Stress, Neuroinflammation and Digestive Issues
Episode 79: Gutsy Health Podcast
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Show Summary: “When you're bloated and have a super noisy gut, you might not be making enough enzymes to break down your food because you're stressed out.”
Stress and digestive issues can create neuro-inflammation. The vagus nerve attaches to every organ in a human body's digestive tract, keeping you in balance and maintaining your homeostasis. But, viruses can potentially hijack the vagus nerve and the immune system depending on how well the body can balance different life stressors.
The neck area has a direct connection with the brain. When someone has Epstein Barr or food sensitivities, they get swollen lymph nodes. Poor posture and stress can cause tight neck, preventing proper circulation and getting rid of toxins to help the body heal.
Dr. Jannine Krause, a Naturopathic Doctor, Acupuncturist, and Podcaster, shares how strengthening the parasympathetic system can combat this issue. Listen well as she gives tips and actionable practices on how to start to calm your nervous system to prevent inflammation.
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Exceptional Highlight:
- Stress creates inflammation in the nervous system and we get infections because of it.
- You can't run from a bear and digest food. The brain literally cannot do that. Your nervous system is either in a parasympathetic state (rest and digest) or it’s in a sympathetic state (fight or flight) but it can’t be in both.
- Your oral health is related to your systemic health. When your gums keep bleeding or getting cavities, that is related to gut health.
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Show Highlights:
The belly is your first brain
Jannine 3:06
- We also have all these nerves that are connected, they go all the way down the spine, so can potentially affect every single part of your body, every organ in your body..
How do we help ourselves with neuro-inflammation?
Jannine 14:41
- It's not because we need to calm the sympathetic nervous system, we need to strengthen the parasympathetic. I'm doing a lot more lifestyle stuff now and working on how we get more calm and there's this great thing called parasympathetic breathing.
What does food sensitivities have to do with it?
Jannine 19:46
- With food sensitivities, what's happening is we've got two things. One is the neck bottleneck issue here. Part of it is if your neck is dealing with stuff, you're putting food in, your neck’s already inflamed - we're adding histamine. Histamine is a neurotransmitter that comes out in response to inflammation. So if you're struggling with rashes, or hives, or any of that stuff, and you can't figure it out, this could be neuro-inflammation.
Transcript (DOWNLOAD)
This is the Gutsy Health Podcast with Jaunique and Tristin Roney.
Juanique Roney
Hey, you guys, welcome back to the Gutsy Health Podcast. I have Gina Worful, she's my co-host. Hi Gina.
Gina Worful
Hello, everybody.
Juanique Roney
She always brings the best questions, so thank you for always being here. And then we also have Dr. Jannine Krause, and Dr. Krause she is a naturopath. Actually I want her to introduce herself because she is really brilliant. She has all these fancy things and she has a really great story. Dr. Janine, go ahead and tell my listeners who you are and why you're so fabulous.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Wow. OK, wow. My head's getting this big. I'm Dr. Janine Krause. I'm a naturopathic doctor. I'm an acupuncturist, and I'm a podcaster and I love health I love talking about health but really the most important thing in my whole world that makes my world go round is really teaching people about how to take care of themselves. That's me in a nutshell.
Juanique Roney
And that's us in a nutshell, but without the credentials. Well, Gina has the credentials. Gina's got all the credentials. I'm just a mom that--
Dr. Jannine Krause
Just it matters.
Gina Worful
She's got the big brains, so don't worry about that.
Juanique Roney
That's the thing. All our listeners have big brains, right? Like if you're a mom, you got a big brain, you have intuition and that's what most of our listeners are. So thank you, Janine and Gina, for actually pointing that out, because even though I am just a mom, like, we can do really hard things. That's why we're here. That's why we're listening so that we can empower ourselves. And I love that you have that message. You guys, when we were getting introduced to each other, Janine was actually like, you can drop the doctor thing. I'm just a person. And so she's so cool. Her energy is so cool. Her message is so cool and she also has the podcast. I want to give the name. It's called The Health Effects, where she talks all things health and she's got a very similar platform to mine. But today we want to talk about neuro inflammation, food sensitivities, leaky gut hormone imbalances and cortisol effects on the body. I know that's kind of a mouthful, but Janine, where do you think we should start with this topic?
