so far? Have I sold you on the importance of the mind body pillar? Do you see how conscious breath work has the potential to make a big difference in your gut healing, maybe not overnight. It’s not an overnight solution. This is not a quick fix. But with commitment and consistency, those are the two big words here, commitment and consistency. And just a little bit of more low hanging fruit effort. It can play a vital role in your IBD healing pathway. And I hope you’re over there saying, yes, yes, yes, that’s me. I am with you, Karen.
Karyn [00:36:59]:
I am with you because that’s all you need at this point. That belief system is what takes us from step two to now. Stephen? Three. And step three is knowledge. Ooh, I love me some knowledge. I love learning. Step three is all about gaining knowledge in this concept of breath work. Things like what are some of the best techniques known to help those with gut challenges? Within that breath work realm, what are the techniques that might work? And I’m also going to give you just a little sneak peek peek into step number four once you have that knowledge base about breath work.
Karyn [00:37:43]:
Step four is about figuring out how to make this breathing practice, how to bring it into your daily routine, how to, once I know the techniques and I have the knowledge, how can I now then form a habit around it? How can I make it part of my life? What’s going to work for you is different than what’s going to work for me. This is a very personal journey. Okay? So that’s the four step process. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. That’s the whole process of adding in an easy to adopt mind body process. Step one, insight and acceptance that this is important. Step two, your willingness to jump on the tortoise paced, slow train by embracing baby steps.
Karyn [00:38:35]:
That last step, number three, is your knowledge step. And then step number four is trying these techniques out, trying them out for yourself so you can begin to form a habit around them. All right, so I told you. I told you. You got this. It’s four easy peasy steps in this process, and I want you to be able to get started on your higher mindset pillar if that feels like a good fit for you. So all you’re missing at this point is a little bit of knowledge, and that’s step three. And some of my best practice tips on how to make this your own.
Karyn [00:39:14]:
That’s step four.
Karyn [00:39:16]:
Hey there, it’s Karen popping into the episode. I want to thank you so much for tuning into the cheeky podcast for moms with IBD today. You know, the great information that we’re dishing out on this pod is exactly the same type of conversation I get to have with my clients every day. And if you’re ready to take your IBD healing journey to the next level and move into being the mom you always dreamed you’d be, then hop on over to karenhaley.com consult and book your free IBD consultation with me today. Remember, my mom had to be a little bit different and spell my name with a y. So that’s karymhaley.com consult. Now, on our call, we will dive into what you’re struggling with most right now and make a plan for how we can work together to help you achieve your big, bold, beautiful, life transforming goals. No more sitting on the sidelines waiting for that miracle cure to magically happen.
Karyn [00:40:19]:
You’ve got what it takes to do this, mama. You just need a little nudge in the right direction and I’ve got your back. Karenhaley.com consult and now back to the show.
Karyn [00:40:33]:
All right, so let’s back it up and let’s go back to step three so that you really have that knowledge base. Step three knowledge about your breath work options. Now, if you were to Google breath work, maybe you already have googled it. You might have noticed that there’s a lot of information out there. There is so much information that it actually ends up confusing you rather than giving you clarity. And that’s why when it comes to breath work knowledge, I’ve simplified the process for you. I’ve done the research and I’ve compiled for you the best, top five best breath work practices when gut healing is your goal. No need for you to figure this out on your own.
Karyn [00:41:20]:
I’ve got your back when you are ready for step three, that knowledge step, go ahead and check out my hot off the press resource. It’s called breathwork 101. Breathwork 101. It is packed with everything you need to know about getting started with your breath work practice. If you’re new to breath work, if you want to embrace the slow and steady tortoise mantra, if you’re looking for the low hanging fruit of the mind body medicine world, this is the resource for you. It’s all yours. It’s made with love, and all you have to do to get it is go to karenhaley.com breathwork. This is completely free.
Karyn [00:42:05]:
It’s a completely free resource and it’s waiting for you. It’s got everything that you need to get started with this highly effective mind body practice. It’s got breath work. It’s got a breath work q and a section to get your most pressing questions answered. It’s got five different scientifically proven for the GI tract breath work techniques that you can try out. Plus, it also has practical tips. It has a practical tips section so that you can get yourself set up for that. Step number four, the habit forming step.
Karyn [00:42:41]:
It’s the next best thing to me. Taking you by the hand and leading you through the breath work exercises together. Now you’re absolutely going to get some great practical tips to help you take breath work into your heart and make it your own with this resource. But I also wanted to give you a few more tips before we part today. It’s not a cheeky podcast solo episode without my do it like a mom section. So let’s close out today with a few food for thought tips to do breath work like the badass ibd mama I know you are. Okay, here’s the first tip. It’s okay to multitask conscious breathing.
Karyn [00:43:28]:
It’s okay. It’s okay to multitask this. Let’s face it, as moms, we are multitaskers. Combining deep breathing with daily tasks is the only way to go. So you can combine it with tasks like doing the dishes or showering. You could do it during your bedtime routine. You could even do it during your bedtime routine with your littles. With deep breathing, nobody even knows you’re doing it.
Karyn [00:43:52]:
All right, tip number two. Start small. Be the tortoise. We’ve talked about this already, so short five minute sessions are really all you need. That’s all you need to make a difference. That’s a great place to start so you can sneak it in early in the morning. You could sneak it in before the kids wake up, during nap times, or maybe right before your bedtime. Whatever works for you.
Karyn [00:44:16]:
And of course, there are apps to help you with this on your phone, like insight timer. That’s my favorite. And that helps make this super easy for you to get started. Okay, tip number three. It’s a life skill your kids need, too. When you’re a mom, everything you do involves the kiddos, right? Include them in your mind body groove. Teach them breath work now, and you will be setting them up for mental health success success throughout their lifetime. Enough said on that.
Karyn [00:44:51]:
It’s just really important. Okay, tip number four, tech isn’t your enemy with this. It’s not your enemy. It’s actually a plus. I mentioned insight timer before, but there are so many mindfulness apps that encourage you and celebrate your breath work success. And those are things like the app headspace. Breathwork is another one, and in case you are searching for that one, it’s breathwork with no o. So the word work, no o, just w r k.
Karyn [00:45:25]:
Just in case you’re searching for that one. But find the one. The app that helps to motivate you. Trust me, there’s an app out there that’s going to help you make this new technique your favorite new habit. So don’t be afraid of technology. It will actually enhance your experience. And then number five, when you’re feeling stuck, when you’re feeling stuck, or you’re feeling like you can’t get motivated with this, connect with others. There’s always strength in numbers.
Karyn [00:45:55]:
We know that, don’t we? Whether it’s an online community or a local yoga studio that has breath work classes, connecting with others on a similar path, it can be incredibly motivating. Knowing that you’re not alone on this journey is all the motivation that you need to keep you going, to keep you moving, to keep you accountable. Okay, so those are my five. Get started. Do it like a mom. Tips for breath work there’s more tips and tricks to make this new skill work for you, and it’s waiting for you in my free resource, breathwork 101. So don’t forget to grab that one as soon as we hop off of today’s episode. It is your roadmap to steps three and four in this whole mind body medicine pillar of healing.
Karyn [00:46:52]:
It’s got your best breath work techniques. They’re all laid out for you, and it’s even got more tips and tricks to help make sure that you can make this your own and you can make this a vital and essential pillar of healing. You can make it a lifelong habit that you’ll not only do, but you’ll learn to cherish. Cherish is a tool that you can use anytime, anywhere. Now that’s probably my favorite, favorite thing I have to say about breath work. With most of the techniques that I’ve outlined for you in my resource, no one even knows that you’re doing them. So consciously breathe and get that vagus nerve stimulated while you’re doing the dishes, cooking dinner, driving the car, taking a shower, when you need to calm down after, maybe your coworker says one more annoying thing that you can’t tell take. Like I said earlier, breath work is the gift that keeps on giving.
Karyn [00:47:53]:
It can’t cure your IBD overnight, but when used in conjunction with other IBD healing pillars, it will help you move the needle, the healing needle, in the right direction. This is important. This is so important, mom. And like I said earlier on, this is an important episode don’t skip this pillar. Don’t skip this pillar of healing. Take it from me, I skipped it and things of course went haywire down the line. I’ve seen this over and over. This is not optional.
Karyn [00:48:25]:
It’s mandatory if you want to find true and lasting healing and use breath work as a jumping off point to other mind body techniques like meditation, mantras, therapy, spending time in nature. Remember, this is just your first step. This is your first step my friend. From here, the sky is the limit. There’s so many other techniques out there. You’ve got this. I’m by your side. But please reach out if I can help you on this pillar path.
Karyn [00:48:58]:
If you’re feeling any resistance about it, I’m here for you. Dm me on instagram. I am theibd health coach. That’s my handle. Heibd health coach lastly, one more time, I want to tell you how to get that free resource, Breathwork 101. It’s at karenhaley.com breathwork. Karenhaly.com breathwork and remember, my mom had to be a little different and spell my name with a y. So it’s karynhale yddez.com breathwork.
Karyn [00:49:33]:
All right, whether you get the resource, you dm me. Let me know how it goes for you. I can’t wait to chat with you until we meet again. I’m wishing you much gut love, much happiness, and lots of deep breaths. Always chat soon.
Karyn [00:49:57]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you.
Karyn [00:50:03]:
Would do a couple things.
Karyn [00:50:04]:
First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now. It’s at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a try tab and then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD. The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. I love being in community with you and I appreciate you, my friend.
Karyn [00:50:47]:
One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, I think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital h huge. And the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day and I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together. If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the gut love community@karenheathy.com. community the GLC is my free and fabulous space dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of bts secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong. This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community.
Karyn [00:51:51]:
Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com. community that’s karynhaley.com community. I can’t wait to meet you.
Dr. Andrea Lein On… The Intersection of Mental Health, Physical Health & Self-Compassion
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this week’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we’re diving deep into the often-overlooked connection between mental health and physical healing. Our guest, Dr. Andrea Lein, is a distinguished clinical psychologist with over 25 years of experience and a leading authority in the field of positive psychology. Dr. Andrea has dedicated her career to empowering high-achieving women (we know all of us IBD mamas fit into this category; ) to thrive by embracing holistic well-being, and today, she shares her invaluable insights with us.
Join us as we explore the critical differences between toxic positivity and true positive psychology, and how insight and patience with ourselves can change the way we approach our mental and physical health. Dr. Andrea sheds light on the impact of perfectionism, overachievement, stress, and anxiety on our overall well-being, and she offers practical advice on navigating the complex terrain of therapy versus coaching.
This episode is packed with powerful insights into how advocate for ourselves in simple, practical ways, and how to choose self-compassion over self-criticism, and ultimately, live a flourishing life—despite the challenges we all face living with IBD. Dr. Andrea’s personal story of overcoming her own health struggles through will inspire you to take a closer look at how you care for yourself and your family.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [00:04:27] The key difference between toxic positivity and positive psychology.
✅ [00:16:17] How perfectionism, anxiety, and overachievement can lead to physical health challenges.
✅ [00:24:27] The blurred lines between therapy and coaching, and how to choose what’s right for you.
✅ [00:33:14] Why moms often wait until a crisis to seek help and how to break this pattern.
✅ [00:42:40] The connection between mental health struggles and physical ailments, and practical steps to break the cycle.
✅ [00:54:17] Dr. Andrea’s personal story of healing through self-compassion and how she embraced the power of saying “no.”
Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Mentioned in the Episode:
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Connect With Karyn:
Connect With Dr. Andrea:
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:00]:
Well, hey there, dear one. How you doing today? Whether you are tuning in while you’re driving, that’s my personal favorite for listening to podcasts. Or maybe you’re squeezing in some much needed me time or multitasking like the super mom I know that you are. I just want to tell you I’m glad that you’re here, especially for today, because I’ve got a treat for you. It’s an episode that dives deep into the world of mental health, positive psychology, and what it truly means to care for ourselves as moms. With IBD, that’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. How do we take care of ourselves along with this chronic illness by our side? And so we all know that living with Crohn’s or colitis, it can be quite a rollercoaster. Lots of ups and downs, not just for our bodies, but for our minds as well.
Karyn [00:00:54]:
And I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. In the 14 years that I’ve been doing this work, I have never met an IBD gal who didn’t deal with things like stress, perfectionism, overachievement and anxiety. On some level, it often goes hand in hand with managing our illness. But what if there was a way to approach mental health that didn’t focus on the negative, but it celebrated some of the positives? And that’s exactly what we are exploring today with my guest, doctor Andrea line. Now trust me, this isn’t about wishful thinking. You know, the kind of wishful thinking that comes when you say, let me just click my heels together three times and I’m just going to wish for a better life. Oh no, that’s not what we’re talking about. This is about embracing the whole enchilada of life, the good and the bad.
Karyn [00:01:53]:
Now let me just tell you a little bit about Doctor Andrea. She’s a clinical psychologist with over 25 years experience and she’s a leading authority in the topic of positive psychology. It’s a field that looks at the factors that help us live our best lives from a scientific perspective. She’s spent her career empowering high achieving women thrive, and today she is sharing her wisdom with us. In our conversation, Doctor Andrea and I, we talk about the critical difference between toxic positivity and true positive psychology. We dive into the ways perfectionism, overachievement, anxiety and stress can wreak havoc on both our mental and physical health. That’s something that hits home for so many of us with IBD. But that’s not all.
Karyn [00:02:48]:
Doctor Andrea also helps us navigate the often confusing landscape of therapy versus coaching. How often have you thought about, well, which one should I go for? And she’s going to offer many insights into that, into which might be better suited for you depending on where you’re at in your journey. And if you’ve ever felt like you need to be in a full blown crisis before seeking help, raise your hand if you can relate to that. And I’m over here raising my hand. Doctor Andrea’s wisdom on that. She has advice for us on why moms should seek help before hitting rock bottom, and her advice is stellar. It’s game changing. So you have to listen for that.
Karyn [00:03:33]:
I know that this conversation, it’s going to deeply resonate with you. I just can’t wait. I can’t wait for you to hear Doctor Andrea’s story, too. She talks about that. She has her own personal story, her own struggles with mental health that led to physical ailments and then how she ultimately found a path to healing. And she did it through self compassion and advocacy. Those are two topics that we all need reminders about to make them work for us. I know I do.
Karyn [00:04:03]:
This is such an important episode for all of us moms with IBD. So settle in, join me for a cup of tea, and get ready for a powerful conversation. This is a cant miss episode. Let’s dive in with Doctor Andrea line.
Karyn [00:04:27]:
Hey there, mama.
Karyn [00:04:28]:
Welcome to season two of the Cheeky podcast for Moms with IBD. I’m Karen Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crone’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle.
Karyn [00:04:49]:
Our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment.
Karyn [00:04:53]:
And all of us advocating the hell.
Karyn [00:04:55]:
Out of our illness.
Karyn [00:04:56]:
We’re in this together and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms.
Karyn [00:05:01]:
Let’s do this. Doctor Andrea, welcome to the show. I’m so happy to have you with us.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:05:12]:
I’m so excited to be here with you guys.
Karyn [00:05:15]:
Well, I just listed your bio, and as you already know, there’s a lot of letters, there’s a lot of credentials after it, and they’re really impressive, by the way. And so we know you are very knowledgeable, you’re very educated. But I thought that we would just start with what do you do with all that amazing knowledge? What do you do in your practice?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:05:34]:
Well, currently, thank you, by the way, I like to say there are a lot of letters there but I am not all the letters after my name. I’m just a normal, regular person who, to my husband’s chagrin, stayed in school for a very long time. So finally out. And I used to work with families. The bulk of my career earlier on was working with very gifted, high achieving families who had children who were struggling in some way and helping their parents. And so I do still do a little bit of that, working primarily with the parents these days, but through my own journey over the last, I’d say about five years, and we’ll probably talk a little bit more about that later on. I have really wanted to shift my practice and focus more to taking what I. What I love and am passionate about in terms of positive psychology, which is sort of like the opposite end of clinical psychology, which is what my PhD is in.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:06:36]:
But I started the field of positive psychology, was birthed literally right as I was starting my clinical psych program. And so I was very excited, and it wasn’t really much of a field at all because it was literally just being born in the early two thousands. But I have integrated that into my work my entire career. So now I’m passionate about sort of integrating both the understanding of mental health issues with the science behind positive psychology, which is really just the science of human flourishing. And what are the circumstances, what are the factors that enable humans to live their best life from a scientific standpoint? Because a lot of those things might sound intuitive to us or we may have learned them in other places in our life growing up, maybe our parents told us, be grateful for what you have. And now I think it’s starting to seep into more of the mainstream. So I really love taking that and teaching and helping people use that to improve different parts of their life, whether it’s work life, family life, those sorts of things.
Karyn [00:07:49]:
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it is definitely becoming more mainstream, this idea of positive psychology. Right. It’s become so mainstream that it’s very now pop. It is in so many different places.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:08:01]:
Which is interesting to see. Yeah, it is very interesting, as someone who’s been in the field, but even mental health as a general topic of conversation has become much more mainstream than when most of us in this field, even ten years ago. I think with social media, with a new generation coming up and wanting to talk about these things, it’s a freedom that I don’t think I ever predicted to experience in my career as a psychologist. But it’s great. I love it.
Karyn [00:08:32]:
Yeah. So you see only positives. I find that interesting. I have children that are adults, two adults, and then I have a teenager, and it’s just so amazing to me how they. Their friends, social media, everybody around that generation, they’re so comfortable. I have anxiety. I have ADHD. I have even, like, borderline, like.
