Hannah Aylward (00:00.088)

So she was putting in a lot of great effort. And it’s not even that these things are wrong. It’s that it wasn’t addressing her underlying root causes. And that is really, really key to getting you feeling better much more quickly, as opposed to just like throwing random things at your digestive issues and seeing what works. We want to work with data.

And also your presentation to build on a more customized plan for you. So it wasn’t that she was eating an unhealthy diet or she had never invested in soaplines or anything like that. It was that she was throwing a lot at her digestive issues that actually wasn’t addressing what she was uniquely dealing with underneath the surface.

Hannah Aylward (00:40.696)

Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of Han. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative health care. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out, and I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now, let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting.

Hannah Aylward (01:26.936)

Welcome, welcome. I’m super excited to be here with you today. Today we’re gonna be deep into apply a case study. Let’s dive in, you guys. So we’ll be discussing what she meant to work with us for, what she needed some support with, what we found in her labs, the process we took her through, and how she’s feeling on the other side. So we’re gonna be digging into all of those details with her. So let’s dive on in. If you’re new here and you’re not super familiar with who I am, I’m Hannah Elbert, I’m the CEO and founder of Pan.

And at hand, we really help women overcome chronic digestive issues by looking under the hood, taking a deeper root cause approach to repairing digestive function and rebalancing with that microbiome. And we specialize in helping women overcome these chronic digestive issues. So things we see a lot: floating, constipation, food sensitivities, burning, stomach pain, food anxiety. That’s kind of the results of all of this.

People have been told they have quote unquote IDS. So there’s a lot that goes into it. And we’ll also see a lot of bacterial overdose, infections, fungal overgrowth, all of that stuff. So we’ll be talking through some of that today. So if you’re new here, that’s just a little bit of context. I’ve been doing this for close to 10 years now. So we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clients. I know the functional health space is like exploding in ruler, but between Ebrian and May 2, we have 30 plus years of experience. So we’ve seen a lot, a lot of cases. And you learn a lot just by working this a lot.

Well we’re done on top of all the trainings, right? So there’s nothing that really beats the like real world experience. So let’s dive in. I’m gonna break down a client case study today. This side came to us with a bunch of different chronic GI issues. I’ll walk us through that. I’ll walk us through what we found in her case and then how we supported her to get her to the other side. So this giant worked with us inside of my HGSB program. And she came in and I’m just I’m literally gonna read some notes from her intake form, right? So this is like

Copy paste from what she told us. So she had digestive issues since her early 20s. She said, I had what I remember as more diarrhea in response to foods, but sometime in my late 20s to OE serve, it transitioned to the constipation. She had seen multiple MDs and was currently on Linzest to manage the constipation. Raise your hand if that resonates with you. We see a lot of clients coming to us taking something like Linzest to help with the constipation. And then we find that after the steepering work,

Hannah Aylward (03:41.09)

They can, under the guidance of their doctor, kind of tie straight off of it because they’ll just find that they just don’t, they simply don’t need it anymore. And sometimes we’ll see clients who have tried things like Linzest and it still hasn’t really helped, right? So it was recommended to them, but the constipation still persists and there’s deeper root causes and reasoning underneath all of that too. So she had been dealing with that. She had also been on acne for girl acne. She was on that in 2002. So she’s been dealing with these issues for a long time.

Right, years and years, like 10, 20, 30 years, she’s been doing with this stuff. She said, I saw at one point in my life that my digestion was malformed. She was concerned that there was a bigger issue going on. But the more I look into it, she’s wondering if something else is kind of going on. But she had never really gotten proper testing. So she had seen gastroenterologists, she had seen her primary care physician, she’d been put on lynxest, she had been put on actane. There’s a big connection between chronic constipation and acne. Having chronic constipation will increase your risk for acne.

There are reasons for that. When we cannot excrete toxins out of the body via the stool, they can start to purge through the skin. So we’ll see that toxic burden goes up, and then we’ll see it start to express itself through the skin. There are many reasons for that. Chronic constipation can also increase estrogen dominance because we excrete excess estrogen via our stool as well. So there’s a lot going on here. This is not rare to see that these things go hand in hand, in addition to the fact that chronic constipation just feels terrible. Right? If it feels terrible, I dealt with it.

