Gastrointestinal Illness

The GUT accounts for approximately two thirds of your immune cells. We have found that by addressing symptoms in the gut, it often results in dramatic improvement elsewhere as well. Probiotics can treat atopic dermatitis (skin allergy) and asthma and simple dietary modifications improves outcomes and quality of life.  Many patients show significant improvement in a host of body-wide symptoms with avoidance of certain foods. Though there are a variety of “food allergy” tests which can point to a particular “culprit”, often the best intervention involves a temporary dietary change to see if symptoms get better. There are many therapeutic diets that can serve to relieve GI symptoms: Casein & Gluten Free Diet (avoidance of dairy and most grains), Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), the Body Ecology Diet and the Allergy Elimination Diet. Choosing the correct diet is difficult and knowing if more than diet is necessary will prevent significant frustration and wasted energy. Diet can be critical but it is rarely all that is needed. This is where having the right doctor can make all the difference.

For patients with gastrointestinal problems we try to identify any underlying digestive disturbances that has gone untreated or hasn’t been treated correctly.  We do this with specialized digestive testing based upon a comprehensive history and a comprehensive treatment plan that involve managing the causes of the problem, symptom management and lifestyle considerations. Whether it is infection, inflammation or the damage to the intestinal lining that these two problems cause (i.e. “leaky gut”), we will come up with a treatment plan that gets to the root.  At Vitality Health & Wellness, we know when and what to test, and how to resolve the problem after we have identified it.