Karyn [00:08:52]:
I mean, I have a mental health background as well. My master’s is in counseling. And so, I mean, those kinds of things, like personality disorders, people are now like, yeah, me, I shout it from the rooftops. Isn’t that interesting? It’s so different from our youth.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:09:05]:
It’s very different. I mean, because when we were. I’ll just speak for myself. When I was in school, as a teenager, in high school, I don’t think I had ever heard of something like a personality disorder. It wasn’t until I got into my training, really, that I started to even understand what that was. So there’s just. Because the DSM was like a book that only clinicians had. There was no way to Google that, really, and find it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:09:33]:
It wasn’t at our fingertips like it is for everyone these days. And it’s not just for mental illness. It’s with physical illnesses. Right, too. And so one of the downsides of that, and I have a daughter who’s in her mid twenties, so she falls into that category, too, where she will send me TikToks about this or that. And she’s like, mom, do you think I have this? And I’m like, honey, just because you heard it on TikTok does not make it true. I think there is. On the one hand, I love that there is so much more conversation around these things, and it doesn’t have to be hush hush.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:10:07]:
On the other hand, I still think there is discernment that needs to happen, and I feel very passionate also about individuals, but particularly young people, not identifying with a list of disorders. It’s okay if it helps them navigate life, certainly it’s great if it’s helpful, but sometimes, and I’ve worked with a lot of young people earlier in my career, if it starts to become their identity, it’s hard to break out from that.
Karyn [00:10:39]:
Yeah. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you’re right.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:10:41]:
So there’s a downside. Yeah.
Karyn [00:10:43]:
Yes. And I think sometimes things have to. The pendulum has to swing way to the other side for it to then come back to balance. And so I think that will happen, like what you’re talking about, it’s going to come back to balance. But I want to kind of dig into this idea of positive psychology, and especially as opposed to toxic positivity and just kind of think about, I know you said that you started into this field a long time before it was really what I would call in vogue. So I’m just kind of curious what brought that, but, you know, what brought you to that? Was it something in childhood, or did you just start school and say, wow, I’m just really passionate about this? How did you come to want to emphasize this part of psychology?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:11:29]:
That’s a great question. I don’t know if I’ve even really thought about that. I pursued clinical psychology because, honestly, I wanted to help people who were struggling. And what I knew at that point was that meant I needed to get my PhD in clinical psychology. Really. I mean, that was the basic thought behind it. There are other paths I could have taken, but that was the path that I took. And once I started, I remember reading the first.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:12:02]:
It was sort of Martin Seligman, who was the psychologist, who really, I think, coined the term in the field and sort of, you know, helped birth that field. He was the president of APA at the time, and I remember an article that he wrote in the APA. I think it was 2000 or 2001, but I just happened to come across it because I was a graduate student. I was just starting in psychology. It was APA, you know, so you’re reading all of the journals, and he cast this vision for a new field, and there was just something in me that intuitively thought, this makes a lot of sense. It’s one thing that the field of psychology had focused on understanding mental illness, and we needed to do that in order to help people who were struggling. But as a field, it was like we had forgotten. Well, what about on the other side? What about the positive side of humanity? How do we even begin to think about studying that? So no one had actually really studied it, at least in the frame of positive psychology.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:13:09]:
There were certainly other counseling models and humanistic psychology. It’s not as if no one had ever talked about those concepts before, but the field of psychology wanted to study it. How do we study happiness? How do we study? I remember one of my professors at Uva, who’s my favorite, Jonathan Haidt. I took a class with him, and he studied the psychology of moral emotions. It was fascinating to me. It was fascinating to me. And so I just. I don’t know, it was just something in me that was really drawn to that.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:13:45]:
And just to clarify, you know, when I. When I. I think it’s important, even though it’s coined positive psychology. So it’s like, oh, everything’s positive. Everything’s positive. Certainly it can go to the extreme when someone takes that as if that is the path. But really positive psychologists do not deny it’s not healthy to deny human pain. It’s just that in order to balance all of the focus on the negative, there was needing a place for science to show us, well, what contributes to the positive.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:14:20]:
And then how do we look at a person in the wholeness of humanity who suffers, who has pain, who has times and seasons of grief and depression and anxiety and all of the things, but also there are moments of happiness and joy and gratitude and serenity, and how do we just speak to all of that for a person? And in my clinical practice, it was important to me not just to do quote unquote, clinical, like traditional therapy, like addressing just the problem, because I think like holistic doctors, and I mean like holistic functional medicine doctors or integrative doctors who are treating the physical body. This concept of when we create environments of health that support health, then healthy the body can thrive within that versus just localizing and focusing on the diseased part of the body. Right. We just. We’re looking holistically. And I take the same idea for mental health. Rather than just focusing on the anxiety or focusing on the depressive symptoms, it’s how do you create a life where mental health springs forth? It just springs forth, and over time, it sort of pushes out the other stuff. If that makes sense, that makes it much sense.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:15:52]:
That’s the way I like to think about it.
Karyn [00:15:56]:
I love what you’re saying because like I mentioned that word, toxic positivity a few minutes ago, it doesn’t focus on, oh, you know, if you’re down, you just need to. Positive, positive, positive. Right. It’s how can we crowd out, which is kind of a term we use in nutrition as well as food, but like, how can we.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:16:17]:
It’s a similar concept. Yeah.
Karyn [00:16:18]:
So that the positive can rise. We’re not going to ignore the negative. We’re going to deal with the negative so that the positive can be the greater emotion that you feel. It kind of makes me think about. So on the surface, it might seem like the work that you do and the work that I do is so different because I work with moms who have IBD, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. And in my coaching practice, I tend to see this kind of thing all the time, which is why I wanted to have you on. So trying to figure out, you know, how we can work through some of those negatives. And I also work with.
Karyn [00:16:57]:
I know something else you have worked with in your career is high achieving women. And that’s something that I also find. It’s weird. I’ve been doing this since 2010, but I find that people with Crohn’s and colitis, they’re also high achieving women perfectionists, trying to be the best mom, the best worker, the best spouse, you know, just trying to do all the things. And so for a long time, I struggled with how to bring the positive in when there’s so much negative without it being the toxic side of that. But they really do struggle with, you know, because they’re so high achieving, because they put so much pressure on themselves. They do struggle with stress. They do struggle with anxiety, depression and all of that.
Karyn [00:17:44]:
And so I guess my question is, like, in terms of the physical realm, I know you work with the mental health realm, but, you know, what kind of advice do you have for bringing in that positivity and bringing in this new way of thinking when their health concerns are all encompassing, this high achieving, perfectionistic, this anxiety, stress is all encompassing. So, yeah, how do you go about that?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:18:10]:
So I will answer that in a moment. But the first image that comes to mind, and we’re talking about the body, it’s like if someone has a broken leg, right, or some other very acute issue, you can’t ignore the broken leg. You can’t just say, well, just walk on it. Just keep walking on it. Right. You have to go through a healing process. But at the same time, if you’re working with what I would call a more enlightened doctor, they’re not going to ignore the other parts of your. Of what can help nourish and strengthen the body.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:18:50]:
Like, so, make sure you’re eating really nutritious foods that are going to help strengthen you from the inside out and help with the healing in your leg. Make sure you’re doing some kind of movement or, or other things. Right. It’s looking. Maybe there’s supplements to take to support the body as a whole while also doing whatever you need to do with the broken leg to get it to heal and then, you know, do physical therapy or whatever you need to do. So it’s, it’s both and not either or. So I think when working with someone who is struggling with depression, perfectionism, anxiety, stress, all, all the stuff. And I didn’t mention, but my expertise, in addition to getting the PhD in clinical psychology, was really understanding the psychological, social and emotional development of gifted people who tend to be the ones who are high achieving women right.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:19:47]:
Particularly. And so there are some specifics there that just make. It’s just important to understand. It’s just a part of the self awareness of someone. I would say that even as a coach, when it’s not ignoring that they’re struggling with depression or anxiety or perfectionism, and there’s a place for. Sometimes I work with people and they might, even if I’m not doing, quote unquote, because I do mostly coaching these days. But if I’m not doing sort of traditional therapy, for example, someone might need, and I will tell them this, there might be some trauma, fully healed, right? This is like the broken leg. So you can do the coaching, you can do, you can.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:20:33]:
We can be working on some other areas that are going to support mental health, support well being, support the flourishing. But there might still be some space and time that needs to be devoted to really getting to that root cause, which may be something from their childhood that hasn’t really been fully resolved, but sometimes, so having said that, that could be true. And then sometimes they don’t necessarily need that. So sometimes I think people get stuck in, I have to be in therapy, and I need to be in therapy for before I can start shifting my gaze over to these other areas. And because I’ve done both therapy and coaching, it’s not like always clear cut. But I would say sometimes people actually do much better. It sort of depends on the person, sort of depends on the situation where coaching is the right fit for them and it’s more forward thinking and it’s more future oriented and it is more action oriented and they may heal that way, honestly, without focusing so much on whatever the issue is, the acute issue. So again, someone has to sort of sort that out for themselves and with whoever they’re working with.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:21:45]:
But I think that there’s like some blurry lines in between the coaching and the therapy sometimes.
Karyn [00:21:53]:
Are you, like many of us, with Crohn’s and colitis, turning to food to help heal your gut, but feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of gut healing diets out there, gluten free, dairy free, paleo SCD gaps. And that’s just naming a few. It can be so confusing, frustrating, and leave you feeling disheartened about which diet is the right fit for you. And trust me, I was there until I created the best tool to help me figure this out. Now, maybe you’ve tried a diet or two only to give up quickly because you couldn’t figure out what to eat, or maybe the plan was just too strict for you to follow here’s something you won’t hear from the so called food gurus. There isn’t one single diet that works for everyone. I don’t care which diet it is. And the best diet for you isn’t just about your symptoms.
Karyn [00:22:47]:
It’s also about your lifestyle and your personality. Why start a diet based solely on your IBD symptoms only to abandon it a week later because it doesn’t fit your life? If you’re ready to discover which gut healing diet is the perfect fit for you based on your unique needs and your current stage in life, then you need my ultimate IBD diet decoder quiz. Head over to karenhaley.com quiz to access this free resource. Remember, there is no one size fits all, best cut healing diet, but there is the one best diet for you. Find out what you’re meant to be eating to help put your IBD in its place. Got three minutes? That is all you need. Go to karenhaley.com quiz. That’s karynhaley.com quiz.
Karyn [00:23:42]:
Answer a few simple questions and get your personalized quiz results immediately. Now let’s get back to the show you brought up.
Karyn [00:23:50]:
I don’t even know where to go with this because you brought up so many things that my head is like, oh, I could go here, I could go there. But something that you just said really caught my attention about the difference between therapy and coaching. So I know that there, you know, most of the time when I work with somebody, here’s how I see it. You know, it’s like your broken leg analogy. They’re coming to me with inflammatory bowel disease, but there are so many offshoots of that that are impacting them both physical and mental. And so often we have that conversation where I don’t. I mean, even though I have a master’s in counseling, I don’t function as a therapist. I’m a coach.
Karyn [00:24:27]:
So we’ll have that conversation where I say, do you think that therapy might be beneficial for you? But it’s interesting that you’re talking about coaching versus therapy. So I just want to make sure I understand you correctly. If you feel like there is a clinical diagnosis, something that’s more acute, you can completely correct me if I’m wrong here. You might recommend therapy more, but if it’s more generalized or it’s a piece of a larger system, you might recommend. Just because I know people are listening and thinking, what path should I go down? You would recommend coaching. Do I understand that right?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:25:05]:
Again, it’s so individualized. So this answer probably isn’t going to be that satisfying. I think when someone is acutely, very clearly acutely struggling with some kind of mental health issue, whether it’s depression, on the level of I cannot get out of bed, I cannot function, I’m having maybe suicidal thoughts, you know, on that level, coaching is not appropriate for that. For that. So I’m very clear in the work that I do today that if someone is struggling on that level, I may not be in the coaching frame, the person to see for that. And it does need that is a level of severity. So part of it is like the severity level, same thing with anxiety. I’ve had some people come to me that wanted to work with me recently and they might have, for example, like a social phobia or what we call agoraphobia, where they can’t leave the house, they can’t leave the house, they can’t get in the car, drive somewhere there.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:26:12]:
And because I’m a clinical psychologist by training, I know there are some really great evidence based treatments that target that exact issue and are very effective. Coaching is for a different thing. Right. So there’s the part of the severity. Now there are some people, though, I’ve had even family members and friends come to me and say, I’m sort of want, I’m struggling with a little bit of this. Maybe it’s some insecurity, maybe it’s a little even, you know, some identity issues that could be dealt with in therapy, but they’re not, they’re not functioning in life. They’re functioning fine in life, right?
Karyn [00:26:55]:
Yeah.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:26:55]:
I say to them, interview some therapists, interview some coaches, because the most important piece is, do you feel comfortable working with this person? Do you click? Because the relationship is really what’s most important. And we ask questions about the way they work and what they’re focused on and see what feels like the right fit for you. Because for that sort of in between place, like, I had a family member recently, I told her that. And she interviewed some therapist and met with them a couple times, interviewed a coach and she ended up loving the coach. And she said to me, I’m so glad I wouldn’t have even thought about working with a coach. I just thought I’d look for a therapist. But the coach, she said, was it was so much more for her and what she was dealing with, so much more effective. She was making progress.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:27:46]:
And so she ended up kind of, you know, wrapping things up with the therapist and just working with the coach. So when you’re kind of in that in between place, and you’re functioning relatively okay. And again, everything’s individualized. So I don’t want anyone to take away from this and say, I don’t need therapy. If you feel like you want to work with a therapist and that’s the route you want to go, and you want to talk, talk about more things in the past and unravel some things, by all means. You don’t have to wait till things are really severe to go see a therapist because they can help you with that. But it’s just a little bit of, I think, for me, in my style, and after doing very intensive trauma work for most of my career, for me, this is part of my own self care at this stage of my life, I decided I wanted to focus on the coaching and the positive psychology piece of it. That was really more for me than anything else.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:28:39]:
And I may go back to doing more traditional clinical work at some point, but at this stage, I’m happy. Yeah, I’m happy doing the coaching.
Karyn [00:28:46]:
You said a couple things there that really resonated with me, something that I always tell people, especially when I work with people, and I know that mental health is getting in the way of them living their best life, I’ll say, you know, have you tried therapy? And they’ll say, yes, and I hated it. It was terrible. The therapist was awful. And you said, interview. Whether it’s a coach, whether it’s a therapist, you. You have the power to interview them. I think that’s something that so many people, they just don’t. I don’t know.
Karyn [00:29:16]:
They don’t.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:29:16]:
They don’t know.
Karyn [00:29:17]:
They don’t know that they can.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:29:18]:
They don’t know.
Karyn [00:29:19]:
You can actually. You know what? You can actually interview your doctor, too.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:29:22]:
Absolutely, I do.
Karyn [00:29:24]:
When I’m a doctor.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:29:25]:
That’s right.
Karyn [00:29:26]:
You can interview your therapist. In fact, yes. You have that, you know, advocate for yourself. Be the one who’s in charge. They’re not in charge. You are in charge. They are a consultant, and they are very wise, but you’re in charge. So you didn’t like that therapy experience.
Karyn [00:29:42]:
That doesn’t mean that you don’t like therapy. That just means you didn’t like that person. So go interview a couple more people. I love that you are just saying, I am a therapist, and I give permission for people to do that.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:29:55]:
I say it to every single person that comes to me saying they think they want to see a therapist or coach. I say this, I say, go and talk to if you can. Now I recognize we’re in a sort of mental health crisis. And the waiting list can be very long, depending on your insurance or where you are. So I understand sometimes that’s a privilege that we don’t have. But if you can, I say at least two people, because it’s like going into a coffee shop and sitting next to someone and chatting with a random stranger and saying, oh, I didn’t like that person, so I’m not going to make friends with anyone. I mean, that doesn’t make any sense because, you know, there are a lot of different kinds of people in the world, and not every therapist. Every therapist uses their own personality.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:30:44]:
What makes them uniquely them, in the healing process, in the therapeutic process, whether that therapist is half asian like me. I mean, I’ve worked with a lot of clients who are asian or multiracial, and there’s something about working with me because they understand that even if it’s not even true, that they assume because I have a similar background, I might have a little more understanding, empathy. And sometimes that is, you may have a lived experience.
Karyn [00:31:16]:
Exactly.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:31:16]:
Some people, if you’re a man, maybe you want a male therapist, or maybe for some reason you want a female. Right? So it’s just. Just don’t try it once and then say, oh, I hated it. I mean, you can say that, but just try again as much.
Karyn [00:31:32]:
Try again. That’s what I always say.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:31:34]:
Try again.
Karyn [00:31:35]:
Because every therapist is so different. And I know for me, in my coaching practice, people will come to me because they know, unlike their doctor or somebody else, a nurse, and unlike another nutritionist that they’ve seen, I actually have walked that path. I have Crohn’s disease. So connecting with somebody who’s been there, done that, it’s so powerful in whatever it is, whether it’s therapy, a medical practitioner, a coach, whatever it is. And then I just wanted to mention one other thing. You said. You said you were talking about agoraphobia and how if you really cannot leave your house, there’s wonderful, clinically proven techniques that probably a therapist would be really helpful for. In my practice, a lot of times I see people who won’t leave their house because they don’t know where the nearest bathroom is.
Karyn [00:32:22]:
It’s not a true agoraphobia, right. But they don’t. They’re afraid to leave their house because they don’t know what’s going to happen. Now, that might be something because it’s more of a mindset shift. That might be something to see a coach for rather than a therapist, because it’s not a clinical diagnosis.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:32:38]:
Exactly. Exactly.
