Timeline for Healing + Stabilizing: Is the 6 Month Digestive Healing Jumpstart Enough?

You're going to hate this answer but the truth is, it depends. We work with clients with serious and complex digestive dysfunction. For some, doing the Nourish + Flow Foundational Foods Reset for 2 weeks is truly all that is needed to feel better and get on the right track. For others, it's much more complex.

For more complex digestive conditions, our work can take anywhere from 6 months to a year or more to truly reach the level of resolution and stability that is possible for that person. This is why our Digestive Deep Healing Jumpstart program is 6 months. For some it brings them to great stability and resolution, while for others, it really is just the beginning, the jumpstart to their next steps in recovery. 

It's impossible to know going in how delicate your system will be as we begin inviting change. For some, change is welcome and easy. For others it is a much more tumultuous, nonlinear, delicate and longer term process.  

During the 6 month Jumpstart, we do a stool test and remove food sensitivity foods, while improving digestive function, eradicating bad bugs that have overgrown, repopulating missing good bugs and heal and seal the gut lining. In 6 months, from some clients, we can eradicate HPylori infections, candida infections, parasites like blastocystis hominis, and bacteria like ecoli, klebsiella and many more.

However, in other cases, we need to spend more months preparing the body for the eradication protocol. The liver needs to be able to detoxify the die off. The bowels need to be eliminating adequately. In other words, if constipation has been along term issue, we've got to address that as part of the process. Inflammation needs to be kept at bay. 

Others have underlying autoimmune reactivity which can make the body more delicate and more reactive so this may create a need to go even slower and more gently.

Sometimes we kill off the bad bugs but more work is needed after that to create stability and balance over the long term in other body systems. Oftentimes, we take 6 months to work to reduce or eliminate one infection and then have to do another cycle to get to another infection. There are different protocols for parasites, candida, bacteria, etc.

For some, a candida overgrowth, for example, can clear up in 6 months and be gone for good, while for others it will be a longer process as we explore what is leading to recurrent, persistent imbalances. 

Oftentimes the terrain of the gut and the rest of the body needs a larger overhaul. Often there are even larger parasitic worms like tapeworm, roundworm, whipworm and others that do not show up on the GI MAP. We have protocols to address these as well. 

We always look for quick wins and long term solutions. We will be as efficient and effective as possible and our clients understand what's happening and why every step of the way as they are integral in the process. 

Part of me wishes there could be a more clear cut answer to questions about how long will this take, but the truth is, everybody and every body is different. That is part of the power of this functional nutrition work though - It's that we address each person's unique needs and physiology in personalized, customized ways. We listen to the body every step of the way and it guides us towards our next steps. 

One thing is for sure though: Our clients leave the process with a much deeper relationship with their bodies. They are able to stop being in battle with themselves as is so common when it's all a mystery. They understand their tendencies. They understand how actions like what they eat, how they manage their stress, time outside in nature, movement, toxic exposure, community, medications, and all kinds of factors in their personal history continue to impact and shift their physiological reality.

Whether a 6 month process or shorter or longer, our clients gain a more beautiful, wise understanding about how to have ease and control over how they feel in their own bodies and what level of healing is possible for them. They know what it takes, and they feel how worthwhile the work, dedication, focus and care is to unleashing who they truly are and want to be in this world.