Why My Gut Won’t Heal
Understanding Leaky Gut
Have you ever asked yourself, “Why won’t my digestive system just heal?”
Maybe you are dealing with bloating. Maybe certain foods that never bothered you before are suddenly a problem. You feel like you have tried everything, but nothing sticks.
Here is the question I ask every one of my patients: When was the last time you truly felt well?
In my 38 years of practice, most people can pinpoint a moment. And more often than not, they say the same thing. “It was right before I took that round of antibiotics.”
Does that ring a bell for you?
Here is what happens. Antibiotics are great at killing off the bad bacteria. That is their job. But they do not just take out the bad guys. They wipe out the good bacteria too. The ones that keep your gut balanced and running smoothly.
When that balance gets knocked out, something changes inside your gut. Doctors call it Dysbiosis. That is just a fancy word that means the “neighborhood” in your gut has shifted. The helpful bacteria are gone, and the troublemakers have moved in.
Once the wrong bacteria take over, they start to irritate the lining of your gut. That irritation is what sets the stage for something called Leaky Gut.
So this is where we have to play detective. Could a past round of antibiotics be the hidden root cause of what you are feeling today? It is a question worth asking.
We are going to go deeper into Leaky Gut in the next video. But for now, I want to hear from you.
Can you pinpoint the moment your gut health changed? Think back. Was it after an illness? After a prescription? Something shifted, and your body has been trying to tell you ever since.
Authored by Gerard Guillory, MD
Gerard Guillory, MD, is a board-certified internist who practiced for nearly four decades with a focus on functional, root-cause medicine. He is the author of three books on irritable bowel syndrome and the founder of It’s My Health, where he and his team put current health news in context and help members understand the underlying causes of chronic symptoms.
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