When you can’t properly eliminate on a daily basis, it just feels awful and you feel heavy and it can cause nausea, it can cause more food reactions, it can cause more bloating. It’s really no fun. So she had also come into us eating a healthy diet. And this is something that we see time and time again. So I would say most of the clients that we work with are not eating ultra-processed foods, they’re not eating McDonald’s, they’re not eating fast food. They’re more mindful, right? Maybe it’s here and there, but they are putting in a lot of effort to optimize their diet. They’ve done a lot of research. They’ve

Read the blog post, they’ve listened to the podcast, they’ve done a lot of self-education and they’re doing a great job. They’re putting in a lot of effort to overcome their chronic digestive issues and support their gut health. So they’re already like watching it, right? They’re eating a whole foods-based diet, they’re minimizing ultra-processed foods, they’re minimizing alcohol, they’re minimizing sugar, vacinessing, and displaying it perfectly fit into that scenario as well. And this is where it can become really confusing because.

Hannah Aylward (06:02.082)

You’re like putting in all this effort, you’re eating fiber, you’re eating duckies, you’re eating all these good palpable foods, protein, all of that, and you’re still dealing with chronic constipation, too reactions, and you’re less wondering what the heck is going on. I’m putting in all this effort and my results are not matching my effort. And this is how I felt for years and years before I kind of got to the bottom of my own chronic digestive issues. It felt like I was putting in all of this effort. I was exercising, I was.

Now I was hating, I was taking probiotics, I was taking L-butamine, I was eating a healthy Wolf Street’s diet, and I was still dealing with chronic brooding to the point where I would look like four to six months pregnant. At the end of the day, with belly blow, my abvin would just like distend after eating almost everything that I ate caused that, led to a unblight gas, of a build-out. It was super, super uncomfortable. Talk about not wanting to go out and hang out with your friends, A, because of the pain, and B, because it’s just like you don’t even know what to wear, right?

So this was my life for many, many years, which had led me to this work. And this plant really falls right into that scenario as well. So she was drinking like matcha, she was making her own non-dairy milks at home. She was eating ground chicken, rice, veggies, egg whites with spinach, that kind of thing, right? She was also meal prepping. She was trapping from macros as well, because she was on like a fitness journey. So she was putting in some really good work. And I don’t even do that. That’s not even

I don’t even try five macros and I should meal cut more than I do. So she was putting in a lot of effort here. She didn’t drink alcohol. She didn’t drink coffee. She was also already taking many healthy supportive supplements. So she was taking fish oil. She was taking a multivite in the morning. She was taking creatine. And she was also already taking psyllium flask to help with the constipation. So she was putting in a lot of great effort. And it’s not even that these things are long, it’s that it wasn’t addressing of her underlying root causes. And that is really, really key.

To getting you feeling better much more quickly, as opposed to just like throwing random things at your digestive issues and seeing what works. We want to work with data and also your presentation to build on a more customized plan for you. So it wasn’t that she was eating an unhealthy diet or she had never invested in soaplines or anything like that. It was that she was throwing a lot at her digestive issues that actually wasn’t addressing what she was uniquely dealing with underneath the surface. So when she came to us, she had

Hannah Aylward (08:18.158)

Chronic bloating, burping, lots of gas, bloating, gas go hand in hand. And in addition, they also go hand in hand with things like classification. Cause essentially the longer that stool sits in the GI tract, the more it will lead to bloating and gas. We get this over fermentation and my gut. She alpha felt like food was just like sitting in her stomach after eating. So really heavy. Raise your hand if you resonate with that, right? You eat food, you fill it really quickly, you’re like floated, burping quite quickly after eating.

This is a very common thing that we see in clients. Chronic constipation. So she was dealing with a lot of constipation. She had some reflux. She also had acne. She had been on acne chain four years ago and it never really fully went away. Not surprised because it was really stemming from the gut microbiome. And she also had to be killing cracking and fingernails, too. So all of these things go hand in hand. They have overlapping root causes. When we look at acne, constipation, chronic bloating, food sensitivities, burping, gas.

They have overlapping underlying root causes. So not everyone’s root causes will be the same as someone else’s, which I think is really important to understand, which is why testing is very, very important here, because there are many underlying gut issues that can cause bloating. It’s not the same thing for everyone, which is also why the solution isn’t the same for everyone. So one person can feel immensely better after taking digestive envines, and another person won’t notice any difference at all.