Dr. Jannine Krause
I think we should start kind of how-- I mean, they all tie in together, but I think we should talk about how things kind of bottleneck up in the neck and how, like foods going in there and my stress is coming in from the brain coming down and how that all ties into the vagus nerve. So I think we start in the neck and where the vagus nerve comes out.
Juanique Roney
Can you tell people what the vagus nerve is? It's really important. Guys, please tell us all about the vagus nerve.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah. So I like to always make the joke because of the name, you know, like what happens in Vegas. This doesn't stay in Vegas with you. I mean, in Vegas, it's like the perfect description because we're partying. We're staying up all night. We have no idea what time it is because all these places are designed to give you totally confused. And nerve is like what keeps you in check, keeps your homeostasis and keeps you in balance. But what happens over time is sometimes we have enough sometimes all the time. We all have, like, little tease with my one girlfriend jenova told us to say "little tease or big tease". So we've got a little traumas that build up or some people have some significant crap that's happened to them and this builds up. And so then our body can't distinguish between what's a little bear, what's like a legit bear and like what's the threat versus not threat. And it's all kind of happening in the brain here. But we also have all these nerves that are connected. They go all the way down the spine, so can potentially affect every single part of your body, every organ in your body. And because the brain is your brain up here, but you've got your first brain, the belly, those guys really are what we see. And that's where the food sensitivity component comes in.
Juanique Roney
Can I just say I love that you called the brain the first the belly, the first brain. I say that all the time and people look at me like I'm nuts and I'm so glad I have you on your feet like it was the first brain, guys. Let's look at evolution. So keep going. I'm so sorry.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yes, no and this perfect. I'm game for any kind of interruption I can roll. So what's happening like on that belly stuff like we've got all these nerves going in the belly and this is why it's your brain, right? Because the vagus nerve attaches into every single organ in your belly, in particular with a million connections and your body has to kind of go like not only does the brain perceive the threat, the body's perceiving the threat, too. So what happens over time with multiple traumas is we end up getting confused and the nerves end up getting confused as well as to like, do I mount's, do I send a message back? Do I control inflammation? Do I not? And a lot of you might be thinking like, how does a nerve cause inflammation? Well, it's signaling and it's massaging and it's all about the messages coming back and forth and what molecules were triggering to be released. So if your body keeps triggering the molecules that are related to we've got a fire, we need to put the fire out and it keeps doing that. It's almost like the boy who cried wolf. The body's like, all right, fine, I just keep doing this and nothing's happening. You're not taking me away from the bear. We haven't found the cave. We haven't found the island. So all of that time going by, we end up, unfortunately, with a body that can't control inflammation anymore. And then we've got some things that build up on top of that, and my biggest thing that I'm going with lately is a theory based on Dr. Kevin Tracy and a couple of other folks that have looked at inflammation as it relates to viruses getting into your vagus nerve and causing you to not be able to do not be able to fight infection.
Juanique Roney
Would this be like Epstein Barr with that? Because a lot of people have Epstein Barr fires and then they get these weird like their liver flares up, their gallbladder flares up, like their gallbladder has to be taken out. And I've been seeing a lot where people have like Mono or Epstein Barr and now they have this like GI inflammation. So is that what you're talking about, like Epstein Barr and similar viruses like that.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Hands down. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'd venture to say even know we're looking at Lyme, even though Lyme is necessarily a virus, it's kind of like a I would call it a consequential thing that often happens because if you look at someone who has Lyme, chances are they're going to have one of the herpes virus, whether it's, you know, the mono virus, a herpes virus, you know.
