Elemental Diet Rapidly Improves Bloating, Gas & Abdominal Pain

Intro:

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DrMichaelRuscio:

Hi everyone. This is Dr. Ruscio. I am here with Jen who has had some nice results with Elemental Heal and she was kind enough to share her story. So Jen, I’m really excited to hear more about your journey.

Jen:

Great. Thank you.

DrMR:

So I don’t know a ton about your case, and I try to leave these questions for us to go through in this conversation, but tell us a little bit about the road up to Elemental Heal your symptoms. Maybe you’ve seen some doctors, maybe you’ve tried some diets. Tell us a little bit about what was going on up until now.

How I Got Here

Jen:

So for over a year, I had just had symptoms that continued to get worse and worse. I had been dealing with extreme belching, extreme stomach distention. I always felt like I was full, so I was never hungry, but I knew that I was having trouble eating. Pretty much right before I started Elemental Heal I couldn’t eat anything without some kind of symptom. I had tried the low FODMAP diet elimination diets. I had been through extensive testing with my gastro specialist and I had just finished a colonoscopy and some biopsies with no results that were helpful. Nobody knew what was wrong. I said to my doctor, have you heard of SIBO? He said yes. We discussed it and decided that I would pursue antibiotics, but my insurance would not cover them. So, because I had spent such a long time trying to heal myself and try other methods, I chose to do some more research. Then I found Elemental Heal. I was pretty miserable by that time. I wasn’t sleeping because of the symptoms and I was having trouble working and thinking.

DrMR:

Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon story. On the one hand, some good things happened. You had any major pathologies ruled out by your gastro and your conventional doctors, which I think everyone should. Just to reiterate this for people, my position has always been, we should have at least one doctor on each side of the fence, because while there is some overlap in the Venn diagram, there are also differences in what we’re looking for. So to make sure that there is no major potentially threatening pathology present, it is important to have a conventional doctor as well. It is good that you ruled that out. Which is good on the one hand and frustrating on the other, because it leaves the patient saying, well, what do I do? Then you also tried some diets, low FODMAP is a great initial diet to try along with the Elimination Diet. So those are both very intelligent first dietary steps to go through. So you really had done an A+ kind job on the way up to this point.

DrMR:

I also don’t blame you for feeling a little bit miserable because when you’re doing this stuff, seeing doctors and changing your diet and not feeling any better, it can be really frustrating. I’m glad that you are all about the potential of SIBO or some type of disruption of the flora in the gut and Rifaximin is FDA approved to help with IBS. So that’s definitely an option, but unfortunately, as you mentioned, for some people, it’s really a battle with their insurance to obtain coverage. This is where I think probiotics have a lot of potential utility because we haven’t done the analysis yet, but I’m fairly certain when we do a cost analysis, comparing the Rifaxamin with the probiotics, we’ll find the probiotics are vastly cheaper as one option or the Elemental Diet as another option. The nice thing about the Elemental Diet is that there is fairly rapid relief in symptoms. Not to say it is the best option, but it may be one of the more expeditions. Is that what you noticed? Was there a fairly quick response in terms of your symptoms?

Improved Quality of Life

Jen:

Yes, I would say definitely by the third day that my quality of life had completely flipped around. On a scale of one to a hundred, it probably was at a five, then it was up to 95. To your point, I think the Elemental Diet and all the other things that I had tried, for me, I had been spending so much money on food and testing that it just really felt like I was out of options and I was willing to just drink liquid. So you have to be ready to do that too. I was at a place where I was ready to do it consistently. So yes, my symptoms improved after just a day, but almost all of them were drastically improved by the third day.

DrMR:

Okay. Yeah, that expeditious response. Was it difficult for you to do? One of the things I’d love for you to speak to, and then there’s no right or wrong answer here, I’m not trying to lead you in one direction. But one of the things people will read about online, depending on where they start their meeting with the Elemental Diet, there’s some more dated literature or opinions that Elemental Diets taste terrible. This was true based on early formulas. The newer formulas of the Elemental Heal line has had some major revisions in terms of a flavor profile. So what did you think about taste? How difficult was it to do? How did those other aspects affect you? Just trying to get a feel for that person who is saying “Oh my gosh, exclusive liquid nutrition, that sounds really hard”.

Jen:

Yeah, it was hard. So I’m still using it. I started by using it for 17 days, only the Elemental Diet. I just played around with ratios. So ice cubes and do I want to use 2/3 cup liquid, or 1/2 cup or a full cup. I purchased the vanilla and the chocolate. I think the taste is fine. I had no problem tolerating the taste of the Elemental Heal formula. I was really happy because I had read so many stories about diets like that tasting really bad. So that was also important to me when I was doing my research and trying to figure out what diet I wanted to choose. I felt I would have a better shot if it was getting good reviews taste-wise, and it did on your site.

Reintroduction Phase

DrMR:

So you did it for 17 days exclusively. Have you gone through the food reintroduction yet? What does that mean?

Jen:

Actually, did I say seven 17 days? I think I’m wrong about that. It was just over, I think it was just over two weeks that I did it exclusively. So then I did reach out to your health coach and scheduled an appointment because I knew that I had to figure out how to reintroduce food and I was really nervous about that. But to answer your question, yes, I have been introducing very, very slowly, the three probiotics and then just reintroducing food. I’ve learned the hard way from my moments of weakness, that there are things that I don’t tolerate. It is so important for me to introduce one ingredient at a time so that I can really be a good detective and figure out what my body is responding to, what it doesn’t like and what it can tolerate.