That’s because they have different underlying root causes contributing to the bloating, gas, and distension. So that’s why a customized plan for your knees is key. When I drop this into my life, that literally makes my whole life, that’s why I do this for today, because I was doing all of the right stuff and it wasn’t working. So once again, bloating, bursing, gas, food sitting in her stomach, reflex, constipation to the point where she was taking wings as acne, weed killing cracking fingernails, which is usually reflective of nutrient absorption issues, which will be.

Result about duper gut issues. So on our lab findings, we run functional soul testing with all of our clients. Non-negotiable for us. It helps us understand what’s going on in the gut. This is very different from soul testing that you would get from your GI job. This is also very different from a hoopolonoscopy or an endoscopy. Not that anything is right or wrong or better or worse. Sometimes we need all of these things, right? So in no way am I trying to discourage someone for going for their colonoscopy, it can save your life.

Hannah Aylward (10:36.462)

If your doctor are gonna zip, please go. There’s just more than a story, right? So when we go for something like a colonoscopy, they’re checking for the big stuff. They’re checking for really severe inflammation, they’re checking for polyps, they’re checking for precancerous cells, they’re checking for really bad degradation of the dot barrier. All of that stuff’s really important, but it will not find everything. So almost all of our clients will come to us after they’ve gone through a colonoscopy, after they’ve gone through the endoscopy and it hasn’t solved their chronic GI issues. And endoscopy is gonna check.

The upper salpiteal tissue, it’s gonna check the stomach, it’s gonna check the upper intestine as well, but it is upper small intestine, but it’s not checking everything else going on. So can be incredibly valuable, can also come back totally normal, no good findings, and we can still have other gut microbial imbalances contributing to our chronic GI issues. So I just want to make that clear. It’s a good thing if your colonoscopy and your endoscopy come back normal. That’s a really good.

Sign. There’s just more to the story if you feel like, okay, I’ve gone to the labs and they keep coming back normal. My blood work comes back normal, my colonosity comes back normal, my anodosity comes back normal, but I’m dealing with chronic bloating and distension and abdominal and that kind of thing. There’s just more to the story. So it’s a good thing they came back normal. And now it just requires some deeper digging. So in nowhere are you like broken or there’s some things here or wrong that no one can figure out. You just need a better strategy. That’s kind of as simple as we can put it. So

We run functional soul testing. It’s going to check for bacterial levels, overgrowths, and undergrowth. We will see infections, bacterial infections, parasitic infections, protozoa. We’ll also see maldigestion patterns. We can see overgrowth patterns. We can see fungal overgrowth patterns as well. We’ll also see gut barrier, some markers that kind of can let us know how your gut barrier is doing. We’ll also see gut immune markers to see how your gut immune function, how well that’s working. We’ll see your digestive enzyme production.

We’ll see your fat maladgeon. So it gives us a lot to work with when it comes to getting you feeling better. That’s way more than just like a positive or negative. It’s more so assessing your gut microbiome and your digestive capacity of your digestive function. And it will also check some like, you know, more routine things like health protectin, which is just a marker of insulation. So when we ran her functional soul test, we can see that she has a helicobactive pyori infection.

Hannah Aylward (12:58.508)

So H. priori is just a bacterial infection. It comes in, it burrows into the stomach lining, it causes a lot of irritation and inflammation in the stomach. It will also damage the parietal cells that produce stomach acid. So when someone has this infection in higher levels, we will see patterns of low stomach acid that do not respond to things like HCl and pepsin, right? It doesn’t the solution to this is not just simply supplementing with more acid. It could actually make things worse because.

When you’re adding acid to your GI tract and you already have irritation and inflammation, it can lead to tissue damage. So we always want to be careful when we’re starting adding in anything as not severe but strong, as strong as acid, right? So this is not like a one supplement fix. Curtomic acid patterns are coming from chronic stress and also this health of trainary infection. So

This is what’s contributing to constipation, nutrient malabsorption, chronic bloating that she’s experiencing. And we will see it a lot in acne cases. It’s very common to see chronic acne cases that don’t respond to like accutane, serolectone, and topicals and glycolic acid or whatever, all of the serums that kind of thing.