Karyn [00:32:39]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I want to shift gears just a little bit here and hone in on moms, especially moms who are neglecting their physical and mental health, because I see this all the time, and I know I see you say, you know what I’m talking about. I know it seems like moms, especially women, yes. But moms especially, we have to be hospital bound. Right? It’s like we self sabotage until things are that bad. And so my question for you is, why? Why do we do this?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:33:14]:
Why do we do that?
Karyn [00:33:15]:
Why?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:33:16]:
And I’m smiling and nodding my head because I literally lived that life. I mean, it took a health crisis for me, which has been multiple years now, of me on my healing journey, not just for the physical, but for the underlying reasons that led me to that place, which was being a mom and not just being a mom and a high achieving mom and a perfectionistic mom. But I was also a single mom for most of my momming. And so it all did fall on me. It literally all did fall on me. But most moms, even if you have a partner, let’s just be real. And it’s. I mean, the stats show it, even though our, the men, and obviously there are moms who have partners who are women as well, so I’m not gendering it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:34:09]:
It’s just women tend to bear the burden, the mental burden. Even if you’re working full time, you’re still feeling like I’m the person that’s got to take care of the household. I’m the person who’s got to make sure the kids have their lunches and they’re to bed and they’re doing their homework and all the things. And again, even if you have a really supportive partner who is helping in some way with that, I think we are socially, we are socially brought up, and I think we’re also wired. Both.
Karyn [00:34:45]:
Good point.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:34:45]:
To tend. We are wired. I mean, for the species to continue, moms needed to be particularly thoughtful and caring for offspring. Right. Or we would all probably die out because the men were out being warriors or fighting, you know, getting the food or whatever. Right, exactly. So from an evolutionary perspective, but I think from a cultural perspective, I think we all know and can think of, I was the oldest daughter of four, and there were just certain expectations clearly made of me and my family that was not true of my brothers. And it just, it’s just, it’s just the fact of the matter.
Karyn [00:35:34]:
Are you saying you’re the oldest and the only girl?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:35:37]:
I have a. I have a sister who’s the baby of the family.
Karyn [00:35:40]:
Gotcha. So there’s two boys in the middle.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:35:42]:
Two boys in the middle.
Karyn [00:35:43]:
Different expectations.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:35:44]:
Different expectations. Different expectations. And I would say that it’s interesting because my sister and I are very close, even though we’re almost a decade apart and I grew up. You know, I would be curious with your audience and the perfectionistic moms, how many of them can identify with being the oldest, even if you’re not the oldest child, the oldest female child.
Karyn [00:36:09]:
Ooh. Right.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:36:11]:
Because as an oldest female child, we and you, I see it in families around me all the time. And parents don’t mean to. There’s no bad intent in this, but I see it all the time, that the daughters are, like, being mommy’s helpers in all these different ways. And they want to be and they’re like, because they’re wired and they’re reinforced for that behavior where the boys maybe not so much, and maybe there’s always exceptions to the rule, but maybe not so much. So my sister, she did not grow up with this same feeling of responsibility, of perfectionism. Like, she and I have a lot in common, but those things are not, we do not share.
Karyn [00:36:57]:
Yeah. I grew up in the same household.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:00]:
We grew up in the same household.
Karyn [00:37:01]:
Different experience. And the pressure that you felt, she did not feel.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:05]:
That’s right.
Karyn [00:37:06]:
Yeah. Interesting.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:07]:
So part of it is that I think it also happens. It definitely happens in schools. We’re just. The culture shapes us to be. I can. I’ll speak for myself. I was reinforced for being responsible, obedient, compliant, a happy little girl that wanted to help the teacher. Like, I ate it up.
Karyn [00:37:31]:
Right?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:32]:
Give me that. This feels really, really good.
Karyn [00:37:35]:
That’s interesting. That’s interesting because we actually get praise for it and then we want to do it more.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:42]:
It feels really good.
Karyn [00:37:44]:
Right?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:37:44]:
We get praised. We get praised. And this is what I mean, there’s no one thought back then. Now, since then, we have some other research, right? Like Carol Dweck’s work and mindset. Like parents today, at least the parents who are aware of this more recent research are more thoughtful, I think, about how and when, but really how they praise their child.
Karyn [00:38:07]:
Right?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:38:08]:
But back when I was young, someone said, you did a great job. Like, oh, you’re so pretty or you’re so smart, or you’re so this or that, and it just feels good. Right? I mean, of course it does.
Karyn [00:38:19]:
Of course you’re going to lean into it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:38:20]:
Of course you want to keep doing more of what feels good. So what I have said for myself and what I say now to all the women who carry this similar burden is I was just at a women’s leadership conference a few weeks ago, and it was a whole room full of women like this. We were talking about confidence, particularly, especially as compared to men. But I said, you know, instead of beating ourselves up for struggling with perfectionism or struggling with fill in the blank, all of these things, we beat ourselves up. It’s just another level of punishment rather than let’s have some self compassion. We didn’t choose the path, the environments in which we were raised and were shaped. We were shaped to be this way. And I’m not saying that to take the responsibility off of us to learn and do something new, but it was not helpful for me to notice my perfectionistic ways, to notice how I was striving and striving and striving and exhausting myself and putting everyone ahead of me and then wondering why I was burning out.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:39:31]:
It didn’t help to heap on top of all of that judgment. It didn’t help. So it’s just saying, okay, I notice it. I struggle with these thoughts. I struggle with everything having to be a particular way, or I struggle with whether it’s the house being a certain way. Like I need to have a perfectly clean house. That for some people, I mean, I can relate with that for other people. It’s how I look and how my body looks, or my career and how I’m showing up every day at work, or all of the above, or how.
Karyn [00:40:02]:
Do I look to the outside world?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:40:04]:
Right? How do I look to the outside world? How do my children look to the outside world? Everything extension of that.
Karyn [00:40:10]:
They’re an extension of me.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:40:11]:
They’re an extension. So if they’re not looking a certain way, then what does that say about me?
Karyn [00:40:16]:
Exactly.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:40:16]:
So the first step is we can notice that, and then right after that is a big, big heaping dose of self compassion. Because that is the only way we can then make movement towards sustainable change. Because if we try to change, whether it’s through coaching or therapy, if we start to try to change that from a place of, I’m so horrible for being this way. I mean, what’s wrong with me? Not everyone’s like this. What’s wrong with me? How come I’m like this? If we just try to change from that place, we’re already starting off in this. It’s just this negative. It’s a negativity, right? You might be able to make some progress from that place, but it’s not going to be sustainable, and it’s not going to come from a place of acceptance and love for yourself. And when I.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:41:07]:
It is helpful for me. I used to do this even as a therapist, working with some challenging clients. Quite honestly, I would imagine them as little children, and I would imagine them in the environments, even if I didn’t fully know what that was. I would just imagine what kind of environment shaped them to have the kinds of challenges. So I do that for myself. What. I look at the environment, I know what the environment was, and I look at that and I say, okay, it shaped me to be this way. And, you know, I could feel a little emotional talking about it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:41:42]:
It’s okay. Like. And it served me well that. All that, like, getting the straight A’s. And I wouldn’t have gotten a PhD at the University of Virginia if I hadn’t gotten straight A’s, right. So I have compassion for that part of me that felt the need to do all of that. And now, at this stage of my life, thank goodness, I can have the maturity and wisdom to say, take a deep breath. You don’t have to keep doing that like that.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:42:09]:
It’s okay. Yes, it’s okay. But that’s a process, and it doesn’t, you know, you think also the years it took to get to this place. So whether your listener right now is 25 or 33 or 48 or whatever the age is, it took decades to get your mind into this, these ruts, right? These ways, these patterns of thinking. And it’s not going to be, you know, a two month process to. Right.
Karyn [00:42:40]:
It took a long time to get here, and it’s going to take a long time to heal. And insight is that first step. But then comes the healing. And like you said, yeah, patience. And what I see happening with this in my practice is the whole mental side of it impacting the physical.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:42:59]:
Yes.
Karyn [00:43:00]:
If you don’t deal with it at some point. Earlier on, you talked about trauma. And so sometimes there’s childhood trauma that isn’t dealt with the pressures that get put on women. Self inflicted sometimes. Sometimes societal. I was just reading this article. It was talking about this concept of. Of self silencing women.
Karyn [00:43:22]:
And that’s just what you were talking about. Women who are suppressing their thoughts, their emotions, suppressing anger, not able to say no, the gene that you can only be selfless, you cannot be selfish. Right. All of this. And it was talking about the link between the mental health and the physical side of this. In fact, I want to actually, I want to give you a quote from it, because I found this so interesting. So it’s talking about how the mental side of this leads to physical challenges. And it said that women are at a higher risk of insomnia, IB’s, migraines, long Covid, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and women account for over 80% of all autoimmune disorders.
Karyn [00:44:03]:
And then on the mental health side of this, with this self silencing as well, it talks about how women experience depression, anxiety, PTSD at twice the rate of men.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:44:16]:
Yes.
Karyn [00:44:17]:
Crazy, right? So, I mean, that’s a lot. And so when the physic, when the mental comes into the physical realm, and a lot of times, you know, it’s hard to know with IBD, is it the chicken or the egg? I don’t.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:44:31]:
I think with a lot of these issues, I think, yes, it’s a lot of physical.
Karyn [00:44:34]:
It’s not just this one, but anything physical. You don’t know. And you know what? It really doesn’t matter, but it. At some point we have to figure out the mental to help the physical. So how do we begin to then break this cycle apart from just patience and insight? What are some more practical logistical steps that we can take so that we can then have a kind of a physical release from symptoms that are happening?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:45:03]:
Right. Right. Well, I think, and this is going to be a very sort of. I’m going to make a big generalization or like a simplification, I should say, of how I see it when we grow up, whether it’s adverse childhood experiences or more serious trauma. I mean, adverse child experiences are traumatic, but, you know, there is stress in the home. All the things that we just talked about, even if you had a near perfect childhood home, if your parents were praising you and you got stuck in that loop and then you were a good girl in school and all of that stuff, there is pressure and stress, even if you. No one meant to put that on you, right? But we carried that through. So there is definitely a link, and we have more and more research, that mind body connection of the sustained stressors in childhood catching up with us over time and those autoimmune issues, chronic illness of all sorts.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:46:03]:
And so if we think about that as just again, generally speaking, stress, stress in the body. One of the things, and again, I practice, but I preach, is what can we do in the body to create an atmosphere of peace for our minds. But it’s. But it starts in the body because our mind, it’s all in, I say your mind is, it lives there in your body.
Karyn [00:46:34]:
Right. So it’s not separate.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:46:36]:
It’s not separate. And actually, if anyone’s watching the video of this, I’m putting my hands on my head. But truly, if you could see me, my hand on my gut, on my belly is where most of the neurochemicals and neurotransmitters that affect our mental health are created, 90, 90% of them. Right, so. Right. So especially with issues of digestion. Right, exactly. With gut health, it mindfulness, whether you want to call it mindfulness, I sometimes call it practicing presence.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:47:15]:
It is important. And I had to start this. I started my own mindfulness practice. Honestly, it was probably in 2000, because I started learning dialectical behavior therapy and before that, which is very common now, but at the time was still a relatively new therapy. And in order to do DBT, we had to, as a team, practice it ourselves. So I was introduced to the concept of mindfulness and using meditation as one avenue of practicing mindfulness. But I started practicing mindfulness, and I was in my late twenties, and I’ve been teaching it ever since. And I practice it because the only way we can calm our nerve, I shouldn’t say the only way.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:48:04]:
One of the ways to calm our nervous system is to be practicing that. But it’s. But exercise. I love doing long walks. I just did this morning. I did like a really beautiful, it was my bar class, but it was a little bit more, it was like a slower pace, you know, an alignment class. It was a more restorative and it was just, it’s just such a beautiful feeling when you can be in your body and it feels peaceful, like it’s your home. And so I think for anyone struggling with IBD or Crohn’s or.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:48:37]:
Again, I’ve had my own health issues with chronic pain. For other issues, it can be hard when your body is like, giving you all these messages of, like, pay attention to me, pay attention to me. And so you do have to pay attention, but you have to sort of give it the piece it needs. So I think that’s one very practical piece is using different techniques to bring peace and calm to the body. That’s one thing. And then the other way we can do it from the mental realm. Sometimes you can do this in coaching, sometimes you can do it in therapy. And sometimes, quite honestly, if people are motivated enough, you can read a good book, you can listen to some podcasts, and you can practice it on your own.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:49:19]:
But it’s just being, it’s like disciplining your own mind, right? Like, I was going to say, being the parent, being the parent of your, of your mind.
Karyn [00:49:29]:
Interesting.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:49:29]:
Telling it when it’s misbehaving and telling it. It’s time to get back in line. Right. So oftentimes we like, just let our minds go wild.
Karyn [00:49:41]:
Oh, my gosh. Mind will do that. You just run wild with thoughts.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:49:45]:
Totally.
Karyn [00:49:46]:
And read it in is so hard. I never thought about being a parent in my own mind.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:49:50]:
If you had a child and you were in a public place or at a friend’s house and they were running around wild, most responsible parents would not allow that to continue happening. You would do something to rein that child in. Why? Because you hate your child? No, because you love your child and you know that by doing that, you’re protecting them. You’re helping with the atmosphere, you’re teaching your child regulation. So coping skills. It’s a responsible thing to parent your childhood. It’s a responsible thing for us to learn how to parent our minds. I put it that way especially for the moms listening because I think you can get it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:50:28]:
It’s like, no, no, no. And for so long in my life, I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize I hadn’t been parenting, disciplining my mind. And so it ran rampant and it drove me to places emotionally and mentally that were not good for me. Until I finally woke up one day and I was like, wait, why am I to, why am I letting my mind control the show? Like, this is ridiculous, I would never allow it somewhere else. So again, that takes practice. But there are ways. You just have to set the intention one, I’m not going to let my mind just do whatever it wants.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:51:05]:
I’m going to rein it in. So when I start having those thoughts that are not helpful and that starts spiraling me down, I’m going to catch it. I’m going to catch it and say, uh uh, no, we’re not doing that. And there and then sometimes it’s distraction. Like, think about literally when you’re parenting, if you have a toddler, you’re not going to explain certain things to a toddler in the same way you might be able to for an eight year old, but you might use distraction. You might do a silly thing, right? It’s the same thing.
Karyn [00:51:37]:
I mean, we were arranging in our toddler brain.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:51:39]:
Yes, if you have a toddler brain. I mean, sometimes with me, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I think my brain is like, in Toddler mode right now and I will just do something in that moment that will be distracting. I might turn on music that’s really upbeat, happy, maybe silly. Do something fun, you know, watch something funny. Get together with a friend. Makes me laugh. Like you might say, well, that, you know, that’s kind of weird. Like, you’re just distracting yourself.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:52:04]:
It’s not. I’m not. What I’m not saying is, like, distract for your whole life. What I’m saying is you’re finding ways to rein your mind back in so that you, when it needs it, so you feel I have authority over my mind.
Karyn [00:52:23]:
Yes.
Karyn [00:52:23]:
I love that word you used, authority. Because the whole time you’re thinking, I’ve never thought of this before, ever, and I really need this. So I’m gonna do this technique on myself. But what I was thinking is, yes, you’re giving yourself authority.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:52:35]:
Yes.
Karyn [00:52:36]:
Back to what we were talking about at the top of the podcast is about agency advocacy. Now you’re advocating for yourself in your own mind.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:52:44]:
In your own mind. You can do it anytime.
Karyn [00:52:46]:
That’s brilliant.
Karyn [00:52:50]:
Thanks so much for tuning into the cheeky podcast for moms with IBD today. The great information we’re dishing out on this pod is exactly the same type of conversations I get to have with my clients every day. If you’re ready to take your IBD healing journey to the next level and move into being the mom you always dreamed you’d be, hop on over to karenhaley.com consult and book your free IBD consultation with me. Remember, my mom had to be a little bit different and spell my name with a y. So it’s karynhaley.com consult. On our call, we’ll dive into what you’re struggling with most right now and make a plan for how we can work together to help you achieve your biggest, bold, beautiful, life transforming goals. No more sitting on the sidelines waiting for that miracle cure to magically happen. You’ve got what it takes to do this right now, mama.
Karyn [00:53:46]:
You just need a little nudge in that right direction, and I’ve got your back. Karenhaley.com consult and now back to the show.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:53:55]:
Yes, you can do it anytime.
Karyn [00:53:56]:
Doctor Andrea, you mentioned that you have been going through chronic illness, a surgery, pain, things like that. So you’re not just a clinician and a coach. You’re somebody who has walked this path. You have lived it yourself. Can you share with us some, you know, some news about your journey and what that was like and how you’ve been able to overcome?