DrMR:

Good. Well, I’m glad that you’re going to be working with one of our health coaches. One of the reasons why I think that health coaching is such a nice compliment to something like doing a reset with Elemental Heal is because, at that point, you’re kind of back into the wilderness all of the opinions on the internet. It can be very hard to know what is the best way to kind of parse through all these opinions and really lay them out in a way that helps you follow the steps that seem to be the most science-based. As opposed to, and you may have heard my criticism that there’s a lot of conjecture on the internet and I’m sure most of the conjecture is well-intentioned, but we should take opinions and evaluate those opinions through a filter of science. On the other side, we retain hopefully the best recommendations. This doesn’t always seem to happen in the field and that can lead to consumers being really confused in terms of what to do, because the recommendations that they get aren’t all passed through that filter. So some of the recommendations may be sound, others may be really not very well vetted. It’s very hard for the consumer to know which one is which, which one to chose and that’s where the health coaching could be very helpful.

Jen:

Yes. I didn’t want to walk right back into the place that I had been prior to Elemental Heal and I needed a plan and I wanted some support.

DrMR:

Probiotics are definitely a great addition and this has been partially demonstrated. The best model that has demonstrated this is probiotics allowing those with lactose intolerance to have a better tolerance for reintroduction of dairy. There was one study that found that those were non-celiac gluten sensitive, who went on a gluten-free diet actually had a better symptomatic improvement when they also had probiotics on board at the same time. So the probiotics will definitely help you. The other thing is that I’m confident that our health coach world will help imbue is not a fearful perspective regarding food, which is another thing that’s so easy to kind of slip into. Reading about all the foods that can be bad, carbs, oxalates, FODMAPs, salicylates, you know, all these things. Then it can be very confusing and people can start to take six different diets and try to follow all those rules at the same time.

DrMR:

And they’ve kind of shrunk their life into this, you know, carrots and Turkey kind of diet. Which is a little more extreme than we have to go. So that’s why I’m really glad you’re on board with the health coach now so she can really help you through these next few steps. Have actually started the reintroduction? You’re already kind of foraying little bit into reintro?

Jen:

Yup. About every 72 hours, I’m reintroducing a food. I’m still staying away from dairy. One of my slip-ups was that I let myself have a piece of Dove dark chocolate and I was miserable. But the thing about Elemental Heal was that it really did help me feel like I was starting with a clean slate. So I got my quality of life back. I got some hope. I was sleeping better. So that gave me energy, I know that I’m not finished yet, but it gave me the energy I needed to continue to figure out this food situation for myself.

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Episode Wrap-Up

DrMR:

Good. So I think you’re on a really good path right now. Just a few things maybe to throw out there and you probably already know this, but just to make sure I put them on the board here. Look at the reintroductions as opportunities to learn. Sometimes I think we can be quick to beat ourselves up. It’s all about how we kind of frame this, but maybe right now, chocolate and or maybe the dairy and the chocolate is a trigger for you. It’s frustrating on the surface, but we can file that away and say ok, here is the list of foods that I am going to be cautious with. Come back to those a little bit later, and I’m sure as you continue working through the food list, you’ll find many foods are okay. Then there will be that small column of foods that seem to flair you, which, as you continue on your journey, that small list of foods should get smaller and smaller as your gut heals.

DrMR:

The same thing that I went through, I used to have problems with beef, eggs, spinach, all these foods, and every few months, those intolerances really started to drop off. So just kind of keep that in mind that whatever your reactions are on day one or day five, may not be the same a few months later. So keep that overarching philosophy of “I’m healing, I’m getting better, and I’m going to cautiously try to keep expanding the boundaries of my diet over time.”

Jen:

Yeah. Thank you for saying that. That helps.

DrMR:

Good. Good. Okay. Was there anything else that you want to share with people?

Jen:

I think just, I know that if you are miserable, it can be very difficult to figure out what works and maybe even to trust reviews, but I wrote a pretty lengthy review because I just felt compelled to help other people. I’m truly grateful and honestly I think that it has a ripple effect. So your quality of life may improve with Elemental Heal, but the quality of life of the people who love you also improves. I’m a vice president of an educational program. So I’m able to do my work in the world, and I was really struggling with that. So that’s great.

DrMR:

I’m so glad to hear that and I couldn’t agree with you more on this. One of the facets of the work that we do that makes me so proud of the impact that we’re having in the world is knowing there are all these people out there who are presidents, vice presidents, mothers, fathers, functioning in their lives, and they’re showing up with more energy vitality, happier mood, and that has a big impact on how you’re impacting all those people in your life. That’s very important. So I’m glad you made that point.

Jen:

Yeah. Thank you.

DrMR:

Well, awesome. I’m thrilled that you’re doing better. Please keep us posted. I’m very confident that the road ahead for you will be a steady trendline upward. There may be a few bumps in the road, and that’s just part of being a human and not being a machine, but I think you’re on a really excellent path and I’m super happy to hear it.

Jen:

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Outro:

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