If it’s not responding to those interventions, there’s very likely an underlying issue on the desurface. Typically in the acne cases, it’s going to be a combination of like gut issues, mineral and nutrient deficiencies, liver issues as well. So we have detoxation of drainage stuff going on. It can also be influenced by hormones, absolutely. So we can see elevated estrogens, we can see elevated androgens. So

There’s a lot that we can dig into there, but we do see Helpopactor pylonial infections very consistent with chronic acne cases, which is why no toppables work because we’re not actually addressing those underlying root causes. And this is the first day finding her case. She also had chronic reflux. This absolutely contributes to chronic reflux, things like gastritis, damage of the upper esophageal tissue, irritation, inflammation. So this is a big finding for us, and it’s making a lot of sense in her case. She has this infection, so we need to eradicate this infection.

Hannah Aylward (15:00.184)

So we see this bacterial inception. That’s the first thing, right? And then as we continue to go through the rest of her test resolves, she has really highly elevated levels of her bacterial phyla. And your bacterial phyla make up a huge portion of her gut microbiome. So they make up like 70 to 80 percent of the bacteria in your gut microbiome. Your gut microbiome houses trillions of different microorganisms: bacteria, fungi and yeast, archaea, parasites.

All of these things are naturally occurring. We run into issues when things start to get out of balance, right? So she has patterns of overgrowth, which is very common when we’re not breaking down our food deficiently.

So she has bacterial disease and fermictidase are both elevated in Cartitis, essentially showing us that her bacterial levels are overgrown. This is consistent with like a SIVO picture that she took a breath test and tested for SIVO. With her doctor, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had SIVO, but she has these patterns of overgrowth overall. And whenever there are chatters of overgrowth, we have to ask why. Why is this happening? Why are dysfacteria overgrowing in the gut?

This is very commonly the result of maldigestion. We’re not breaking down our food essentially. So we have maldigested chunks of food sitting in the GI tract. They’re feeding these bacteria, overfeeding bacteria in the gut microbiome. It’s fermenting these bacteria giving off gas. You feel dissension, gas bloating, which is also why it’s very common for those with something like SIBO to have like that really painful belly dissension. And like you wanna put a pin in your stomach and pop it because it’s so full of gas and bloating. That’s how I used to feel. I would just say.

Burping and it was like so descended and awful and painful because then you start to cramp. It’s really not fun. And this is the result of the overproduction of gas. So she has overgrown gut bacteria in her case. She also has a bacterial infection. So this is why she’s like taking fish oil. I think she said she was taking a multivitamin, she was taking creatine, she was taking psyllium busts. These are all great supplements, but they’re not addressing what she uniquely needs.

Hannah Aylward (17:01.036)

And this is key. This is how you avoid five years of guessing on your own, is to understand what’s actually going on underneath the surface. So then as we continue looking at her test results, she has more patterns of bacterial overgrowth, not surprised, as the result of this maldigestion pattern and this gut insection. Then we can keep going and we also see that she has fungal overgrowths in the gut. So she has elevated levels of candida. Many people have heard of candida. Candida is a type of fungi or yeast set in the gut.

Is naturally occurring and considered commensal in smaller levels. So lower levels are a huge thing to worry about. We run into more issues when we have elevated levels and overgrown levels of this fungi in the grow bile. So we have this yeast overgrowth, this Tandita overgrowth. This will cause tons of floating food reactions. It can also lead to like brain fog. It can lead to gut barrier issues. It can lead to acne. It’s very common to see this pattern of H. pyloric and chandita.

Presented at once, which is once again why if you listen to my podcast, if you follow me at all, I’m always saying it’s never just one thing. It’s never just asphagolary, it’s never just physical overgrowth, it’s never decebo. All of these things exist together because when one part of the gut function of the gut microbiome starts to go, it’s going to impact the rest of the gut environment. So it’s never just one of these things.

Which is why throwing random supplements added doesn’t get you feeling better because we’re not addressing this picture more holistically than comprehensively. So she has this fungal overgrowth. Other things that we’ll see with this are like oral threshold or white coating on the tongue. We’ll see, I think I just mentioned acne, right? We’ll see intense sugar cravings. All of that’s pretty consistent and common with that fungal overgrowth picture. Lots of bloating. We can see his elevated histamine issues here too. So like histamine intolerance, it’s going to damage the gut barrier.

So she has a combination of a gut infection, she has bacterial overgrowth, and she has fungal overgrowth in her case. And by the time we see the fungal overgrowth on a test like this, this test is checking the large intestine and the majority of candida hangs out in the small intestine and the stomach. So I’m thinking her levels are even higher than what we’re seeing here. This is the result of us doing this work for many, many years. This is not what you will get, what you ask.