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:54:17]:
Yeah, yeah. Just briefly, I’ll say. And also for your listeners just context. I came from a family, particularly with women who struggled severely with mental health issues. So when I was a teenager, I sort of just assumed as a teenager I struggled with severe depression, anxiety, I was suicidal. So that was sort of like the darkest time of my life. It gave birth to me. That was another reason why I went into this field, because I saw other people in my family struggle.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:54:51]:
I started struggling and I thought, I have to figure this out. Like, it shouldn’t have to be like my destiny, right? Like, I don’t want this to be my destiny, but I had been sort of, I believe this idea that if it was in your family, it was like, genetic and therefore you were kind of doomed to a life of whatever, right? And so I went on this journey for myself. And I’m really happy to say that in terms of the mental health issues, I reached that really low part at that stage of my life. And it’s been like, not like a perfectly straight line, but, you know, generally up increasing mental health journey for me ever since. Mainly because I made the decision I’m not going to allow myself, I can’t allow myself to get back to that place that I was. And so even in hard seasons of my life, I parented my mind, if I’ll put it that way, in terms of the physical piece, I was diagnosed more than ten years ago now with fibroids and endometriosis and all of these other things that over the years just, you know, there was chronic pain, inflammation, endometriosis. Now they understand it as an autoimmune disease. So there you go.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:56:05]:
It’s another, it’s just another expression of all of that stress and everything that I was going through growing up, if you want to think of it in that context again, there’s probably many variables, right? But in this health journey and what I always like to, the way I think of it now, when I first really had to deal and I had to leave my job, or I chose to leave my job rather, because it was a high stress job. It wasn’t, it just wasn’t. It wasn’t what I needed, right? Doing that trauma work. I was working in a residential setting my entire career, which high need clients. And I love the work. I loved working with the families that I did. It was so rewarding. I felt like it was my calling and my purpose and so it was hard for me to leave it, honestly.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:56:58]:
But my health was breaking down. So it really got to a point where it felt like I had no choice. But what it was was I finally chose myself. I chose myself, which was a foreign concept. And so really, since then, I left my job in 2019. It was right before the pandemic, and I have been on a journey to really practice saying no, which was a new thing for me. Practice just practicing all the nos and coming to a place where I can be okay with myself even when I’m nothing, doing whatever it is in my mind that I think I’m supposed to be doing for everyone else, whatever that is, because we all, it’s different things for different people. But I had to just, I had to get rid of all of those narratives and ideas that just ultimately were not serving me.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:57:55]:
And I had to double down on my health. I had to double down my physical health, my routines, my habits, my mental habits, all of it. It was just, this is time to be, quote unquote, selfish. But of course, the ripple effect through my family and my community has been nothing but positive. So I’m sure you say this all the time to your audience, right? It’s not actually selfish. It’s not selfish to take care of yourselves. We think it is, but it’s really the most beautiful, wonderful thing we can do.
Karyn [00:58:26]:
It’s a selfless act that you could actually do, really.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:58:29]:
I have a daughter, and I. I want her to learn both from my life that led up to the medical diagnosis and learn from what my life has looked post, because as a young woman growing up and trying to figure out her own way and her priorities and how does she balance everything? I want her to see, like, there’s, you know, what it all looks like. She grew up with the mom who was pretty stressed out all the time. I was in graduate school. I was building my career. I was a single mom. And so I can have. And I do, you know, I can have some grief about that, but also self compassion because I was doing the very best I knew to do.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:59:15]:
That’s right. Yeah. And so we do the best we.
Karyn [00:59:19]:
Can at every stage. We do the best we can at the time. And at some point in your life, it sounds like 2019 was that point for you. You started to say, you know what? That served me then, but doesn’t serve me anymore. You know, rather than beating yourself up, like, what, who was I? I was a terrible person and what did I do? And I ruined my daughter and I ruined my life.
Dr. Andrea Lein [00:59:44]:
Right.
Karyn [00:59:44]:
No. And it was just a waste of time. No, no. That served me then, and maybe even some positives came out of the darkness, and I’m going to use that information now to better my life and try and make it more in the life that I want to live. And how selfless is that?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:00:03]:
Yeah. Right. And there’s different seasons of life, too, right? I mean, a season of having young children for any mom out there, right? Season of having young children versus seasons of elementary school children versus teenager versus. Now, my daughter’s been out of the house for almost a decade. It all changes. And so there’s also just a reminder, I think, for all of us, especially if we’re, I was going to say especially if we are also professional women. But even if you, even if your full time work is in the home, it’s still true that your season of life is going to shift and change as a mother. And so if you feel the pressure, like, oh, I want to do this and this and this and this, and I’m not doing it all, it’s like, well, well, maybe it’s not for now, it’s okay.
Karyn [01:00:50]:
Yeah.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:00:50]:
Because the season will change. And if you wanted to write that book, or you wanted to start that business, or you wanted to do whatever, give yourself a break, like, there’s only so many hours in the day. So focus on your kids now. Focus on what’s right in front of you and, and let yourself know. Like, you can give yourself grace to do what you can now and, and not give up on the dream and hopes of other things that you want to do in your life for other seasons. And that’s exactly, I mean, I know again, at this stage of my life, in midlife, it’s like I have, there’s perspective and wisdom in that. But of course, in my twenties, I thought I have to do everything right now because it’s like the only time.
Karyn [01:01:30]:
To live that could be a whole other podcast. But that is so true that we put all that pressure on ourselves. There’s something that comes with age, this wisdom, this letting go. That’s such a beautiful thing that I think sometimes we can only come to with, you know, like a fine wine as we age.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:01:48]:
It’s true. It’s.
Karyn [01:01:50]:
Yeah, it’s true.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:01:51]:
Wow. And I. Andrea. Yes.
Karyn [01:01:53]:
Go ahead, please, go ahead.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:01:54]:
I was just gonna say when going back sort of full circle to this idea in positive psychology of flourishing, human flourishing. Yeah, the flourishing, you know, even if we think about a plant, right, it’s. It’s the subtraction that often helps with a plant to flourish. It’s the pruning back. And so for me and even any of my clients I’m working with, it’s not just like oh, what do we need to add to your life to make it better? It’s, what do we need to let. It’s oftentimes, what do we need to let go of? What do we shed? What do we allow to be pruned from our lives, from our, our thinking patterns, from our habits? What do we let go so that we don’t have that weight and the burden and then we just naturally flourish. This is where the health just springs forth. It just.
Karyn [01:02:44]:
I love that because you don’t have to work at it, I think we’re told so often, add this in. Add that in. Right. Eat this food, do more exercise, have this type of practice in your life. I mean, we’re bombarded with it, but sometimes we actually need to take a look and take a step back and maybe remove. Right. Because that actually, you know, we can get feel mentally lighter.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:03:08]:
It feels good. It feels good.
Karyn [01:03:10]:
Exactly. Such wisdom. I absolutely love it. I loved our conversation sometimes when, well, pretty much most of the time when we’re in a podcast and we’re talking about Crohn’s colitis, mental health, physical health, it can get really kind of dark and deep. So I kind of like to end on a light note if it’s okay with you. Yeah, I like to end on a little lightning round. That’s just kind of fun. Is that okay with you if we do that?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:03:33]:
Sure.
Karyn [01:03:34]:
Sure.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:03:34]:
I’ll do my best.
Karyn [01:03:36]:
Okay, here we go. I almost lost it. Okay, here we go. So these are really simple questions and you can just answer them quickly. So what’s your favorite go to? Healthy snack?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:03:46]:
Ooh, my favorite. Well, I love smoothies, but that, I don’t know if that’s a quick snack.
Karyn [01:03:54]:
I also pretty quick. I love it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:03:56]:
Yeah, I’m a smoothie girl.
Karyn [01:03:58]:
Yeah, I love it for my audience because it’s really easy to digest and absorb. So smoothies are always a go to snack for me.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:05]:
Yeah. Perfect for taking it on the go struggles.
Karyn [01:04:08]:
Perfect for somebody that’s trying to get nutrition in their life. Yes. Okay.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:11]:
Yes.
Karyn [01:04:11]:
Name one supplement you can’t live without.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:13]:
Magnesium or vitamin D. That’s a hard one. Both are important.
Karyn [01:04:19]:
You can go with both. I like it. All right, what is your favorite form of exercise?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:25]:
You mentioned bar. I love bar. I do love bar. I do love bar. And I love walking, honestly. And part of my illness, you know, I couldn’t do high intensity, so I’m good with those things.
Karyn [01:04:37]:
Yeah, yeah, both of those. And I like that it’s, you know, some days you might feel up to a strenuous bar class. And sometimes it’s like, you know what? I’m just gonna take a walk. And that’s all good. It’s all a movement of plan.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:47]:
It’s all good.
Karyn [01:04:47]:
Yeah.
Karyn [01:04:48]:
Okay. So what’s the one thing that we all get wrong about mental health?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:04:52]:
I think that the idea that if you have a diagnosis, you are destined to have that diagnosis until you die, that’s good.
Karyn [01:05:06]:
Yes. Because so often people are, like, labeling themselves by their diagnosis instead of. It’s something I’m dealing with. This is me. And that the fact that they could actually get over it.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:05:17]:
And if you don’t believe you can, you won’t pursue any way to try to.
Karyn [01:05:22]:
That’s right. In every aspect of life.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:05:23]:
Right.
Karyn [01:05:24]:
If you don’t believe it, you can’t achieve it. Right.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:05:27]:
Absolutely.
Karyn [01:05:27]:
Okay. Really a juicy question here. What are you binge watching right now?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:05:33]:
Oh, I am not a binge watcher.
Karyn [01:05:36]:
Okay.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:05:37]:
I’m not a binge watcher. Well, I actually just went to an arts conference this weekend, and I got four different books, all of which are good. There’s one that I just started called let there be art. And it’s basically about, you know, the. How creativity helps us heal, grow, process things. I just. I love the intersection of the arts and creativity with our well being. So that’s sort of.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:05]:
I’m binging books on that topic right now.
Karyn [01:06:07]:
Yeah. Do you have, like, an art medium that you practice right now? I’m not really good art, but I love it. I just started getting into pouring. Have you seen. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:17]:
No.
Karyn [01:06:17]:
It’s basically you just take a bunch of paint and you put it in a cup and you pour it on a canvas, and then you, like, rotate the canvas all around, and it makes this really cool design. Have you ever seen that?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:28]:
No, but I love that. I love it.
Karyn [01:06:30]:
Look it up. YouTube. Tons of YouTube videos on it. And it’s so good for your mental health because it’s just satisfying.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:36]:
Yes.
Karyn [01:06:38]:
Portrait.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:39]:
That’s right. I.
Karyn [01:06:40]:
Can it just be free and it’s abstract.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:42]:
That’s right.
Karyn [01:06:43]:
I like that. Whether it comes out or not.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:45]:
Yes.
Karyn [01:06:45]:
Okay. Favorite travel destination?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:06:47]:
I will say right now, my favorite travel destination is Hawaii, because not only is it beautiful, my daughter lives there. So I’m looking forward to my. My annual trip in May to go out there.
Karyn [01:07:00]:
Love it. I love Hawaii. My husband. I took our honeymoon in Hawaii.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:07:04]:
Yes.
Karyn [01:07:05]:
Coffee or tea? And how do you take it?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:07:07]:
Typically in the morning? Coffee. And I will put a little bit of, usually some kind of non dairy milk in there. But in the afternoon, I like a good, like, matcha green tea latte or something that I usually make at home. Yeah.
Karyn [01:07:21]:
Okay. What’s your favorite way to unwind after a long day?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:07:24]:
I love reading and singing. I’m listening to music. Singing. Music is usually my. My creative outlet.
Karyn [01:07:32]:
Yeah.
Karyn [01:07:33]:
Okay. I love that. One last question. So this podcast is called the Cheeky podcast for Moms with IBD.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:07:38]:
Such a great name.
Karyn [01:07:40]:
Have to be a little tongue in cheek with IBD. So to me, cheeky means being a little bit sassy, a little bit quirky, and a whole lot of badass. So how are you cheeky in your life?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:07:51]:
Oh, cheeky. Oh, that is such a good question. I feel like I would love to have my husband answer this question because he probably does think I’m cheeky. I think sometimes not so much. Not really intentional. I think sometimes I can be like, I want to be provocative, but I’m a very respectful person. But I still try to find ways to push back sort of on the status quo, like mainstream, the mental health issues, things like that, where I’m like, we can think about things a little different.
Karyn [01:08:26]:
I relate to that with you because I’m always questioning, always. Does that really make sense?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:08:31]:
Yeah.
Karyn [01:08:32]:
You know, is that really true with your daughter? Have you taught her that too? Because I’ve definitely taught my kids that as well.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:08:37]:
Oh. Oh, yeah. She’s. She’s real cheeky.
Karyn [01:08:40]:
She’s real cheeky.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:08:41]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Karyn [01:08:42]:
I love it. Doctor Andrea, thank you so much. This has been, this hour has flown by, and I really appreciate all your time and your insights and wisdom. Thank you.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:08:52]:
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Karyn [01:08:54]:
Tell us, if people want to find out more about you, where’s the best place for them to go?
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:08:59]:
Yeah, they can visit my website. It’s just my name, Andrealine Lein. And they can also find me usually on Instagram. Doctor awesome.
Karyn [01:09:09]:
Thanks so much.
Dr. Andrea Lein [01:09:10]:
Thank you.
Karyn [01:09:19]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD.
Karyn [01:09:24]:
Mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things.
Karyn [01:09:27]:
First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode.
Karyn [01:09:30]:
And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now. It’s at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap and then also give the cheeky podcast five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD. The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. I love being in community with you and I appreciate you, my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing.
Karyn [01:10:19]:
It is capital h huge.
Karyn [01:10:21]:
And the reason I know how huge.
Karyn [01:10:22]:
This is for you is because I am right there with you in all.
Karyn [01:10:26]:
Of this, working my wheel of wellness.
Karyn [01:10:28]:
Keeping my crohn’s at bay.
Karyn [01:10:30]:
It’s something that I invest in every day and I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together. If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the gut love community@karenheathy.com. community the GLC is my free and fabulous space, dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTS secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up.
Karyn [01:11:03]:
In a weekly newsletter to help you.
Karyn [01:11:05]:
Keep your momentum going strong.
Karyn [01:11:08]:
This IBd dish is gut healing insights.
Karyn [01:11:11]:
That I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that, my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together.
Karyn [01:11:26]:
Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com slash community that’s karynhaley.com community.
Karyn [01:11:37]:
I can’t wait to meet you.
Probiotics for IBD: Hype or Hope?
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
In this week’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we’re diving into the hotly debated topic of probiotics. With so much conflicting information in the media, it’s hard to know whether probiotics are a game-changer or just another overhyped supplement. As moms with IBD, we need tailored advice, not general population guidelines.
As I always say, IBD plays by different rules.
And it’s time for us to uncover the IBD rules of probiotics. This episode will help you discover the five compelling reasons why probiotics might be worth considering, despite the skepticism. I’m also breaking down the latest research, providing what to buy and how to buy it guidelines, and leaving you with mega actionable tips to help you make your best decision regarding probiotics for your individual health and healing needs.
Tune in As We Talk About:
✅ [07:34] The five things I know for sure when it comes to the use of probiotics in IBD.
✅ [11:33] The simple step-by-step probiotic breakdown: how to choose the right probiotic for your individual needs.
✅ [20:16] Everything you need to know to “do probiotics like a mom” whether you are just getting started or restarting a probiotic plan that’s gone awry
✅ [23:32] The best way to get your hands on my free and fabulous double probiotic resource guide Q and A and Probiotic Strain Guide
Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Mentioned in the Episode:
>> Your FREE and FABULOUS Probiotic Resources
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Connect With Karyn:
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:00]:
Well, hey there, dear one. How are you today? Depending on where you live in the world, your kids might be getting ready to head back to school. The summer, it always moves way too fast, doesn’t it? But here in Maryland, we have, at least my kid does, has a start for school after Labor Day, the day after Labor Day. So there’s a bit of a summer’s bounty left for us to enjoy. But I do feel it’s like it’s creeping up. I do feel it getting closer and closer. I do feel like we’re on the outskirts of getting the kids back to school. And so when that happens, that’s my signal, that’s my cue, that it’s time to turn the attention back to me.
Karyn [00:00:45]:
So I am now going to turn that on you. It’s time to turn the attention back to you. And when I say you, I mean capital YOU and I know, I know that focusing on your health and well being, it’s a really tall order when the kids around summer break, I totally get that because I’m there, too. But before you know it, they will be back in school. And when that happens, I want you armed with an arsenal, an arsenal of IBD busting information. And so that’s why today we’re talking about a game changing topic. We’re talking about probiotics. And so the big question here, the big question that I know is on so many people’s minds is, does it even matter? Do probiotics even matter? Do they do anything? Because there’s so much information out there that they don’t.
Karyn [00:01:47]:
And if you believe the stories in the pop health media, that’s what I like to call it. You know, pop culture, pop health. You might be tempted to skip a probiotic, you might skip this supplement. But I’ve got five compelling cutting edge of the zeitgeist reasons to put those blinders on, put earmuffs on to the anti-probiotic hype. The anti-probiotic hype, that’s all around you, because as I have said so many times in this season of the Cheeky podcast, IBD plays by different rules. So let’s get to the bottom of this probiotic debate, shall we? And let’s make sure that you have all the information you need to make the best decision for you, because that’s really what I want. I want you to make the best decision for you when it comes to how to incorporate probiotics into your life. Okay, let’s go ahead and dive in.
Karyn [00:02:59]:
Hey there, mama. Welcome to season two of the Cheeky podcast for moms with IBD. I’m Karen Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment. And all of us advocating the hell out of our illness. We’re in this together. And I’m here to help you find healing on your terms.
Karyn [00:03:33]:
Let’s do this. So you might have heard that there is no benefit to probiotics, that they are a waste of money. But don’t ever forget that the general population advice, and I’m saying that in air quotes, the general population advice, it doesn’t always apply to us. So grab your tea, your favorite cup of tea. If you’re enjoying some solitude time, it’s a great time to sip some tea. If you’re doing chores, whatever you’re doing, I’m with you. Either way, I’m with you. But settle in and let’s just talk about why probiotics can be a game changer for those of us trying to bust that never ending Crohn’s or colitis flare.
Karyn [00:04:26]:
Now, I mentioned at the top that there’s five compelling reasons why we should go above and beyond to make sure that probiotics are part of our daily routine. When it comes to probiotics, here are the five things that I know for sure. Okay, so let’s start with number one. Research is on our side. Research is on our side. Probiotics can absolutely benefit those with IBD. Their research is clear. The chronic digestive challenge that we have, it creates what I call the perfect storm of three.
