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The healthy human being requires a healthy micro biome (gut) — for mental and physical well-being


GiaK

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http://wp.me/p5nnb-csgposted first on Beyond Meds.
 

There is an article from a couple of days ago on Mad in America on the importance of gut health for mental well-being by Jill Littrell, PhD. I got engaged in the comments following the post. I’m going to share my comments below. Creating gut health has been critically important to my healing process and I’ve seen it be critically important to 1000s of others in both my chronic healing circles as well as my psych drug withdrawal circles.
 

I’m going to start this post with my final comment from the dialogue at Mad in America because I want to underscore that healing my gut has led me to understand this:
 

I take the (unfortunately) radical perspective that as human animals we have the capacity to know all manner of things by instinct. It is in our DNA and manifests via intuition. This is not magic. It is not a super-power. We are “psychic” by nature.  It is our human inheritance. We have forgotten how to access our very nature. That is all. And as complicated as we might like to make the conundrum we are faced with right now, it’s also pretty simple. We need only pay attention.

 

 

Then I thanked Jill Littrell for sharing the fruits of her academic labors. I also make some comments that refer back to other comments made in the comment thread which you can see in its entirety here for context:
 

Thank you, Jill, Tending to the gut is one of the most fundamental issues that everyone who lacks general well-being, whether physically or mentally manifested can do to build a foundation of wellness.

 

This doesn’t change the fact that “**** happens” in our environments bpdtransformation …what it does is help provide an internal capacity to better meet that ****.

 

My own healing journey has made it profoundly clear that healing the gut and optimizing diet is a place to start in tandem with understanding trauma (what happened to us) … in tandem because they are inseparable, truly.

 

Everything matters…when starting the process of unraveling how it all fits together in our own idiosyncratic lives having a healthy body matters. One cannot have a healthy body without a healthy gut.

 

**as a side note, my gut’s health was destroyed by (completely unnecessary) longterm antibiotic therapy for (mild) acne in my teenage years. In my own trajectory it’s clear to me now that this set me up for everything that followed…prior to the psych meds, the antibiotics were the gateway into general dis – ease which led to drugs (psychiatric and others too) and more drugs which ended up destroying my wellbeing. It’s been in healing the gut with optimal diets and probiotics etc along with becoming drug free that I have found well-being once again.

 

 


Someone had an issue with what I said and implied that my experience alone doesn’t mean much, so I then said:
 

it’s not based on just my experience but also the 1000s I have the honor to interact with online…those with both physical and mental health issues….

 

the chronic illness circles have a spectrum of the entire population on them including many with psychiatric diagnosis….there is actually a lot of research that already backs this up as well…and we do read it in tandem with learning to listen to and experience our bodies and knowing instruments that can lead us in the right direction to heal.

 

all the things you mention are also critically important…but not more or less. of course different people need different things at different times…that’s true. when I suggested a starting point I meant in a clinical setting where those things are considered…in the end every path is unique but all these things are parts of what make us human animals on a planet intimately intertwined with everything including the bugs in our guts.

 

I personally don’t need studies to know what I know. My body knows and so do the bodies of 1000s of folks I’ve interacted. You certainly don’t have to believe us, but you will not silence us. Healing is too critically important to wait around for the establishment to get their heads on straight. Still as mentioned above I do utilize the science that is already available and there is actually quite a lot. Data helps the intuitive process. I’m not anti-science, I simply don’t rely on it alone.

 

Internal guidance and intuition are real things that can lead us to what we need…and that, does, also, indeed look different for everyone. And so we may differ here and that is just fine.

 

and ha ha ha…as if I lived in a vacuum…I learned this stuff from others…I didn’t make it up…
we are everywhere. We are transforming our lives.

 

 

Someone else mentioned that understanding about healing the gut was part of Chinese medicine that has been around for thousands of years.

So I responded:

yes…Hippocrates too said:

 

“All disease begins in the gut.”

 

these aren’t things we as human beings don’t know…it’s stuff that western medicine hasn’t yet proven…

 

many of us, however, already know.

 

 


Indeed Ayurvedic medicine too (age-old Indian medicine) also concentrates on healing the gut.
 

I will finish this post how I started.