Gina Worful
Is that because it makes it more opportunistic for the immune system to not be able to fight it off? Is that why a lot of these things go hand in hand?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yes. Yeah, yeah. I truly believe like we get a virus of some sort. It hijacks our vagus nerve and it hijacks the immune system. And then the individual who gets this depending on how well, how good they're at balancing their stress and dealing with life stressors, it's going to go one way or the other. That's why some people can have reactivated mono and really chill out and get it not nailed down and start to improve. Other people just can't because life is building up for them and they're having a hard time getting the inflammation down. Plus, there's also this next thing I'm going to talk about that I've really started to dove into now that a couple of friends and I have thought about it a little bit deeper in terms of crap.
Juanique Roney
Before you go into that, I kind of want to backtrack because it sounds like what you're saying is stress creates inflammation in the nervous system and then we get infections because of that inflammation in that nervous system. And that's a really important component, because I see a lot of people and we used to work a lot with people with Lyme when we had our hyperbaric running and our hyperbaric will be running when we move again, but we would do all of this work, but there was always the stress component that we could never get on top of. And so people would loop around and around and around, even though labs would start looking better. We just couldn't get on top of the stress because the stress aggravated the symptoms. And what was also really interesting, too, is we would have people test positive for Lyme. Their whole family had Lyme and symptoms and they had no symptoms whatsoever because their inflammation was down, their stress was down. A lot of us have these things in our bodies that don't manifest into symptoms because it's not the right environment. So stress equals inflammation in the nervous system, which can lead to these infections in these co infections.
Gina Worful
Yeah, I was also wondering that when we're talking about the vagus nerve. I just wanted to clarify a mechanism while we're on that, because a lot of people don't know the connection between the gut brain connection. So while I have you here, I've never had anyone to be able to make sure I have this mechanism correct. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Is it right that our bacteria in our gut are fermenting these fibers and the things that we eat and they're making these short chain fatty acids? So we're bringing our gut being the first brain. They're making the short chain fatty acids. The mechanism that I know of is, well that I think, is that these short chain fatty acids then go to the vagus nerve and travel up the vagus nerve to the brain to then influence our brains action. Is that correct?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah, yeah. Essentially that's true. And there's also other things that can happen, such as the release of serotonin dopamine to by fermenting phytic, those can send messages back up to the brain as well. We're working right now. I'm not me, but a lot of people are working right now on really categorizing all the communication between the gut and brain. And we're learning new stuff like every day about like, oh, this molecule goes up, that molecule goes up. Like it's almost like you're at the bank. Back when we used to go to banks and you put the money in the little thing and it gets sucked up in that too.
Gina Worful
It's a great analogy, which is so cool to think about because a lot of people are like, what do you mean the gut is the first brain? Like, what do you mean? So that really breaks it down. That's cool.
Juanique Roney
There's there's a book called The Gut Brain Connection and this doctor who actually wrote the book says that 70 percent of information going back and forth, back and forth, 70 percent of that is actually going from the gut to the brain to the gut, is telling the brain more about data input than the brain is telling the gut. So I think that's actually really cool that there is that dominance, that that vagus nerve is really telling the brain more than what the brain is actually telling our gut and stuff. So keep going, Doctor janine, you were talking about like the neck stuff. Are we ready for the neck stuff?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah, let's move on to the neck stuff, because I think this is our bottleneck. My good pal Jody Cohen talks about this. She has a oils company called Vibrant Blue Oils. And and she talking about the neck being a bottleneck a lot, and I'm like, oh, yeah, last time we talked, I was like, this is it? Because where do we experience Epstein Bar? When it reactivates itself, we get lymph node swelling in the neck. And a lot of times when we get a virus, we're going to get lymph nodes swelling. What happens with food sensitivities, lymph nodes, stuff. So our neck area has a direct connection with the brain. The vagus nerve comes out behind your ear. So you've got all this stuff in there. And most people have tight necks because, well, posture, let's say working on computers, things of that nature, and because we're basically