Hannah Aylward (19:15.906)

Chat GDT, for example, there’s a lot of nuance involved in creating protocols and understanding what’s actually going on that a simple test result will not give you, right? So it’s kind of like an art form understanding the nuances of everything. So she has a lot of overgrowth present. And then when we keep going, she also has really low elastase. So she’s not producing adequate enzymes to actually break down her food. This is being influenced by.

The bacterial infection, the helicobacter pyority infection that she has. And that’s contributing to low stomach acid, which is then contributing to lower elastase level. So she does need help actually breaking down for food, which once again, this is what’s contributing to that bacterial overgrowth and the fungal overgrowth that’s occurring in the gut. She’s not breaking down her food efficiently. So it’s causing things to overgrow. So once again, it’s all connected, right? So she has really low elastase.

They’ll usually see and feel things like bloating, constipation. You can see undigested food in your stool when you have lower elastase levels. You can see just like burping. It doesn’t matter what you eat, you’re reacting to it. So it’s hard to pick up patterns. You’re like, it doesn’t really matter. I’m eating healthy food, I’m eating French fries, I’m eating this. Like I’m bloated and gasty after everything that I eat. This is very commonly seen when we’re just not producing adequate digestive juices to break down our food. And then she also.

Had really low separatory IDA levels as well. So her gut immune function was really cloumeted, right? So her gut immune function wasn’t working optimally, which could also contribute to these imbalances in that microbiome piece. So there’s a ton that we can support her with here. So she’s been told everything’s good. There’s nothing really that we can do. Take lynxess. And when I look at this, there’s tons that we can do. She’s got fungal overgrowth, she has bacterial overgrowth.

She has no bacterial infection. She has maldigestion patterns. She’s not producing adequate stomach acid. She’s not producing adequate enzymes. Her bile flow is also probably struggling because of all of these things. So there’s a ton that we can do. She has huge overgrowth that’s also contributing to degradation of that gut barrier or something like quote unquote weaky gut, which is then leading to more food reactions and sensitivities, which is also why she feels like she’s needing a healthy wholesous diet.

Hannah Aylward (21:27.926)

And she’s tracking her macros and she’s exercising and she’s hydrating and she’s eating fiber. And that bloating and constipation is not budging because there are other imbalances in the gut microbiome and digestive function that are contributing to the bloating and the constipation that she’s experiencing. So there’s tons that we can work on with her here. So I’m very glad that she decided to work with us because she was being told that you know there’s nothing she could do and everything looked normal, everything looks good. Okay, so we found once again a lot in her case, right?

The first thing that you did with her is they wanted to support her secretory IGA levels. So this is before any eradication takes place, right? People love to just throw herbal antimicrobials at things. It’s an important part of the process, sure. But she had really low secretory IDA levels, meaning that she was likely going to more negatively react to interventions. She was probably dealing with like a more burnout picture as well. And her gut immune function wasn’t strong enough.

To tolerate certain things. So we needed to work with her to support precipatory IGA rebels first and foremost. We did not jump her immediately into antimicrobial herbs or anything like that. We had to work on this level first. So we started working with her on that. We also started to gently support digestive function right up the date. Somic acid production, bile flow, and enzyme production as well. We also needed to get her bowels moving before we worked on eradication with her.

She was dealing with that kind of constipation. You don’t want to throw a bunch of like probiotics or herbals or antibiotics at the issue if you’re not able to eliminate on a daily basis, because it can lead to enter hepatic circular recirculation where we basically get.

These toxins just coming back into circulation because you can’t actually move them through and move them out of the system via your stool. A very simple way to put it is like we just gotta get you pooping. We gotta get you eliminating on a daily basis. These are some of the first steps that we took with her. We also worked with her on nervous system support. You worked with her on balancing her blood sugar, and we also worked with her on rebalancing her mineral status. So we looked at supporting adrenal function using nutrients, vitamins, and minerals.

Hannah Aylward (23:36.204)

while also bolstering those secretory IGA levels. So there’s a lot of like prep and foundational support and priming that goes into these protocols, which is, I think, missing in a lot of people’s protocols. It’s not something that I was taught. I will tell you that this is something you learned over years and years of experience because people are reacting and results weren’t sticking.