Karyn [00:05:03]:
The perfect storm of three. And that storm is inflammation, bacterial imbalance, and immune system disregulation. That’s the storm of three. And all of these areas are areas where probiotics can offer significant help. We’re not just dealing with a garden variety upset stomach that we can fix by eating whole foods. Our gut health challenges, they take digestive woes to a whole new level. And we need to keep that in mind when we’re thinking about probiotics. Okay.
Karyn [00:05:37]:
Reason number two, our sensitive digestive systems, they make us more prone to other digestive ailments, like food poisoning and stomach bugs, even the flu, you know, the real flu, probiotics, they can help us bounce back faster from ailments like these, and they can help prevent a major flare up from triggering when these kinds of events occur, because something like a food poisoning incident or getting a stomach bug, they can create an environment where a flare up can occur. But probiotics can help stave that off. I mean, I know this firsthand, so take my word for it on this one. I have been there, mama, and it really does help. Okay. Reason number three, we are so much more susceptible to gut comorbidities, those connected issues that go along with having IBD. I’m talking about things like Sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, CFO, small intestinal fungal overgrowth, as well as Candida, where these are the kind of conditions where there’s a majority disruption in the bacterial or the fungal balance in the body. And probiotics, they can be a powerful tool in managing conditions like these, these kinds of conditions that often lurk beneath the surface.
Karyn [00:07:06]:
And that’s because they mimic our IBD symptoms. So what happens so often is that we don’t even know that we have these types of challenges because the symptoms are so similar to Crohn’s, to colitis. So things like gas bloating, inconsistent bowel movements, abdominal pain, discomfort, they mimic what we think is going on with our crohn’s or our colitis, and so we don’t even know we have them. But probiotics can be the bridge between IBD and other intense GI conditions that we are so prone to getting ourselves. Okay, reason number four, the days of thinking that higher CFU counts, that’s those colony forming units. That’s how we measure probiotics. The days of thinking that higher CFU counts, as well as those multi strain. You know, with all of the strains, you know everything but the kitchen sink in there.
Karyn [00:08:06]:
Those days are behind us. I do know that for sure. Thanks to advances in microbiome research, now we can select specific probiotic strains tailored to our individual, unique IBD needs. So this personalized approach can make a world of difference in managing our individual symptoms effectively. So that’s cool. And then lastly, last reason is, reason number five, why probiotics should be on board. What I know for sure about probiotics is that the goal of using probiotic supplements with specific intention, like I’ve been talking about using it intentionally, along with your other treatment modalities. Remember, we’re not using this in a vacuum.
Karyn [00:08:57]:
It’s not the only thing we’re doing. It’s part of a treatment plan. The goal is to eventually not need them anymore. The goal is that eventually we join the ranks of the general population. Recommendation recommendations. But keep in mind that even those in long term remission with IBD will always need to be mindful, mindful about our gut function, and it can be a really slippery slope when we stop treating our gut with tender, loving care. So even though we’re in long term remission, some sort of probiotic might always be part of your gut maintenance plan. Now, ideally, ideally, in a perfect world, what would happen is after the supplementation phase, after you’re feeling really well, you’re in long term remission.
Karyn [00:09:52]:
Ideally, you would move into a food based probiotic phase, which is always a good choice, really, depending on what your body tolerates. There are loads of options available to you in that realm. So we’re talking about things like dairy or non dairy. Yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, sourdough bread, lacto-fermented veggies, fermented pickles. Bubbies is my favorite. If you know, you know, kefir, kombucha, natto, tempeh. I mean, the list just goes on and on, but that’s just a sampling. But again, here, the goal is to find one or two options that work best for you.
Karyn [00:10:37]:
Now, remember, if you’re in a mega flare up or your disease is raging out of control, these food based options, they might not be the best go to choice for you and supplementation might be necessary. But keep these in your back pocket for when you’re ready. And then when you are ready, you can keep them in rotation. These different fermented food options, you can keep them in rotations for the rest of your life, throughout your life, for your best gut loving results. Now, I get, if you’re listening and you’re just kind of thinking, oh, I’m still confused, I’m still overwhelmed about probiotics. It’s normal. There’s so much information about probiotics, and I’ve really just scratched the surface here. I’ve also, I’ve worked with enough clients over the years, and I’ve talked with so many of you awesome GLCers.
Karyn [00:11:33]:
I’ve talked with enough of you to know that even with this information, what I’m telling you about the benefits of probiotics, I know that it can still be daunting, especially when there’s so much conflicting information out there. What brand do I buy? Where do I buy it? What, which strains are best for which ailments? How much do I take? And on and on. So what I want to do now is go ahead and let’s just break down probiotics into really simple bite sized chunks. So here is how to choose the right probiotic for your individual IBD needs. I hope this helps. First, you’re going to want to focus on something called symptom strain matching. Symptom strain matching. And all that means is just that you focus on probiotics that address your specific symptoms.
Karyn [00:12:27]:
So whether it’s constipation or diarrhea, bloating, inflammation, or something else altogether, there is a strain out there for you. It might even be just a combination of a couple different strains. Look for research backed strains that are proven to help with your specific issues. The research is out now. It’s finally out. It’s really, it’s just about getting this information into the hands of the people who need it most. I’m going to help you with this aspect of choosing probiotics with a free resource in just a minute. So hang tight because I’ve got you.
Karyn [00:13:03]:
Okay? Secondly, I want you to keep this in mind. Opt for quality over quantity. So don’t get caught up in the numbers game. I mentioned this previously, but it does bear repeating. A high CFU colony forming unit of probiotic, a high CFU count. It does not always mean better results. Instead, you’ll want to look for pharmaceutical grade probiotics that have been batch tested for potency as well as purity. So pharmaceutical grade.
Karyn [00:13:38]:
So that means not drugstore brands. And then as well as a company that batch tests, because then you’ll know if you’re getting the amount that it says on the label. I know it seems crazy. You would think, of course I’m getting that. But you really don’t always. So it’s important to have a company that batch tests. Super important. Okay, next, if you can, you’ll want to choose a probiotic with an enteric coating or some sort of other technology that ensures that it survives through the journey of your stomach and reaches your intestines intact.
Karyn [00:14:14]:
And again, it might seem like they all do. Oh, no, they don’t. What good is taking a probiotic if all the bacterial power, it gets killed in your stomach even before it reaches your intestine? Not helpful, right? Not all probiotics are created, are created equal. They’re just not. So just because it has the strain that you’re looking for, it has the CFU that you’re looking for. It doesn’t mean that it’s the probiotic for you. So you’ll want to just probe a little bit deeper to ensure that you are getting a good delivery system of that probiotic as well. All right.
Karyn [00:14:54]:
Also, the storage requirements for the packaging, all the probiotics will tell you storage requirements. That’s not just a suggestion. That’s pretty mandatory to how the probiotic is going to perform. It really does matter. So pay attention to whether the probiotic says that it needs refrigeration. Some do and some don’t. It really depends on the probiotic. So proper storage, it’s crucial for maintaining your probiotics.
Karyn [00:15:24]:
And if you’re ordering online right, and there’s going to be that transit time, choose a carrier that ships with an ice pack, especially if it says refrigeration necessary, because this is going to ensure that your probiotic doesn’t lose its potency as it travels to you. Now, I do have to say, look heavy out here that it can stay. Don’t freak out if it comes in. The ice block is still, it’s not cold anymore because it can stay at room temperature for about a week or so and it will still be okay, still have its potency. But you can also remember that if you’re traveling, you don’t necessarily have to keep it cold if you’re taking a short trip. But I would say for the most part, if the product says refrigerate it, that is your hint. Refrigerate it. Okay.
Karyn [00:16:11]:
Now, what else should you be aware of before you purchase probiotics? You want to be aware of transparency and research. So choose brands that are transparent about their research, their production processes, their quality control. You want to know exactly what you’re putting into your body and what research is backing up their claims. And I wish that I could tell you that it seems like it should be so, but it’s not. I wish all research was good research, but the truth is there’s a lot of misrepresentation and conflicts of interest in clinical research today. Do your due diligence. Check out the research and the company transparency before you purchase from them. It really is worth doing just a little bit of research before you purchase.
Karyn [00:17:05]:
And then speaking of transparency, it’s also crucial that you check out the ingredients. Oh, yeah, the ingredients in the probiotic, not just the strains of, or the strain that’s in there. Some probiotics, they have really great potential. They have that strain that you’re looking for, but unfortunately they’re filled with additives. So stay away from probiotics with unnecessary additives and fillers, things that they’re just using to increase the shelf life that might really be upsetting for your gut, your sensitive gut. It’s going to. Thank you for looking at those things. There are a number that don’t have those additives and fillers, so just look for ones like that.
Karyn [00:17:48]:
Okay, let’s just do a really quick recap on choosing your probiotics wisely because I know I gave you a lot of information super quick. Okay? Symptom strain matching, important quality matters over CFU’s enteric coating or something similar to help it reach your intestines. That’s important. Store it in the right place. Look at company research. Don’t forget to check out the other active and inactive ingredients before purchasing. And I think that’s it. That’s it for purchasing probiotics in a gut show.
Karyn [00:18:24]:
Okay? Now, before I leave you for today, I have to give you. Of course I do. I have to give you some do it like a mom best probiotic tips so you can do probiotics like the badass mama that I know you are. Okay, so firstly, start with your personal symptoms instead of a generic recommendation. Whether it’s from a doctor, from Google Guru, whoever it’s from, it may not be specific to you. So start there. Start with something that’s specific to your symptoms. Do you want to help your inflammation, your immune function? Do you want to help bloating? Diarrhea? Sibo? You want to know that before you purchase so that you can get the best results.
Karyn [00:19:12]:
Okay. Also assess where your health is currently at before you waste your money on probiotics. You might want to just ask yourself, do I have a specific concern that I want to address? Or do I fall into the category of more long term remission, where you’re focused more on general population tips that do discount probiotics in supplement form? And if you’re in the long term remission category, maybe that’s okay. But do a proper assessment of where you’re at before you begin because that can really help you determine if you want to start in the probiotic realm with fermentation, fermented foods, or do you need a stronger supplement form? What’s your best route? That’s what I’m talking about. And don’t forget, though, here, I do want to mention, don’t forget that both could be an option for you. Sometimes both is good fermented foods plus the probiotic. So assess where your health is at before you move forward. Okay, badass mom.
Karyn [00:20:16]:
Tip another one. Whether you choose supplementation or fermented foods, I cannot stress this enough. Go slow, go slow. At first, this is an IBD plays by different rules. Type of tip for those of us with IBD, those healthy and healing gut bugs that we’re introducing through probiotics, they might initially worsen your symptoms before improvement sets in. And this is what’s known as the Herxheimer reaction, or some people will call it the die off effect. But embracing your inner tortoise here, I always talk about that in practice with my clients. Embracing that inner tortoise, that’s going to give you the edge.
Karyn [00:21:08]:
In the end, slow and steady wins the probiotic rat race. Okay? And I want to give you one last do it like a mom tip if your mom life allows for it. And I say that as just a little side note, because sometimes we’re in a really busy season. But if you can, if your life allows it, for doing this right now, it. I think it can be really helpful to have a probiotic journal. Nothing fancy, just something even just a piece of paper, something you can just write down in. You want to be able to write down your initial stages of adding in probiotics. So you’re going to use the journal to track your symptoms, the strains that you’re taking, and then any changes that you notice.
Karyn [00:21:51]:
Just those few simple things and this personalized data, it’s going to help you make informed adjustments to your regime. So you’re not going to be basing it on a hunch that you had or maybe a feeling. You’re going to be basing it on accurate information that’s been written down. So don’t forget, because we are plagued by mom Brain, I’m guilty of this as well. There is only just so much stuff that can fit in our brain. So writing it down is key. It will help you keep track of what’s going on and then you can make necessary tweaks in your plan. Okay, now, I know that this episode, it was filled with lots of little tips and ideas about how probiotics can best serve those of us with IBD.
Karyn [00:22:41]:
But most of it was really very general in nature. And I want you to truly set yourself up for probiotic success. It’s time that you got your hands on my free and fabulous resource because this is going to help you make it your own. It’s my probiotic Q and A and also my probiotic strain guide. Both of these resources, they are designed to take all of the guesswork out of choosing the right probiotic for your IBD needs. Trust me, this is great information if you want to start your probiotic journey off on the right foot. Or maybe you want to create, I can’t even say the word correct, a probiotic journey that’s gone awry. Maybe you it’s time for you to correct something that you’ve done wrong in the probiotic realm.
Karyn [00:23:32]:
Head on over to karenhaley.com probiotic. That’s karenhaley.com probiotic to get your hands on this valuable resource. It is your one stop shop for everything you need to know about doing probiotics the right way, the IBD way, not the general population way. And one more time, that website is karymhaley.com probiotic because of course, my mom had to be a little bit different and spell my name with a y. Okay, remember, our IBD, it plays by different rules, so don’t get caught up in the media hype about this topic. You have what you need now to take control of your gut health and make probiotics work for you. And it’s just in time for when the kids are getting ready to go back to school and you can get back to you. Dear one, make it happen.
Karyn [00:24:38]:
I know you’ve got this. I know you do. And I am here to support you every step of the way. Thanks so much for joining me today. Even though I have to say we can’t see each other in this medium, I just I love the connection that we have with each other every week. A podcast connection. It’s a powerful connection and I don’t take it lightly. I so appreciate your support and you’re taking the time to listen.
Karyn [00:25:05]:
All right, until we chat again, I’m wishing you a cheeky and healthy gut healing journey. Chat soon. If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things. First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap.
Karyn [00:25:45]:
And then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD. The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other. I love being in community with you, and I appreciate you, my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, I think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital h, huge and the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day and I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together. If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the gut love community@karenhealey.com.
Karyn [00:26:47]:
community the GLC is my free and fabulous space dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTC secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong. This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that, my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com. community that’s karynhaley.com community. I can’t wait to meet you.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen On: Why Your Dentist Should Be a Gut Health Expert
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In this week’s episode of The Cheeky Podcast for Moms with IBD, we’re diving into the fascinating and often overlooked connection between oral health and gut health. Our guest, Dr. Michelle Jorgensen, is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and pioneer in the field of biologic and holistic dentistry.
This is a gem of an episode, full of ah-ha’s and insights!
Get your pen and paper ready as we discover how your dental health could be the missing link in your IBD management and overall well-being. Dr. Michelle shares her journey from traditional to biologic dentistry after discovering she had mercury poisoning from her dental practice. She explains the importance of mercury-safe practices, the concept of Tooth Meridian Charting, and why your dentist really needs to be versed on all things gut health related.
This episode is packed with step-by-steps and actionable insights on how to integrate dental health into your holistic healing journey.
Tune in To Learn About:
✅ [00:07:34] The basics of biological dentistry and how it differs from traditional dentistry
✅ [00:13:20] The phenomenon of Tooth Meridian Charting and its impact on health
✅ [00:18:32] The dangers of mercury fillings and the safe removal process
✅ [00:43:35] The significance of Cone Beam CT scans for those with gut and thyroid issues
✅ [00:54:20] The relationship between vitamin D, calcium absorption, and dental health
✅ [01:02:18] The role of mineral-rich tooth powders and mouth rinses in maintaining oral health
Rate, Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Mentioned in the Episode:
>> The IAOMT (International Academy of Medicine and Toxicology)
>> The Ultimate IBD Diet Decoder Quiz
>> Join The Gut Love Community for Moms with IBD
>> Book Your FREE IBD Consultation with Karyn Today
Connect With Karyn:
Connect With Dr. Michelle:
Shop Mineral Building Tooth Powders and Mouth Wash
Episode Transcript:
Karyn [00:00:08]:
Hey there, mama. Welcome to season two of the Cheeky podcast for moms with IBD. I’m Karyn Haley, functional IBD nutrition and wellness coach and Crohn’s warrior. This podcast is all about us moms because our IBD plays by different rules. Season two is juicy, full of unconventional wisdom, real talk, new ways to tackle our illness, and a whole lot of community empowerment, and all of us advocating the hell out of our illness. We’re in this together, and I’m here to help you find healing on your terms. Let’s do this.
Karyn [00:00:50]:
Hey there. Welcome to the Cheeky podcast for moms with IBD. We have got a treat of an episode. I’m so excited in store for you today. Seriously, so many aha moments were had by me during this conversation. I know you’re gonna have them, too. It’s a topic that is so necessary but rarely discussed. I love it when that happens, and it’s happening all the time in season two of this podcast.
Karyn [00:01:19]:
It’s like explosion.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:01:21]:
Bam, bam.
Karyn [00:01:22]:
Aha, aha. It’s really, really cool. So I want you to get your pen, your paper ready, because this is a masterclass and we are in session. I just have to say, wouldn’t you think it was. At least I would think this. Wouldn’t you think it would be great if there was an all health masterclass channel?
Karyn [00:01:40]:
I don’t know.
Karyn [00:01:40]:
Maybe masterclass is just a phenomenon in the United States. So you know what I’m talking about if you live in the US, maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about if you live elsewhere. But I, for one, I would be all in on that. An all health masterclass channel.
Karyn [00:01:54]:
Today.
Karyn [00:01:56]:
We are in for that treat I was telling you about, because it’s time for an insightful, highly intelligent, outside the box masterclass thinker of a guest named Doctor Michelle Jorgensen. Now, Doctor Michelle, she is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, teacher. She’s a pioneer in the field of biologic and holistic dentistry. She has listened to this. Listen to her educational background. She has certifications as a therapeutic nutritional counselor. She’s a certified nutritional autoimmune specialist. She’s a board certified traditional naturopath.