trying to put our shoulders as earrings because we're all stressed out and waiting for that bear to attack us the way I call it Armadillo's.So we have no circulation to get rid of toxins. We have no circulation to help the body heal from this stuff. So those those viruses just kind of keep attacking hanging and your lymphatic system is connected to your nervous system too, because they're tingling between those two and it just stays up. So the body just thinks like, well, I guess we're still attacking this thing. I guess it's Groundhog Day back again and again over and over. So what I've been finding and playing with in my office is that if I needle down the neck in a certain way now, not into the muscles, in most people's case, I'm actually feeling kind of like a threading motion along the back side of this muscle called the Sternocleidomastoid. So it's like our muscle that's on an angle folks, and it attaches to this mastoid bump. I'm finding that if I needle that and then I add some essential oils in the mix. In particular, I have been using jodis lymph product from fiber blue oils and kind of running it down here. I'm noticing that those muscles will relax a little bit that night after the treatment. Folks are getting an amazing night of sleep and then they're calling me and like, OK, so what do you do? I need to repeat this at home. So I'm starting to have some folks and this is the beginning for everyone listening. I'm in my own experimental phase with this, but I'm having folks working on using oils and working in the neck. Now, if you don't have jodis oils, I also will use lime and clove. Those have been found to also stimulate lymph movement in the body. Some peppermint can also do it too. Make sure you get a carrier oil. I don't want anyone putting essential oils directly to their skin. That's bad news. And I don't want you in suing me because I said to do so. There you have it. But the combination of those two, along with a little bit of massage every day from the mastoid process down, I'm starting to see that necks are coming down lymphatic enlargement. So the little lymph nodes that are in large that are coming down and like seem like I might be able to sleep better and deal with stress better.
Gina Worful
Do you have any videos of that teach you to?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah. There's one that might be coming out on Real's today, if not tomorrow. My media gal is doing it for me because I am-- I can't even handle doing your real.
Juanique Roney
I still haven't figured it out. I tried one day and ten minutes in and I was like, nope, I will stick to stories and like static posts.
Dr. Jannine Krause
I'm like, OK, there must be like I need a thirteen year old instead of like for social media. I'm hiring a thirteen year old because I'm like, I don't know. But anyway, there are videos and I can send you the wrong clips of me doing it because I have the combo of it from a video I just did not too long ago. So if you guys want that, I am more than happy to send it over.
Juanique Roney
That would be great. Thank you. But do you have a social media, like Instagram?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah.
Juanique Roney
So it will be on Instagram because this is going to get released in like a couple of weeks. So people can look you up and they'll find it.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah. Jannine Krause on Instagram you'll find it there.
Juanique Roney
We'll put in the show notes. Amazing. All right. So once they start loosening up, the neck they start getting better flow better like immune response even. What else should people be mindful of when it comes to this kind of stuff with vagus nerve stimulation, infection? How do we help ourselves with this neuro inflammation?
Dr. Jannine Krause
So that's the golden question, right, we've got a lot of us have been hitting up with supplements and things of that nature, ways to try to calm the nervous system down. But we're not seeing the great effects that I'm not seeing the great effects that I would love to see someone seeing amazing effects and let me know. But it seems like nine times out of ten, if we're looking with chronic mono, or Lyme or folks of that nature, all the feeding, all the adaptive Genex like holy basil, all this, nothing seems to be working. So I'm going, wait a minute. It's not because we need to calm the sympathetic, we need to strengthen the parasympathetic.
Juanique Roney
Yeah.
Dr. Jannine Krause
So a lot of us are kind of figuring that out and I'm doing a lot more of lifestyle stuff now and working on how do we get the calm and folks and and there's this great thing called parasympathetic breathing. It's positional parasympathetic breathing. You lay down and you put your legs up. So like your hips are in a 90 and your legs are in a 90 and it's on like a bench. This train your mind. Dr. John Russell told me about it and it changed my life. It sounds crazy. And it's starting to help a lot of people do that when I'm like, OK, you got to do it. Like, you can't just imagine you're doing it. You have to do the work.
Juanique Roney
Are you going to do a real on it?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yes.
Juanique Roney
I want to see the real of this breathing.
Gina Worful
And what is it doing? What's happening? Why do we want to do that?