Hannah Aylward (24:00.654)

We are big fans of eating enough protein over here on Team Han. Protein is essential for muscle repair, a strong gut lining, balanced blood sugar levels, and so much more. For most of our clients, we like recommending around 100 grams of protein per day to start, and adding in a good quality protein powder can be super helpful for hitting those numbers. It’s an easy add in, you can throw it into a smoothie or even add it to oatmeal. Choosing the right protein powder can feel so overwhelming.

Half of them are full of fillers and crap ingredients, and the other half honestly just taste bad. Equip protein is one of my go-to recommendations for our clients and one of my personal favorites. We love it because it only has a small handful of ingredients. It’s 100% carefully sourced, real foods, no additives, allergens, chemicals, fillers, or other junk. It’s gluten-free and it contains 21 grams of protein per serving. Equip’s Prime Protein also offers

A complete amino acid profile. It’s also independently tested to make sure that the protein powder is free of harmful amounts of heavy metals and toxins like glyphosate, which is honestly super hard to find. Equip Prime Protein is a grass-fed beef protein. So it is animal-based, but it’s dairy-free, unlike whey or casein protein powders. Grass-fed beef protein is packed with collagen, gelatin, and micronutrients that your body needs.

We also see that it’s typically much better tolerated in our clients with chronic gut and digestive issues over something like a plant-based protein powder. In addition, some of their flavors do contain natural flavors, but they’re distilled vapors from natural and organic compounds or fruits like vanilla, coconut, and strawberry, and are processed without any chemicals, fillers, binders, or artificial ingredients, which once again is incredibly hard to find. Personally, I buy both the chocolate and the vanilla.

Flavors of the Equip Prime Protein, but honestly, they have like so many other incredible flavors out now. If you’re interested in trying out Equip Prime Protein, you can use the code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC at checkout for 15% off. And we’ll pop that code in the show notes of this episode for you as well. So once again, you can go to equipfoods.com, choose the flavor of protein powder that you want, and then use code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC for 15% off.

Hannah Aylward (26:19.608)

We have to work on these foundational things first before we look at eradicating anything. So that’s what we really worked on with her decreasing inflammation, optimizing digestive function, supporting nutrient absorption, supporting digestive function as well, and then supporting obsequatory IGA levels. So that was kind of first and foremost here. Then he walked her into eradicating the H. pylori and bringing those levels down because that was.

causing a bunch of the stuff that she was experiencing, bloating, constipation, apnea, all of that. So we brought in some strategy with that. We only work with natural supplementation, right? So we’re using a combination of herbals, biocome disruptors, probiotics, all of these things to bring those levels down and eradicate that bacterial insection while also continuing her on all of that prime work.

Increasing polysainols to support the gut barrier and support metabolic function, supporting her adrenal function as well, through minerals, through blood sugar balance, supporting her nervous system, supporting secretory IGA levels, right? This is all taking place as we’re working her through those next steps as well. We’re also strategically adding in binders. So once we come in and we penetrate these bacteria and we kill off these bacteria, that will temporarily increase stress on the body. So we need to strategically add in things like binders.

To help to buy space toxins so can then be excreted out through your stool. So we’re adding all of these things in combination and laying them into her protocol. We also had her on some motility support during this time. So your gut motility is like the rate at which food moves through your GI tract. Sometimes we can have some motility and constipation. It doesn’t always present like constipation, but I’d say more commonly it does. She was clearly dealing with solar motility, right? Because things were kind of backed up.

Was feeling heavy. She needed the lensest to actually go to the bathroom. So we also were supporting her gut motility naturally throughout this process as well. If you have slow gut motility, that will lead to overgrowth in the gut because things aren’t moving through quickly enough. So once again, maldigestive patterns, slow gutility, things are sitting in your GI tract longer than we want them to. It’s fermenting, it’s overfeeding these bacteria. We’re getting overgross. We’re getting a lot of gas and bloating, consultation, that kind of thing. So

Hannah Aylward (28:30.914)

We were supporting her with her gut motility as well and finding that she didn’t need as much of the lamb zest as we progressed her protocol. After that, we then worked with her on supporting bile flow using targeted supplements as well. Then we also looked at increasing her stomach acid and supporting those levels after we walked her through that first eradication phase. And then, and only then did we start looking at rebalancing the microbial case and bringing down those fungal levels.