Karyn [00:02:32]:
She has a degree in dentistry. Can you imagine having all of those credentials? That takes a lot of commitment, my friend. So, Doctor Michelle, she is bringing her vast education and her experience to this episode today. Now, as Doctor Michelle tells us, after practicing traditional in that more traditional realm of dentistry for ten years, she ended up facing severe health challenges, and she discovered that she had mercury poisoning, not from her own mouth, but from drilling out mercury fillings from her patients. And this life altering experience, it led her into the world of biologic and holistic dentistry. So for the last decade, she has been paving the way in this field, helping patients from around the world restore their health. At her practice, it’s called total care dental and wellness. It’s located in Utah.
Karyn [00:03:32]:
So today we are going to uncover many of the questions that I know we all have about the link between your oral health and your digestive health, because, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. The link is so much bigger than we know. It’s a shame that this is not a more mainstream topic. How often does your dentist connect that. That cavity that you’re dealing with, that cavity you’re in for, is actually connected to your crohn’s or your colitis? Not often enough. Doctor Michelle, she starts at the very beginning. For anyone who’s new to what this is, she starts at the beginning with what the term biological dentistry actually means.
Karyn [00:04:14]:
She answers the questions for us about mercury fillings that I know so many of us have. She talks about whether mercury fillings themselves pose a risk, or is it the process of removing that that’s more dangerous? You might be surprised by her answer there. And she explains the fascinating science of tooth meridian charting. I have had this done myself before, and I have to say it was really accurate when we connected the dots between my tooth ailments and my gut health. So that’s going to be really cool. When she talks about that, she also shares details about the effects of mercury on your mouth, especially when you have gut challenges. She gives us a step by step guide to safely removing mercury fillings and why it’s so important to find someone trained, not just somebody who does it, but trained in doing this safely. Before you dive in, Doctor Michelle also provides practical advice on making sure that our detoxification pathway is something that’s really challenging for those of us with IBD, but making sure that those pathways are moving smoothly before we get any major dental work done.
Karyn [00:05:29]:
And she also enlightens us on the amazing ways that she uses ozone therapy in her practice. We have talked about ozone therapy in this season of the Cheeky podcast, so we’re going back to the importance of ozone therapy, this time in the mouth. And then finally, she talks about how to choose the right dentist, not just for your oral health, but for your digestive health as well. So there’s that, all of that that I just said, and there’s so much more coming your way in this episode. You just have to listen to it. I can’t possibly fit in all, all of the juicy bits, all of the life changing information we talked about in this convo. But I do want to say, before we dive in on just a little side note, unfortunately, I do have to say that Doctor Michelle and I, we had a bunch of technical and sound issues while we were recording. There’s some lagging and weird connections at times.
Karyn [00:06:23]:
Unless you’re watching it on YouTube, I don’t think you’re going to notice it much. My team was able to cut out most of those glitches, but just in case you notice kind of a weird flow at times, that’s what’s going on. We just have kind of a lag between the two of us talking. All right. So I think that’s it. That’s all the information you need to get into this episode. Get ready, sit in, get that cup of tea. It’s going to be a good one.
Karyn [00:06:50]:
So let’s have an eye opening conversation with Doctor Michelle Jorgensen. I, trust me, it’s just going to, it’s going to transform how you approach your dental health and your gut health all rolled into one. Let’s dive in.
Karyn [00:07:04]:
Welcome doctor Michelle Jorgensen. It’s such a pleasure to have you on the show. We’re going to talk a lot today about gut health and oral health, how the two are interconnected. And what I’d like to do is start with just the most basic of questions. And that question is, what is a biological dentist? I know that many of my community, they have what’s considered a traditional dentist and they may not even be familiar with what that is. So what is biological dentistry?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:07:34]:
That’s a great question, and I didn’t know the answer to that when I started either. So that’s, I think that my story really kind of lends itself to understand a little bit what biologic dentist is. So if it’s okay with you, I’ll just share that a little. I think it really gives a good segue into explaining what it means. I’m a general dentist, so I’m just like dentists of all of your listeners, you know. And I went to school and I learned how to do dentistry. My father’s a dentist. And so I just thought that that’s what you always did.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:08:04]:
You went to school, you practiced what you learned, and you just kept doing it for a lot of years. And that’s not what happened for me. I started getting really sick. And interestingly enough, one of my biggest symptoms was gut health, and I didn’t know what was wrong, so I started really changing everything, all the things that I’m sure you already talk about and teach about. I started doing all of those things, doing diet changes, and I was diagnosed with IB’s myself. So a lot of changes, a lot of things, and some of it helped, but not all of it helped. And I was also having some major issues with memory. I just wasn’t remembering things, and I’ve always had a really good memory, so I knew something was wrong.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:08:46]:
And my biggest thing was my hands were going numb to the point that I literally couldn’t hold an instrument anymore. So I had my practice for sale. I was going to. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I was going to, how I was going to support my family, you know, all these kind of big, big things. And finally a practitioner said, you know, and I’d gone to every doctor, done every test, nobody had any answers. And finally someone said, have you looked into mercury poisoning? And I had never even considered that. I knew that silver fillings were 50% mercury.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:09:18]:
But I’d always been told, and the dental profession tells us, even as a dentist, that once it’s in the filling, it’s fine, it’s stable, it’s inert, it’s not a problem. The problem is, I was a cosmetic dentist. So I was drilling out all of those fillings and releasing all of those vapors while I was working. And I was breathing all of that in my head’s right above your head when I’m doing the work. So it was, I got tested, and that’s what it was, mercury toxicity. And so I had to figure out, was there a different way to do dentistry? Was there something else? And, you know, a way that I could keep being a dentist and yet get well myself? And I found that there were ways. I didn’t know of them. The profession doesn’t talk about them.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:10:00]:
Dentists don’t know even. And there’s an organization that had an entire protocol set up for how to remove these fillings in a way that the dentist didn’t get mercury exposure, that the patient doesn’t get mercury exposure. I didn’t even know it existed. So this is what’s termed biologic dentistry. Looking at the biology of the body and how does things in the mouth affect it. So I didn’t just stop there, because I thought, whoa, you know, I nearly lost my profession, my career, over this thing. I didn’t even know about what else could be related to dentistry, to the mouth, to everything I’m doing on a day to day basis that affects overall health. And I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I’ll tell you that.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:10:40]:
I started learning, and honestly, I started learning from doctors as well. They would say, hey, I have a patient that I think needs this. Do you do it? And I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, so I’d have to go and learn and research and go, oh, yes, now I can help your patient with that. I didn’t even know what that meant. And so really, my journey to where I’m at now, which I call health focused or health based dentistry, was simply because of my own health journey, but also doctors leading me and saying, we have patients that are struggling with this. We know or have heard that it can be related to dentistry. Can you help them? And so I started learning and bringing things into practice, and it’s totally exploded. We have now six doctors in our practice, and we see patients from all over the world.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:11:23]:
And so for us, biologic dentistry is. It’s simply saying the mouth is connected to the rest of you. Could what’s going on in the mouth be affecting the rest of you? And vice versa? And I’ve even taken a little further to say, could the mouth actually be a little bit of a mirror for the rest of us? Where can we look in our mouth and say, ah, our gums are doing that. That means our gut is doing that. Our tongue is looking like this. That means this is what our liver or heart is struggling with. So using the mouth is a little bit of a rosetta stone to read and interpret the rest of the health as well. So for me, it’s been an enormous cycle change to go from general dentistry to now seeing dentistry as an integral piece of health.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:12:07]:
So, long answer for you. But that’s basically what biologic dentistry is in my hands.
Karyn [00:12:14]:
I’m so glad you did that. I’m so glad you went into all that, because it’s so helpful to see just, well, number one, most people that I talk to in this field, they came to it because of something that happened within themselves. They started in the traditional form of medicine, and then something kind of threw them off, and then they started searching.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:12:33]:
Right?
Karyn [00:12:34]:
And so that’s your path. You started searching, and you found a better way. And now that better way helps people. And I want to touch on something that you mentioned, how the mouth is like the window into what’s happening in the rest of your body. I once went to a biological dentist, or as you call it, health based dentist, and he said to me, I’m looking at these various cavities that you have in your mouth, and they are connected to these various organs in your body. And so I can tell you what’s going on with you now. I have Crohn’s disease. And I never said to this dentist, I have Crohn’s disease, but he knew because he said, look at this particular tooth you’ve had dental work on.
Karyn [00:13:13]:
It’s connected to your gut, and this is connected to your gallbladder. And do you know what I’m talking about here? And can you explain that phenomenon?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:13:20]:
Yeah. It’s called the meridian tooth meridian. Charting, it’s really something that’s not new. We just forgotten to look or pay attention to it. It was mapped hundreds of years ago through, you know, in some of the asian medical traditions with acupuncture and acupressure, they mapped all of these. These energy systems. And the easiest way that I like to explain it, because sometimes when you start talking energy, people are like, what are you talking about? Okay, now we’re getting crazy, but. Exactly.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:13:49]:
So I like to explain it in very simple terms. In your body, we have all. We have lots of different wiring systems. So we all are very aware of, like our circulatory system. We have blood vessels that go top to bottom. We’re very aware of our nerves. We have nerves that go top to bottom. We know about the lymphatic system.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:14:06]:
That’s our drainage system or our sewer for the body, it goes top to bottom. But we also have an energy system. It’s what keeps our brain working, it what keeps our heart pumping. You know, when you go and you get an EKG at the hospital and you see that little beep beep, beep, beep? Well, what are you seeing? You’re seeing literal electrical current that’s passing through the heart when we die. It means the electrical flow has stopped in our body. So we are alive because we have electricity passing through our system. For some reason, we kind of leave it at that. We go, oh, our heart pumps, our brain works, and that’s, like, all the electricity? Well, no, that’s how the rest of us works.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:14:44]:
That’s how we move every muscle. That’s how every internal organ continues to operate. And that electrical system is also a wiring system throughout the body. And interestingly enough, they’ve mapped and found that every one of those organ systems throughout the body is actually represented, or there’s a. Basically, I like to think of as an on ramp to that electrical flow. There’s an on ramp in the hands, in the feet, in the ears, interestingly enough, and in the teeth. And as you think about it, think about the stimulation we get on our hands, stimulation we get on our feet, and stimulation we get in our teeth. You know, every time we chew, you know, we’re actually activating that energy line that goes to all of those organ systems.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:15:28]:
This is how we keep our body charged, is by hand movement, is by foot movement, is by tooth movement. This is, this is charging our electrical system. So every tooth is actually connected to an organ system in the body. You’d think, oh, gosh, maybe all the teeth are just connected to the heart. No, that’s not how it works, actually. So, like, all the teeth here in the front are the bladder, the gallo bladder, the liver. That’s up here in the front. About halfway back here is stomach, spleen, breast.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:15:58]:
So I have yet to find a person who had breast cancer that doesn’t have a root canal right here or an infection right here. It’s very interesting how this works for the lungs, large intestine. So that’s where you probably had your cavities was back on molars, because that’s going to be large intestine based. And then back wisdom teeth areas is going to be the endocrine system. So the adrenals, thyroid, as well as all the sex hormones. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone is all back in that wisdom tooth area. So when you have weaknesses or deficiencies in those areas, it gives you two things. First of all, that weakness in a tooth could lead to a weakness or deficiency in that organ system in the body, and vice versa.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:16:40]:
If you have a problem in the organ system, it may show up as a weakness in the tooth. So we use the tooth as an indicator both ways, both directions, so we can say, okay, this is probably going on in your body, or, oh, hey, you know, let’s pay attention to the system because something’s going on here. This might be the reason that this problem there.
Karyn [00:17:00]:
And so what’s happening is when people are going to their traditional dentist, I bet there, there’s no chance they’re being told that. It’s really when you say, you know, these are the things that are happening, this is a biological dentist that’s telling you that, because a traditional dentist is just not talking in those terms.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:17:17]:
No, no, never. Well, I just had, I have an interesting story that relates to that. I had a patient that came in once, and he. As I looked at him, I just. I’m pretty upfront with patience. And I said, has anyone ever told you you’re orange? And he said, well, yeah, actually, people ask me all the time if I do, like, self tanning cream. He said, and I don’t. I don’t do any self tanning cream.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:17:47]:
But he was very, very much orange. And as I looked at his x ray, what I found is he had root canals on the forefront. Teeth right here from an accident when he was just teenager. And those four front teeth have actually. They had actually failed. The root canals had failed, and there was infection at the end of them. Well, those are all the liver meridian or the liver energy channel. And so it was leading to jaundice.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:18:09]:
And he was jaundice all the time. People were asking him if he used self tanner cream.
Karyn [00:18:14]:
Wow.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:18:15]:
It was really these root canals that had failed and were infected that were affecting his liver function.
Karyn [00:18:22]:
Wow. Yeah. So, see, it’s there. The signs are there, but it’s just that most people who specialize in oral health are not focusing on it.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:18:32]:
Yeah, they don’t know it.
Karyn [00:18:33]:
I want to go back and talk about something that you mentioned. Yeah, exactly. They don’t. Yes. It’s, you know, something that I’ve learned over my. I’ve had Crohn’s disease since I was 14. And so something that I learned is that with traditional doctors, for a while, I was angry at them, and I had to let that go because it’s not that they are being malicious or mean or trying to get you, it’s that they weren’t taught it. And so I’m sure in your traditional dentistry training, these just weren’t things that you were taught.
Karyn [00:19:05]:
You had to learn them on your own. And that all happened when you had this mercury poisoning. So I wanted to go back to talk about that because I think that many people have mercury in their mouth.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:19:16]:
Right.
Karyn [00:19:16]:
If you have metal fillings, you have mercury in your mouth. And so I guess my question would be, if I have that, and I’ve had it for years, what should somebody do about that? Is it dangerous to get it taken out? Should you keep it? Is it still impacting you 20, 30, 40 years later? How does that work, and what should we do about it?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:19:38]:
Great question. And you actually had some really important questions in there. So the first thing is, people will say things like, that feeling is really old. It’s inert. There’s no mercury in it anymore. The mercury is gone. And if they’re saying that they don’t understand mercury. It’s a physical metal.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:20:01]:
Like, there’s. It’s a thing. It’s not like it’s a. A, you know, a vapor or a fume. It creates vapors and fumes, but it’s a physical metal, just like in a thermometer. It’s that silver stuff that used to go up and down in our thermometers before they banned those kind of thermometers, because mercury is so dangerous. So mercury doesn’t just disappear into the nothing. It stays there.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:20:27]:
And the idea is that as it’s bound with other metals, there’s silver in those fillings, there’s copper in those fillings, there’s other metals. As it’s bound to those other metals, it does create a hard material. However, the mercury doesn’t go away. So what happens is, as you’re chewing, as you’re toothbrushing, as you’re grinding your teeth, as you’re doing any of those things, you actually are wearing away the surface of that filling and releasing mercury. And this is something. It’s actually interesting. So, in dental school, we were told, the entire mercury talk in dental school is that if we tell someone that mercury fillings could impact their health, we will lose our license. So that’s the entire talk that we learned in dental school.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:21:16]:
We can’t tell anybody that the mercury fillings may affect their health. So the good news is, is that there’s been a lot of research that has shown that 100% mercury fillings affect your health. So now I can tell you mercury is released from those fillings 24/7 every single time you chew. There’s research that’s showing these things. Now can I come and tell you that caused your crohn’s disease? I can’t tell you that, but I can let you go. Okay. Mercury is this. This, this.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:21:53]:
Perhaps this could be a problem for me and my crohn’s disease. Disease. So I’m very capable and able to tell you what research shows when it comes to mercury, if that makes sense. And mercury is always released from these fillings all the time. So when you have them in your mouth, it is going to affect you. What are the things that it’s going to affect? Well, mercury is a neurotoxin, so it’s going to affect nerves. It’s going to affect memory. It’ll lead to brain fog.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:22:21]:
It’s going going to affect, like, for me, it created a lot of numbness in my hands. It’s going to create numbness. Neuropathies it’s also going to create gut problems. So this is a big one for your listeners because zinc is important for stomach acid creation. It’s one of the precursors for stomach acid creation. Well, mercury actually binds at the same receptor site that zinc does. So if you have mercury in your system, it’s going to affect the way your stomach is creating stomach acid and it’s going to affect your absorption and the way your stomach is handling foods. So I can tell you all of this and then you can take these pieces of information and then take it to your own health and say, could this be my thing? Now, really the really important piece that you said was, is it dangerous to take them out? And the answer is yes, if you don’t do it safely.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:23:15]:
So there are entire protocols around this and there’s an organization called the IAOMT. And I can send you this and you can put it in shell show notes I aomt.org. i will. Yep. And they’ve created a protocol, and doctors can get certified in this protocol to be able to do this the correct way because I tell people all the time, it’s actually more dangerous for you to have them removed unsafely than to leave them in your mouth. So to just go to any dentist and say, just get my mercury fillings out, that’s actually more dangerous than leaving them be for a little while. So don’t do that. You need to find someone who’s going safely, otherwise you are going to just have all of that mercury redistributed in the entire body.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:24:04]:
I like to think of it like neighborhoods. It’s just going to move neighborhoods and it’s going to start ganging up on another organ system and another thing in the body. And don’t do that. You don’t want the mercury just to move to a new neighborhood in your body. You want it to actually leave your system. And you’re going to need to do some very specific things in order to make that.
