Stomach pain is a common symptom that I see in my clinic. I am always interested in how my colleagues treat the same conditions that I see in my practice. The following case is that of one of my colleagues, Dr. Ronald Grisanti of South Carolina. He is the amazing founder of functionalmedicineuniversity.com.
A Case of Gut Inflammation
A woman came into his clinic with the main complaint of mucus and blood in her stool. She was diagnosed by her family doctor with inflammatory bowel disease and prescribed steroids that only helped while she was taking them. The root of the problem was never addressed nor were any measures taken to heal the area that was inflamed.
As functional medicine doctors, we look deeper to find the underlying cause of the conditions we see. When it comes to belly symptoms, we often look for nutrient imbalances, lack of digestive enzymes, food sensitivities, intestinal permeability (leaky gut), and dysbiosis (imbalance in the gut flora). These problems will often show up as inflammation. Inflammation leads to pain and often other disease states.
A Hot and Buggy Problem
In this case, Dr. Ron did a GI stool test and found two bugs, Morganella morganii and staphylococcus aureus. He also found elevated inflammatory markers one of which was lactoferrin. Lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein that is found in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and also Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and infection, but not in non-inflammatory irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
Bye Bye Bugs
He treated the microbes (bugs) with caprylic acid, berberine (which is also effective in controlling blood sugar levels), thyme oil, oregano, cat’s claw, black walnut, and undecylenic acid.
He had his patient use a medical food called UltraInflamX Plus 360 (you can find it through our website) and adhere to a grain-free and dairy-free diet for 3 months to decrease the inflammation.
A Happy Ending
What is remarkable is that without steroids and within 30 days she was pain-free, without blood or mucus in her stools. On retest, after the 3 months, her inflammatory markers were normal and there were no pathogenic microbes to be found. 6 months later she was still symptom-free.
Hope this can help you or someone you care about.
Dr. Stacey