The levels of candida and also bringing down that bacterial overgrowth in her gut. So there is a lot that happens before that, right? We do a lot of priming before we jump into any eradication. And once again, this is something that I see being missed by other practitioners over and over again. Because we will work with people who are seeing like naturopaths, functional medicine doctors, functional medicine chiropractors.

Other nutritionists, acupuncturists, whatever it might be. But a big thing that I commonly see is we’re just completely lacking this grinding space. So we’re jumping the body into something that it’s simply not ready to do yet. It’s not strong enough to do. And we’re looking at just tilling off bacteria, but we’re not addressing why the bacteria are overgrown in the first place. Is the body strong enough? We’re not addressing stomach acid, bioflow, all of these other pieces of the puzzle that go into getting someone feeling significantly better.

So we watch her through this process, bringing down the paying data levels, bringing down the bacterial overgrowth levels. And then towards the end, we do some strategic sealing of the gut microbiome. So we add in certain nutrients to support sealing that gut barrier because microbial overgrowth will contribute to irritation of the gut barrier. This is why we have to look at the whole picture when it comes to something like quote unquote leafy gut or increased intestinal permeability. Leafy gut doesn’t just happen for no reason.

We have to understand why the intestinal lining is getting hyperpermeable. What is contributing to the breakdown of the GI winding? And there are many things that can do that. And one of the many is bacterial overgrowth, also fungal overgrowth, other infections, chronic stress, all of these things will start to degrade that gut barrier and could actually lead to those leaky junctions in that episcopal layer of the gut lining.

Hannah Aylward (30:45.666)

So we want to come in and strategically seal up that gut barrier, but this is only after we’ve done all this other stuff. Because if you just go to throw L-glutamine at things or aloe or whatever it might be, or what are other things that people will use and say carcinom, right? If you simply throw that at the issue, we’re not addressing any of this other stuff that actually led to the degradation of a barrier. So it’s like you’re gonna be sitting your wheels. This was part of what.

my story. I often have people asking, well, how long did it take you to to heal your gut? And I’m like, you guys, I didn’t know what I was doing. It was like elimination diet. It was no button, no dairy, no sugar, no alcohol. It was enzymes and berberine and aluminum, all these things. And I didn’t understand the full picture. So I was like taking tons and tons of stuff. And it was like helping me feel like 10% better, 20% better. But nothing was really working because I didn’t actually understand what I was dealing with. So my journey took forever. It took forever.

But at this point, I’ve been over these chronic digestive issues for years now, because I’ve been doing this for almost 10 years. But it took a long time because I didn’t know all of this. I didn’t know that I needed a more comprehensive plan. And this is the feedback that we’ll get often from clients is like, this is the most comprehensive vet protocol I’ve ever seen in my life because we’re looking at hitting it from multiple different angles, not simply just probiotics or fiber. There’s a lot more that goes into it, right?

So this was kind of one of her more final phases. We also brought in some other strategic supplements, things like magnesium to support nervous system, to support gut motility, all of that. Once again, hitting this from multiple angles. And things like magnesium are like super wonderful to kind of continue taking after a more intensive protocol. So the more intensive protocol that we put her through lasted about three months. And then we walked her through more of like a maintenance phase and resealed net gut barrier. And she is

continued on sealing up that gut barrier for a couple months afterwards, but the supplement load decreased because we kind of like took her through this phase and then walked her through more of like a round and stands out phase. So at the end of the program, when she came in to work with us, she said she was at about a three out of a 10. So she was dealing with bloating, constipation, I needed lenses, breakouts, all of that. And then at the end of the program, her health was at about a nine. And this is directly from her forms that she filled out for us. So she said never see one bloated after meals.

Hannah Aylward (33:02.324)

Never feeling bloating get force throughout the day, not verping after meals, no more gas after meals, no longer feeling like food sits in the stomach. She also said no more undigested food in her stool. She said no low energy, no need for like an afternoon nap, no more acne. This is after acne tain and then acne coming right back, right? So we saw huge improvement, like massive improvement. She was having daily down illness. Incredible, right? So when she was recommended the LIMS.

It’s not that that’s inherently bad. It’s just that no one’s asking why do you need it in the first place? What’s going on underneath the surface? And how could we support that? So you may not need this again in the future. That’s kind of like a band-aid, right? It’s like, okay, we’ll sock this on it and we’ll just force the bowel movements. But what we found is she has maldigestion, she has like that infection, she has major microbial overgrowth. All of this is causing the constipation and the bloating and the skin breakouts that she’s experiencing. So once we address that.