Karyn [00:24:21]:
So if I look up a biological dentist in my area because I want these removed, is that assurance that this is going to be done correctly? What should I be looking for?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:24:34]:
So you’re going to ask them, are they smart certified? It stands for, like, safe mercury amalgam removal technique. I think that’s what smart stands for in this acronym. You’re going to ask specifically, have you been trained in the smart technique?
Karyn [00:24:50]:
Got it. Are you, like many of us with Crohn’s and colitis, turning to food to help heal your gut, but feeling overwhelmed by the myriad of gut healing diets out there, gluten free, dairy free, paleo SCD gaps. And that’s just naming a few. It can be so confusing, frustrating, and leave you feeling disheartened about which diet is the right fit for you. And trust me, I was there until I created the best tool to help me figure this out. Now, maybe you’ve tried a diet or two only to give up quickly because you couldn’t figure out what to eat. Or maybe the plan was just too strict for you to follow. Here’s something you won’t hear from the so called food gurus.
Karyn [00:25:38]:
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Karyn [00:26:27]:
Find out what you’re meant to be eating to help put your IBD in its place. Got three minutes? That is all you need. Go to karenhaley.com quiz. That’s K A R Y n h a l e. Answer a few simple questions and get your personalized quiz results immediately. Now let’s get back to the show. Which is what, basically what? Like just in a nutshell, what are the kind of things I should look for then?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:26:57]:
So they’re going to do coverings on you. So when you go to the end of the room and you’re in the chair, you’re going to have something that goes that drapes over your body. You’re going to have something that’s actually over your face so it’s not getting on your skin. You’re going to have a rubber dam that’s used in your mouth so that you’re not swallowing any particles. You’re going to have a nose covering so that you’re not getting any of the fumes. And they’re going to use a giant vacuum at your chin that will suck all the fumes towards the giant vacuum. While they’re being removed. The dentist and the assistant should also have a special mercury filter mask on their face as they’re working on you as well.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:27:35]:
You also need to do a detox along with this. So either your functional medicine practitioner or the dentist should be able to tell you what to do to detox your body. And all you’re doing is you’re basically saying the mercury is going to be released. You’re going to get more, no matter how careful we are in the removal. So your body needs to be able to grab it and dump it. So those are the two detox pieces as grabbers and dumpers so that the mercury doesn’t stay in the system.
Karyn [00:28:03]:
Gotcha. I wanna touch on that. You just mentioned detoxing, that the body is gonna detox when this happens. And that’s a concern, because when detoxification pathways open for people with Crohn’s and colitis, for people with gut challenges, it typically sends a flare to our gut. So if we do these detoxification protocols, I’m assuming it’s something like a toxin binder, things like this, depending on what your health practitioner recommends. Is this enough for us? Because people with gut challenges are going to be a little bit more sensitive to this removal.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:28:40]:
So I always talk about how before you do this removal, you need to make sure that your deep detox pathways are working properly. So for someone with some gut challenges, that may be more than just the regular run of the mill. So I will usually recommend and say, make sure you’re working with your functional medicine practitioner, whomever you’re working with. Make sure that your detox pathways and the way that this mercury detoxes is actually through the kidneys mostly. So you need kidney function very, very good. You need liver function. Very, very good. You know, there may be some swallowing, so you do need gut function, but for sure, kidney and liver need to be working well.
Karyn [00:29:23]:
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that’s helpful for people to know if they’re thinking about doing this. They really do need to do some planning ahead, especially when you have gut challenges. Do a little bit of planning ahead. Work with a functional medicine doctor so that you are prepared for this process and it doesn’t set off a flare for you.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:29:41]:
Yep.
Karyn [00:29:42]:
Okay. So speaking of gut health, something that I noticed with all of my clients when they come to me, they seem to have the most cavities, they’ve had the most crowns, root canals, all of those kinds of things. More than other people. People with gut challenges seem to have more issues with their mouth. Why is that?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:30:03]:
Great question. It’s funny because in my practice, I see a whole day of new patients on Wednesdays, just yesterday, I had a whole day of new patients. And we always joke at the beginning of the day. We say, what’s the theme going to be today? For some reason, I have no idea why this happens, but the same people with the same challenges always seem to show up on the same day. So yesterday morning, after patient number two, I said, oh, I guess today is cavity day. And my team kind of laughed, and they’re like, yep, I guess today is cavity day. And all day long, that is what I saw were people that had a lot of cavities. And the thing that I hear over and over is frustration.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:30:47]:
You know, one woman, she said, I take meticulous care of my teeth. My husband, he doesn’t even hardly brush his teeth. He never flosses. He’s never had a cavity. And every time I go to the dentist, I have four more. And she was so frustrated. And she said, and I know that this is my kid’s problem, too. She told me that she had just taken her daughters to the dentist.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:31:10]:
One was diagnosed with 16 cavities and another was 17 cavities. And I was just, first of all, the cost alone, thousands and thousands of dollars to get this work taken care of. But then these young, these are teenage girls. These teenage girls are now going to have teeth that are going to be set in a cycle of dental work for the rest of their lives. Now, because you go from a filling to a bigger filling to a crown like this is pretty well documented. So it just really is devastating for me to hear that. I’m like, oh, my gosh, we’ve got to get on top of this. So how do you get on top of it? What is it from? There’s always, there has to be a reason other than just, you didn’t brush your teeth.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:31:53]:
Well, I have way too many people who brush their teeth perfectly and get tooth decay, and they usually have a gut function issue. So let’s talk about what’s going on. The way the gut works is, you know very well the gut, our food, the things that we consume, whether it be in food form, supplement form, whatever they are, the things that we bring into the body have to actually be absorbed, right? To be able to get from the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, into the rest of the circulatory system and then benefit the rest of the organs. You actually have to absorb that. That’s going to be the first issue. I mean, we talk first about, okay, make sure you’re eating the right things. You know, if you’re never eating a mineral, then obviously your body’s going to be mineral deficient. But usually people are saying, no, I’m actually doing everything right, too.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:32:49]:
You know, I’m eating really well. So this comes down to absorption issues, and that is, I think, the tie in with gut health and absorption or with gut health and cavities. Because what happens is, if the body is mineral deficient, it has to have minerals. It has to have minerals to keep the brain going, to keep the heart going, to keep the bones working, to keep, you know, any growth that’s happening, any repair in the body, it all requires minerals. If the body is not getting enough because you’re not eating enough or because you’re not absorbing enough, this is the gut health piece, then it will go searching for minerals. Where can it find them? Because there’s some systems that have to operate no matter what. So where does it find minerals? Ready, make ready made mineral bank is the teeth and the bones. So if you are getting tooth decay and it doesn’t make sense, you’re brushing your teeth, you’re eating correctly.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:33:45]:
This means that your body is mineral deficient, and it’s having to go mine your teeth for minerals to just operate its normal operating system that tells us you are not absorbing minerals properly. So we tackle this in a couple of different ways. I like to recommend what I call a baking soda test. You may have done this already. You take a quarter teaspoon of baking soda and a half a cup of water, you drink it, and you see how long it takes you to burp. So what are you doing here? It’s kind of a rough and easy, you know, test that you could do at home to see what’s the stomach function like. I tell people it’s a science experiment, just like when you made that volcano and science fair, and you dumped baking soda and the vinegar together and it erupts. That volcano, that’s what happens.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:34:33]:
When the baking soda hits the vinegar, you get an eruption, and it comes out as a burp. So you should be burping in two to three minutes after drinking the baking soda water concoction. If you are not burping in two to three minutes, it means you have inadequate stomach acid. Well, stomach acid is incredibly necessary for a few different things. Stomach acid changes the way minerals are based. Basically, it makes minerals absorbable. It breaks proteins apart into the absorbable piece. That’s called an amino acid.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:35:09]:
It actually kills bugs and things that we consume with our food. Stomach acid does so many things. Now, here’s one thing that’s really interesting, that’s been a fad lately. You’ve probably heard of all of the alkaline water people are drinking. Alkaline water like, oh, I need to alkalize, I need to alkalize, I need to alkalize. Well the problem is when you drink alkaline water, you’re actually alkalizing your stomach. That is a place that you do not want to alkalize. You want your stomach to be very acidic because the acidity is what breaks the food apart.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:35:43]:
So if you are dumping gallons of alkaline water into your stomach or drinking alkaline water along with a meal, you have basically taken away your body’s ability to digest the food you just fed it. So that food will go through to the other side. It’ll show up as all sorts of symptoms and you will be mineral deficient and will have a mouthful of tooth decay. You also will have bones that are full of holes. I just can’t see your bones as easily as I can see your teeth. So you’ve got to be very cognizant of where do we want alkalinity and where do we want an acidity? We want acidity in the gut. So if you don’t burp in two to three minutes, it tells us that you don’t have enough acidity. You do not have an environment that’s conducive to actually absorbing minerals, to breaking minerals apart, to absorbing, breaking proteins apart, all of these things.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:36:35]:
So there’s a couple of things you’re going to have to do. Obviously in the long run. We want to heal things and that’s why they work with people like you. You know, you’re going to help with the healing side of things, but you can’t even do your job. You can’t even help them with supplements or anything else if the stomach can’t absorb them. I tell people this all the time. They’re like, oh, no, no, I’m working with a functional medicine practitioner. I’m like, great, hope you’re not paying too much for all those pills because none of them are getting in because you aren’t absorbing if your stomach isn’t acidic enough.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:37:09]:
So you have to supplement and make the stomach acid acidic enough to be able to even get the benefit of diet changes, of supplements, of any of these kinds of things. So I recommend using a supplement called betaine. It’s derived from beets, it’s basically stomach acid is what it is. And betaine, along with something called pepsin, which is a digestive enzyme. So often you get these two things together, and I just tell people, you’re going to need to take this along with food. And people will say, oh, my doctor told me I just have to take it with food that’s high in protein. Like, well, that’s only if you want to only absorb proteins. Do you want to absorb minerals, too? Then you need to take it with food.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:37:53]:
Better have minerals in them, because both things go along with this. So I just say, just take it every time. Take it with food and take it with supplements. Now, the goal is that that’s not a forever life sentence. I don’t like supplements for life. That’s not my goal. But you can’t get the benefit of any of the healing supplements unless you absorb them. So this is a band aid that has to be step one.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:38:19]:
You do the band aid of the acidity, adding the acidity, step one, so that you then get the benefit of all of the things you are recommending and teaching people and helping people with. Now, one really nice thing is the mouth is an indicator. So if you’ve been doing all of these, all of this gut work, and things have been changing and things are getting so much better, and you come to the dentist and you find out you have three cavities, especially along the gum line, okay? Especially along the gum line, that is the first place that mineral deficiency cavities will show up. If you show up just yesterday at a lady who literally had a gum line cavity on every single tooth in her mouth, I mean, how devastating is that? So it’s just telling us, your stomach is shot, you’re absorbing nothing. So you’re doing all this work, you’re working really hard. You go to the dentist, you have two more gum line cavities, you’re not done. You’re not done. You still are not absorbing.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:39:13]:
You’ve got to back it up. You’ve got to add the acid for a little while. You got to keep working on some healing things. And some people may just always have to add stomach acid. They may not be able to really create enough. Now, remember, mercury may be a reason, maybe a reason you’re not creating stomach acid because of mercury in the mouth. That’s getting out. The other thing that’s absolutely huge is, and I know you probably talk about this, is if the body is in fight or flight mode.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:39:41]:
So, you know, there’s two modes of operation with the body. Sympathetic, which is our fight or flight. This is I’m being chased by a bear. When you’re in sympathetic or fight or flight mode, your digestive system stops. You don’t need to digest food when you’re being chased by a bear. You need to run really fast, so all the energy goes to the extremities and moves away from everything that functions here. The other side of the coin is the rest and digest or parasympathetic side. Well, some things in the mouth actually lead your body or push your body into the fight or flight mode non stop.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:40:17]:
So these are really important to think about when it comes to gut function as well. Because if your body’s in fight or flight mode, no matter if you supplement, no matter if you change your diet, no matter if you do all these things, your body will not create stomach acid because it’s being chased by a bear. So what are some things that can leave the body or make the body feel like it’s being chased by a bear? Two things that are biggies in the mouth. One is hidden infections. We already talked about the mercury, but one is hidden infections. And two places they hide is under old root canals and where teeth were removed. So that’s one of them. The other one is if you’re not getting enough air while you’re sleeping, you literally feel like you’re suffocating.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:41:04]:
People will term this as sleep apnea, snoring, poor sleeping. I toss and turn all night. I wake up three or four times a night. Those are all signs that you are not getting adequate air when you’re asleep or clenching and grinding. I squeeze my teeth all night long. I wake up with a headache. You’re not getting enough air. Your body’s trying to get more.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:41:22]:
Those will all push your body into fight or flight. Have you ever suffocated? Have you ever had a pillow head to your face? Have you ever swam underwater a long way and have thought, oh my gosh, I’m never going to make it? Your body gets into that panic mode, you won’t create sumic acid, you won’t digest properly. Sure, these are huge pieces that have to be addressed. If you have poor gut function. Is there something that’s just turning the gut off? So sorry, that was a really long answer for how does it relate? Because there’s so many things that relate.
Karyn [00:41:57]:
Thanks so much for tuning into the cheeky podcast for moms with IBD today. The great information we’re dishing out on this pod is exactly the same type of conversations I get to have with my clients every day. If you’re ready to take your IBD healing journey to the next level and move into being the mom you always dreamed you’d be. Hop on over to karenhaley.com consult and book your free IBD consultation with me. Remember, my mom had to be a little bit different and spell my name with a y. So it’s karynhaley.com consult on our call, we’ll dive into what you’re struggling with most right now and make a plan for how we can work together to help you achieve your big, bold, beautiful, life transforming goals. No more sitting on the sidelines waiting for that miracle cure to magically happen. You’ve got what it takes to do this right now, mama.
Karyn [00:42:53]:
You just need a little nudge in that right direction, and I’ve got your back. Karenhaley.com consult and now back to the show. It’s a massive topic. I know. So, number one, and I have taken the betaine before. I’ve had to do that, and I regularly now take a, a digestive enzyme with pepsin in it, and I need to do that for life. I know that about my personal digestive system. And then if those things are not working, just to kind of recap, because you’ve mentioned so much, I want to make sure everybody gets it.
Karyn [00:43:24]:
Then you’re talking about looking at airway challenges. And so who would be a good practitioner to help with that?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:43:32]:
Again, a biologic dentist. So what you need the very first.
Karyn [00:43:35]:
Oh, really? Okay.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:43:37]:
Yep. The screening tool that you’re going to use is what’s called a cone beam CTA. So biologic dentist is going to take this cone beam CT scan. And what we tell us.
Karyn [00:43:45]:
Yeah, tell us about that.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:43:47]:
Yep. What it is is it’s a dental specific ct scan. It’s not like anything that you’ve done in the hospital. So people are always like, oh, no, no, I don’t want to do that. No, it’s not like that. It’s, it’s very dental specific. It’s called cone beam because it focuses just on this head. And so what I’m able to see when we look in this scan is, number one, are all the teeth healthy? Do they have infection at the end of the roots? And I can see things that you cannot see on a traditional dental x ray.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:44:15]:
There is no way. In fact, I will compare side by side multiple times during the day. I’ll say, let’s put the regular dental x ray. Let’s pull up the ct scan. Oh, and I’ll just show patients and they’ll go, oh, my gosh, it looks totally like I can see my abscess on that and I can’t see it, you know, absolutely. We see things that we couldn’t see. So we’re looking for failed root canals. So has a root canal reinfected and often they’re called silent.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:44:40]:
They don’t hurt. You don’t even know what’s happening. I’ll find people that have literally a quarter size hole in their jawbone that’s full of infection and there’s zero pain, no symptom whatsoever. And it’s from an old root canal, because the root canal, they remove the nerve. You don’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. So bone doesn’t actually feel a lot. So huge abscesses.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:45:03]:
So we can identify these big abscesses or where a tooth was removed, and most everyone’s had wisdom teeth removed, so you need to have these areas checked if you’ve had wisdom teeth removed, because infection can stay in those spots for decades and can affect gut function, and that’s actually stomach and endocrine systems. So anyone that has fatigue, thyroid problems, adrenal issues, or gut function issues needs to have a cone beam ct scan and have their wisdom tooth area is checked. So that’s one thing we see on it, is that. But the other thing I can see is what’s called your airway. And people are always like, oh, shouldn’t you see an ENT about that? Yes and no, because an ENT is going to look at the tube, they’re going to look at the size of your nose. They’re going to look to see, is the septum deviated? They’re going to look to see, are your tonsils in the way? They’re going to look at a lot of things. So am I. But I’m also going to take it.
Karyn [00:45:54]:
They’re going to look at the structure.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:45:56]:
Yeah, yeah, they’re looking at the structure. Exactly. The physical structures. So do I. You know, I’m going to look at the exact same things, but then I’m going to say, okay, the tube you have to breathe through, there’s like half a tongue sitting in that tube, and the tissue at the back of your throat is all swollen and blocking off half of that tube. So then we’ll take it a next step and say, why? Why is the tongue so large and hanging back into the way where you’re supposed to breathe? Why is that tissue so swollen? Why are the tonsils swollen? Why are those things happening? And it usually comes back to an infection somewhere in the mouth. So then we’ll identify the source, which is the infection, or it may also be mouth size. There’s not room for everything to fit, and so it has to fall back into the airway.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:46:46]:
So again, the dentist can address the mouth size problem. We can expand the mouth, make more room for everything to fit so that you can breathe properly. So biologic dentist is the place to go for these things. And again, you go, what does this have to do with gut health? These things leave you in fight or flight, leave your gut turned off. So you need to find out if they’re going, if they’re happening.