I take the (unfortunately) radical perspective that as human animals we have the capacity to know all manner of things by instinct. It is in our DNA and manifests via intuition. This is not magic. It is not a super-power. We are “psychic” by nature.  It is our human inheritance. We have forgotten how to access our very nature. That is all. And as complicated as we might like to make the conundrum we are faced with right now, it’s also pretty simple. We need only pay attention.

 

 


Healing my gut was a large part of discovering that truth.

Everything Matters: Beyond Meds 

https://beyondmeds.com/

withdrawn from a cocktail of 6 psychiatric drugs that included every class of psych drug.
 

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I saw your exchange with that other person and thought you did a great job in responding and stressing that everyone is different and what works for one person may not work for someone else.   Unfortunately, I think that lesson tends to be forgotten on MIA.

 

And speaking of studies, we sure didn't need them to know that being on psych meds was bad news, right?

Drug cocktail 1995 - 2010
Started taper of Adderall, Wellbutrin XL, Remeron, and Doxepin in 2006
Finished taper on June 10, 2010

Temazepam on a PRN basis approximately twice a month - 2014 to 2016

Beginning in 2017 - Consumption increased to about two times per week

April 2017 - Increased to taking it full time for insomnia

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For me, the majority of my problems originate in the gut. Like Gia, I can see now how multiple courses of antibiotics badly worsened my health and set up me up for a big fall. And I also agree that the significance of gut health was known across all of the ancestral healing traditions.

 

While everyone is different, I can't see how a person can be sick and not have a messed up digestive tract. Ya know?

"Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinking fast
I'm drowning in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me.

Everybody's moving, if they ain't already there
Everybody's got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now."

- Zimmerman

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For me, the majority of my problems originate in the gut. Like Gia, I can see now how multiple courses of antibiotics badly worsened my health and set up me up for a big fall. And I also agree that the significance of gut health was known across all of the ancestral healing traditions.

 

While everyone is different, I can't see how a person can be sick and not have a messed up digestive tract. Ya know?

Actually Alex, I don't as you can't make assumptions about a person's illness since the cause can be different for each person.

Drug cocktail 1995 - 2010
Started taper of Adderall, Wellbutrin XL, Remeron, and Doxepin in 2006
Finished taper on June 10, 2010

Temazepam on a PRN basis approximately twice a month - 2014 to 2016

Beginning in 2017 - Consumption increased to about two times per week

April 2017 - Increased to taking it full time for insomnia

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as holistic critters it can be said that the digestive tract needs to be supported in everyone for good health...that's a fair enough statement...what we do in America (and the West in general) in both medicine and with the food supply pretty much guarantees a screwed up micro biome. The impact of that reality will be lesser or greater depending on other factors in any given individual's life. Come to your own conclusions based on that info. 

Everything Matters: Beyond Meds 

https://beyondmeds.com/

withdrawn from a cocktail of 6 psychiatric drugs that included every class of psych drug.
 

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For me, the majority of my problems originate in the gut. Like Gia, I can see now how multiple courses of antibiotics badly worsened my health and set up me up for a big fall. And I also agree that the significance of gut health was known across all of the ancestral healing traditions.

 

While everyone is different, I can't see how a person can be sick and not have a messed up digestive tract. Ya know?

Actually Alex, I don't as you can't make assumptions about a person's illness since the cause can be different for each person.

 

I agree it's bad taste to make assumptions about another person's illness. So I definitely don't want to do that to you, comp.

 

The way that I look at it conceptually, a healthy gut is needed for ideal immune function and ideal nutrient/mineral absorption. In the general sense, immune function and mineral assimilation are very important qualities in health and typically one [or both] is impaired in those who've been stuck with illness.

 

So I am speaking generally. Any single case is its own thing. Comp, I would say you are fortunate to be doing so well digestively, it's something I have struggled with myself !!

"Well my ship's been split to splinters and it's sinking fast
I'm drowning in the poison, got no future, got no past
But my heart is not weary, it's light and it's free
I've got nothing but affection for all those who sailed with me.

Everybody's moving, if they ain't already there
Everybody's got to move somewhere
Stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow
Things should start to get interesting right about now."

- Zimmerman

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