I mean, look at this, it’s not here anymore, you know? So pretty amazing progress. She got this progress inside of my HGSB program. It’s a four-month program. So, all in all, it was about four months of work together. Some people will need a little bit more time. She responded really well, given the fact that she had been struggling with chronic digestive issues for she said since her 20s. So this was years. This was like decades of chronic DIY issues. So she responded really well. Sometimes, if someone’s been troubling for decades and you need a little bit more time, I would say on average.

People are looking at four to maybe eight months of work together to really truly get to the bottom of all of this. It’s not an overnight six. So if anyone is telling you this one supplement or you can do this seven day detox and no all the one, it’s just not true. It’s like the tiny way I can say it is it’s just simply not true. It doesn’t work like that, right? Like you can do little, I I don’t really love the term cleanse, but like little breaks and stuff where you like take out alcohol or you take out dairy or you take out blue.

Sure, right, but it’s not really addressing the actual dysfunction underneath the surface. And that’s what we want to do. So it takes a little bit of time. And I like to be very upfront with expectations for people when we’re not slapping band-aids on things and we’re actually looking to support your body’s underlying physiology and help it do what it knows how to do. It doesn’t happen in a week. It happens in a couple of good, focused, targeted months. And there are a lot of things that come into play here too. It’s like environmental toxin exposure.

Hannah Aylward (35:23.8)

Genetic detoxication capabilities, things like genetic SIPs and things can play a role too, adherence, all of that. But this was really in a good four months. She saw her health go from a three to a nine, which is pretty, pretty amazing. Overall, no more need for lynxes, no more constipation, no more cryo bloating, skin’s teared up after we targeted those underlying root causes. So

If you’re interested in working with us, you can always set up a strategy call. The link for that is in my bio. So you can book time with me on my calendar. We can through your case, make sure we’re the best sit to help you and support you. I’ll be honest and we can like talk through your case, what you’re working with, all of that, what we’re looking at, and see if we’re the best people to help you get better. So that link is always in my bio. You can book a call. And then if you’re interested in joining my HTSD program, I’ll break that down very briefly before we hop off.

HSP is a program I’ve been running since 2019. This will be our 23rd round of clients in this program. We usually help anywhere between 30 to 60 people in this program at a time. So we’ve seen a lot, a lot of teases and have been doing this for a long time. It’s a four-month program. We run functional school testing. Sometimes we layer in other testing, if need be. We build out customized protocols using targeted nutrition, customized supplement interventions, and lifestyle strategy as well. There’s educational modules in the program. I do life group coaching in the program.

And you’ll be free one-on-one sessions with a practitioner on my team that builds out this protocol for you and walks you through everything. So it’s a hybrid of group coaching, live QA’s, one-on-one support and testing. And the final rounds of the year starts in September. We will not have another round until 2027, which feels crazy to say 2027 out loud. I’m like, is that right? Like this must even seem right. Are we really almost in 2027? Anyway.

That’s crazy. So it’s like the last time for the year. So if you are interested in that, you can just DM me the word or message me the word wait list and I’ll get that over for you. And if you’re listening to this on the podcast, you can find the link to sign up to the wait list in the show notes below. Okay, you guys. I hope this was super, super helpful. This is what’s possible for you. So never ever lose hope. There’s so much that we can do to better your quality of life and to help you overcome your panic digestive issues. I am a walking example of this.

Hannah Aylward (37:29.336)

The reason why I feel so passionately about all of this work is because it quite literally changed my life, which may sound dramatic, but I’m not being dramatic. My life drastically changed after I got to the bottom of my card GI issues and overcame a lot of this stuff because my whole world revolved around how is my stomach gonna feel? How bad is my bloating gonna be? Do I be energy for this? I can’t eat out, I can’t travel, I feel nauseous, I’m constipated. It was a nightmare. On the other side, I travel.

I don’t get travel constipation. I can eat dairy again. My life is just so much better. And I think that if we really want to like live out our lives as we’re meant to be here while we have the time on the planet, then we need to be feeling in good health for that. So yeah, would love to help you for anyone that’s interested. Feel free to always just send me a message. And I’ll see you later, maybe next week for another training. Okay. Big conversation, every one of you. Talk soon. Bye guys.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then.