Karyn [00:47:10]:
Yeah. There’s no way to separate these. Right. We are a complete being, and it’s all related. It’s fascinating to me how related our oral health is with our gut health. You know, one impacts the other, the other. I mean, it’s just, it’s just a constant, continuous connection. So it’s really important that we have a very good relationship with our dentists, no matter who they are.
Karyn [00:47:38]:
And hopefully, it’s somebody that has a more health focused perspective so that they’re looking at these things, not just the structure of these, you know, things, but they’re seeing behind it, what is the function? And then I love the question that you asked. It’s why? Why? I don’t see many dentists asking that question. Why? Right. But hopefully a biological dentist is going to ask that question. Why? Take it a little bit deeper so that you can then get the benefit in both your oral health and your gut health.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:48:11]:
Yep.
Karyn [00:48:12]:
Something that I wanted to ask you about is vitamin D, because it’s something that so many with gut challenges are deficient in. I’ve heard you speak about the relationship between vitamin D and gallstones in kidney stones. And so, like I mentioned, many people with gut challenges are d deficient. They also are more prone to gallstones, to kidney stones. This is a personal question for me, doctor Michelle, because I’m dealing with kidney stones right now. So can you please help us understand what is the link between all of this and how does it relate to our oral health?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:48:53]:
So vitamin D and its buddy, vitamin k two. So really, we have to be pretty specific here. It’s vitamin D three and vitamin K two. And the reason we have to be very specific about k two is there’s a k one. That’s a very different vitamin. If I were to name these, I wouldn’t have named them the same letter. So we’re talking about vitamin D three. Vitamin K two.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:49:19]:
So vitamin D three, one of its main purposes is to grab calcium out of the circulatory. System. So it, once we digested and absorbed calcium, it starts to float around and find a place to be used. Well, vitamin D three is the thing that grabs it, that can grab hold of it in that circulatory system. Vitamin K two is then the thing that takes a that complex and puts it in the cell. So unless you have both of those, what you end up with is a lot of free floating calcium. What does that free floating calcium do? It goes and clogs up kidneys, creating kidney stones. Calcification.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:50:01]:
Have you heard that word, calcification? Calcification is calcium where it doesn’t belong. So it will create a kidney stone. It will gum up a gallbladder and create gallstones. It will create calcification in arteries. This is often what leads to blockages and heart attacks is calcification in arteries. It will lead to tartar on the teeth because it’s just free floating calcium. It gets in the saliva and it lands on your teeth. So all of those things are signs that you are not utilizing calcium properly.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:50:34]:
So you need to increase the vitamin D three and make sure, sure that it also has the vitamin k two along with it, because if you just do the d three, you’re still not going to get it in the cell. So make sure you have both of those together. Now, why, when people have poor gut function, do they have poor vitamin D three? That’s the next why, right? Most likely it’s an absorption. So there’s just not absorption. Absorption just isn’t happening the way it should. Because vitamin D three is actually a difficult one to get. It isn’t in a lot of foods. It’s only pretty much in animal products.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:51:13]:
Vitamin K two is another one that’s difficult to get. It’s only in animal products if the animal has been fed grass, which that’s pretty few and far between in our world anymore. So really, we’re all pretty deficient in vitamin D three and k two in our world day. And then if you add on to that poor absorption, you’re just going to exponentialize the deficiency that everybody sees, but you’re going to be even more deficient. So I think if you have poor gut function, you’re going to just have to plan to take a vitamin D three k two supplement. It’s just going to be part of what you do.
Karyn [00:51:57]:
And it’s not a risk to be taking it at higher doses because I see a lot of my clients, their doctors have said, well, you need to be taking the 50,000 ius weekly and they put them on that for long term. That’s a really high dose. So any, you know, side effects, problems with that long term, especially for people with gut challenges.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:52:21]:
I’ve heard controversy both ways. So I learn in Switzerland, one of my mentors is teaches at a place called swiss biohealth and he has scores of research showing that there is no toxic dose of vitamin D. Three. But then I also have colleagues and others that have said that that’s not true because this is a fat soluble vitamin. So there are two different kinds of vitamin types. There’s water soluble vitamins, that’s going to be vitamin C, vitamin D, or, excuse me, vitamin B. All the B vitamins are going to fall in that category, which means they are just excreted. If there’s too much, you just pee them out.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:53:08]:
Vitamin D, A, E and K are fat soluble. So what that means is they’re stored in fats and they don’t excrete the same way that the water soluble vitamins do. However, it’s pretty interesting to watch a blood test because I’ve done this with myself before taking high doses. I’m way up here. I cut my dose in half and I dropped pretty quickly, so they leave the body fairly quickly. My safe dose is about 5000 ius a day. I think you can stick with 5000 ius a day at a consistent level and it will keep you dosed. What you need for calcium metabolism.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:53:48]:
Now you asked, how does this affect oral health? Well, remember we talked about minerals being essential for dental health? These minerals and vitamins are essential for no cavities. They’re essential for remineralizing cavities. They’re also essential for gum health. So again, if you’re low in vitamin D, we’re going to see it in your mouth. So this is the thing that I actually prescribe to patients most frequently is vitamin D. Is that all right? You’re just going to have to really? Yep. You’re going to have to take this if you don’t want cavities anymore.
Karyn [00:54:20]:
And when it comes to people with gut challenges in my practice, I’m always saying I really like the liquid supplements, the sublingual, like I’m trying to think of the company that I. Orthomolecular. I think it is, the d three k two. It comes in a dropper. I really like that. How about you?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:54:37]:
Yes. Anybody that has a gut health challenge. So an absorption issue, I will tend to defer to liquid if possible, and powder next and capsules third, because the capsule is going to additional processing in the gut. And if your gut is a little wimpy, then we can’t really ask it to do extra work. So let’s just give it a liquid form to make it really easy to get it in. Yeah, there’s. There’s great sources. In fact, we use the orthomolecular one.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:55:06]:
There’s a few. There’s great sources of liquid vitamin D. The other nice thing about the liquid is you can dose it quite easily. So if, let’s say, you know, you started at a higher dose, you can just back it down quite easily. You just do a half dropper full instead of a full dropper full now. And so that’s another reason I like the liquid for that reason.
Karyn [00:55:25]:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I agree. Now, Doctor Michelle, I cannot let you go without asking you about ozone, because rectal ozone is something that I have been talking about for a while now with my community, and I’ve heard that ozone is something that is being used in dental practices. Obviously not the rectal ozone, but ozone in general. And it’s something that I think is so misunderstood and just not talked about. Right. You’re not going to your gastroenterologist or your traditional dentist, and they’re saying, let’s try ozone. So how are you using it, if you are at all? Are you using it in your practice? What do you think about the benefits of ozone?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:56:04]:
We use it every day, nearly every patient. So, yes, we use it all the time. The beautiful thing about ozone is it’s a broad spectrum antimicrobial, so we use it in a few. Well, first of all, what is ozone? You know, everybody’s like, oh, it’s like that dangerous thing. No, it’s actually three molecules of oxygen. So what are the side effects of ozone? Oxygen, what are the, you know, what is it? What are the, you know, the downstream metabolites? Oxygen. Okay, well, but it’s. Yes, it’s oxygen.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:56:37]:
That’s all it is. So what does it do? Well, when there’s three molecules of oxygen together, I always tell people oxygen likes to be in pairs, so it doesn’t like that third wheel. And that third molecule of oxygen is very unstable. He’s looking for his own buddy to go hang out with. So it loves to bind to microbes. The great thing is, is our cells are actually resistant to the oxidation or this oxygen molecule binding to it. The only cells that aren’t are eyes and lungs. So those are the two areas that you need to be cautious with when using ozone, because eyes and lungs are actually, they can be damaged by ozone.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:57:21]:
So you need to be careful about that. Don’t breathe it in and don’t. Don’t blow it in your eyeballs. But it will bind all the rest of the cells. It can’t do anything to. But it will bind to every single kind of bug. So it doesn’t matter if it’s a bacteria, virus, a parasite, fungus, it will kill all of them. It’s not specific.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:57:40]:
So what we use it for are a lot of different things. We use it to keep all of our water clean in our dental office. So that’s a real simple thing. We use. We use ozone water in all of our water lines. We use it for underneath the filling. So if you have a real deep cavity, and if we keep removing the cavity, if it would uncover the nerve and then kill the tooth, this is how teeth go to root canals. If that would happen, what we do instead is instead of removing that deepest part of decay, we actually use ozone on it.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:58:13]:
It kills all of the bacteria in that cavity, and we’re able to fill over the top of it and save a tooth from needing root canal. We do this all day long, every day, keeping teeth from needing root canals by killing the deep bacteria inside of the cavity. We use it in gum disease. So we use it to flush all of the gum pockets everywhere and balance the oral biome. You talk about gut biome, there’s an oral biome as well. So we kill bacteria in the mouth. It desensitizes teeth. We use it when we remove these failed root canals or clean out areas where a tooth didn’t heal right, because it kills any bugs living in those holes in the jawbone.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [00:58:52]:
So we use it in gas form and in water form to clean out all of that. And the beautiful thing is we don’t even need to know what we’re killing because we know we’re killing anything and everything. So that’s great, because there’s a lot of tests. Yeah, there’s a lot of tests that, you know, you can go, okay, exactly what bugs are living in your mouth? And I say, I don’t actually care because guess what? We’re going to kill them all. So let’s save your $250 on that test, and let’s just kill everything and just make sure that you stay healthy from here on out. So we use it for everything. What are the side effects? Nothing better help. That’s the side effect.
Karyn [00:59:30]:
I wish more people were talking about it. Yes, and I wish more people were talking about it. And I love your explanation. It just it’s so simple and layperson. It’s something that I think a lot of people complicate. So thank you so much for that explanation, because that I think that’s really helpful for everyone. Good. Yeah.
Karyn [00:59:49]:
So, okay, so I know that there is a wealth of information on your website. Make sure I’m getting it right. Living well with Michelle. Did I say that right? Okay, so, folks, we have been talking about living well with Doctor Michelle. Thank you. Okay, so we have been talking a lot about biologic dentistry, but you are a very smart woman, very accomplished. You’re also a naturopath. I think there’s some nutrition training in there.
Karyn [01:00:18]:
You’re fermenting. There’s just a wealth of information on that site. One of the things that I was looking at lately was about the tooth powders that you have on your website. Can you tell me a little bit about the benefits of those, especially for somebody with gut challenges?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:00:37]:
Yeah, there’s actually a huge benefit for those who have gut challenges. So I formulated these tooth powders and the mouth rinse as a tooth powder and a mouth rinse, because I didn’t want to have, well, two parts. I believe that you can heal teeth, especially if the cavity is in the outside layer of the tooth. But you have to have the correct minerals in order to do that. So both the tooth powder and the mouth rinse have something called hydroxyapatite. What is that? It’s just a mineral complex that your teeth are made of. It’s the actual thing that these are made of. So we’re going to just put back what came out so that you can prevent cavities.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:01:18]:
So anyone who has a gut health problem absolutely needs to be on both of these products forever to keep the teeth strong, because if your gut isn’t absorbing minerals, then you better be putting them on your teeth. So this is putting minerals literally on the teeth themselves to help keep them strong. The other thing that I formulated these to do was to avoid fluoride. Fluoride does all sorts of things, and it definitely affects the gut in a negative way. I don’t have time to talk about the bazillion problems with fluoride. Let’s just say you don’t want it, especially if you have gut health problems. So this does not have any fluoride. It does not need fluoride.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:02:00]:
All you need are the minerals that your teeth is made of or made of. So right here, just put minerals back on them and they will stay strong. All of the surfactants, disinfectants, the things that are in traditional toothpaste and mouth rinse that ruin your own gut biome. Mouth rinses are full of alcohol. They kill off all the good bugs. So you don’t want to use regular mouth rinse. It’s alcohol containing. It’s going to change your gut biome completely.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:02:28]:
There’s so many things. So basically all the things you don’t want aren’t in these. And all the things you do want to stay healthy are. And I’m not a big self promoter, but just go get these. Like, literally just go get these.
Karyn [01:02:42]:
Yeah. That good? Yes. I need to do that myself. So living well with Doctor Michelle is the place to go to get those correct?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:02:49]:
Correct.
Karyn [01:02:51]:
Okay. So we’re going to finish up today with a quick lightning round. And doctor michelle, these questions are not as hard as the ones I’ve been giving you today. Just really quick, easy, fun questions, a way for my audience to just get to know you a little bit better. Is that okay with you?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:03:06]:
Sounds great.
Karyn [01:03:09]:
Fantastic. Okay, here we go. What is your favorite gut friendly snack?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:03:16]:
My favorite gut friendly snack is applesauce and dates.
Karyn [01:03:23]:
Oh, I love dates. Okay, name one supplement you can’t live without.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:03:28]:
Vitamin D three and k two.
Karyn [01:03:32]:
I love it. I’m so glad we talked about that one. Okay. How do you advocate for yourself during doctor visits?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:03:40]:
If you have a question, make sure that they’re not done until you’re done getting an answer. It’s really okay to keep asking.
Karyn [01:03:51]:
I love it. Okay. What’s one thing that you do on a regular basis to connect with yourself, like a mind body technique or something? Self care, something in that realm?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:04:01]:
I work in my garden. It grounds me literally and figuratively.
Karyn [01:04:07]:
Oh, that’s great. Okay. When someone says to you, do you have any good book recommendations? What is the one book you recommend most?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:04:19]:
My very favorite book is called.
Karyn [01:04:21]:
It’s okay to shamelessly plug your book.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:04:23]:
Yeah, well, any of my books. But the book I really do love is called Animal Vegetable Miracles by Barbara Kingsolver. And it’s my very favorite book I’ve ever read. And I read.
Karyn [01:04:37]:
I love that.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:04:38]:
A lot of books, but that’s just my favorite.
Karyn [01:04:42]:
Yeah. Okay, cool. What are you currently binge watching?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:04:48]:
Nothing. Because I have too many books to read.
Karyn [01:04:55]:
You’re binging books. Okay. Coffee or tea? And how do you take it?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:05:02]:
Definitely tea. I’m not a coffee drinker and I love chai tea with a little bit of oat milk in it.
Karyn [01:05:10]:
Yes. Yes. What is one cheap food that you can’t resist.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:05:17]:
I absolutely love snickerdoodle cookies, but I eat gluten free, so I very rarely find one that I get to eat. Mm hmm.
Karyn [01:05:28]:
Gotcha. Last question. The name of this podcast is the Cheeky podcast. And to me, cheeky means a little bit sassy, a little bit quirky, and a lot badass. So what’s one thing that you are cheeky about in your life?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:05:44]:
I have had a lot of resistance in my career, and people telling me, you can’t do that. You can’t do that because you’re a woman. You can’t do that because you don’t know enough. You can’t do whatever. Basically, my response is always, watch me.
Karyn [01:06:01]:
Amen. Amen to that. Thank you so much, doctor Michelle. It has been such a pleasure to have you on today. I know that after listening, people are going to want to find out more about biological dentistry. About you. If we’re looking for a biological dentist and we’re not in your area, I know you live in Utah. So if we’re not in your area, what’s the best place to find a biological dentist in your own area where you live?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:06:28]:
I actually have a directory on my website, so if you go to living well with Doctor Michelle, I have a dentist directory of dentists that have been vetted by me and that is the first place to go. And then there’s a couple of other directories as well that I’ll send you that you can put in the show notes to check, but the ones that I personally know are on my dentist directory, on my fabulous.
Karyn [01:06:51]:
And to connect with you, is your website the best place to go living well with Doctor Michelle?
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:06:56]:
Yes. Website or on social media as well under that same, that same name, Instagram.
Karyn [01:07:03]:
Facebook, all the goodies there.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:07:06]:
Yep.
Karyn [01:07:07]:
Yeah. Wonderful. Doctor Michelle, thank you so much for your time. It’s such a pleasure to talk with you.
Dr. Michelle Jorgensen [01:07:12]:
Thank you.
Karyn [01:07:21]:
If this podcast is meaningful for you, if it’s been helpful in your IBD mom life, I’d love it if you would do a couple things. First, follow the pod. You’ll never miss an episode. And those moms who are searching for podcasts about Crohn’s and colitis, they’ll find us easier. There’s probably a plus sign or a follow sign where you’re listening in right now at the top of your screen. Go ahead and give that a tap. And then also give the Tiki podcast a five star rating and review and share it with your friends who are also struggling with IBD. The more we are open about talking about our illness and bringing awareness around it, the more we’re able to connect and build a safe community around each other.
Karyn [01:08:06]:
I love being in community with you and I appreciate you, my friend. One last thing before we wrap up today. You know, I think you’re a rock star for taking time out of your busy life to listen in and invest in your healing. It is capital h huge. And the reason I know how huge this is for you is because I am right there with you in all of this, working my wheel of wellness, keeping my crohn’s at bay. It’s something that I invest in every day and I’d love it if we could continue our gut healing journey together. If you’re like me and you’re ready to soak up even more amazing gut healing information, it’s time to join the gut love community@karenheathy.com. community the GLC is my free and fabulous space, dedicated to dishing out even more IBD resources, recipes, healing hacks, lots of BTC secrets on how I manage my life with IBD, all wrapped up in a weekly newsletter to help you keep your momentum going strong.
Karyn [01:09:10]:
This IBD dish is gut healing insights that I only share within our tight knit community. Basically, it’s your one stop shop for a more diversified approach to true and lasting gut healing. Amen to that my friend. Let’s walk this gut healing journey together. Join me in the glc@karenhaley.com. community that’s karynhaley.com community. I can’t wait to meet you.