Juanique Roney
Yeah.
Dr. Jannine Krause
So what we're doing is really sending the signal to the body that there's no bear, because a lot of us struggle with meditation myself too. And we also struggle to really find boundaries, things of that nature, because as women in particular, we are like amazing creatures and we can do a lot of things, but we convince ourselves that we can't say no to people. And so it does really go back to mindset and how the mind is looking at things and life. So all of the self-help books and things of that nature, yes. Everything that's popular right now is useful on the same respect. I have to tell people, you got to do the reps you got, just like you're in the gym strengthening your muscles. You have to strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system. So I will do this positional parasympathetic breathing. I will also tied into the gut stuff because too many of us will just be like on the run, shoving food in or eating at the kitchen sink. That's Mom Central. I'm not a mom, but I hear this from moms all the time.
Juanique Roney
You're describing my life, basically. That's exactly what I do.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah and what's happening is your body is thinking and your sympathetic nervous systems are like, wait a minute. So if we're eating on the run and we're eating at the kitchen sink, we're getting away from a bear. We're not relaxed enough. So I have people sit and literally take a minute to two minutes before they eat and just sit there and stare at the food. They stare at the ceiling. I don't care what you do, just show but not on your cell phone.
Juanique Roney
Yes. Now, I want listeners that are listening right now. When you heard Janine make that recommendation, how many of you cringed and died a little inside? Probably like eighty percent of us, right? Like, I don't have time to sit still. What are you talking about? Like, how could you make that suggestion?
Gina Worful
I think it's amazing to with how many people actually have their digestive issues resolved just by letting their body get out of that fight or flight state before they eat. They're like, wow, my bloating went away all these issues that I thought that I needed, all of this feeling now like that's the only cause. But it's interesting how many of them get resolved.
Juanique Roney
Well, and there's a reason why there's that cute little catch phrase of fight or flight and rest and digest. One is sympathetic, one is parasympathetic. So you can't run from a bear and digest food at the same time. The brain literally cannot do that. So that's why a lot of people, when they have those digestive issues, because they're like, I'm getting heartburn. It's like, well, yeah, because you are not in a state where your body's like, oh, let's concentrate on releasing gastric juices and enzymes to break down this food. So you're eating food and you're not digesting it. That's why you're getting heartburn, because you're in a stress response and your body isn't in the mood literally, it's not in the mood to digest food. It's in the mood to like, run, run, run, run, run. And so I really love that you brought that up. I also want to remind any of the listeners who are Gutsy health members. This month, we've really been focusing on the first stage of healing, which is mindset. Mindset is huge. It doesn't matter if you're implementing a gut restoration or a liver detox. We are subconsciously going to sabotage our healing if we are constantly in a stress response. It's like trying to heal by pushing a boulder uphill versus using the momentum and letting the boulder roll downhill. So let's really focus you guys. Let's listen to Janine about like, hey, neuro inflammation. It's a stress response and it's going to lead to all of these issues down the line and infections and co-infections and inability to digest and absorb, which leads to our inability to heal and repair. Janine, what does food sensitivities have to do with this?
Dr. Jannine Krause
This works perfectly in sideway right into this, because when we're when eating in a manner that we're kind of chill. And yes, I know a lot of people probably died inside, like you said, of the one or two minutes. But really, one or two minutes is not that big of a deal. I'm not asking to go do an hour meditation. If I would put my middle finger up at you, you were like that was what you need to do. I'm like, no, no you got to set your day up. So this is what I work with, with my patients. They set the day up. We work on routines. We work on habits so that we're putting ourselves into parasympathetic at one minute, 30 seconds at a time, because that's what we got to be thinking about. So with food sensitivities, what's happening is we've got two things. One, I was mentioning about the neck bottleneck issue here. Part of it is, is if your neck is dealing with Stoss, you're putting food in your next already inflammed. We're adding histamines. So histamine is a neurotransmitter that comes out in response to inflammation. So if you're struggling with rashes or hives or any of that stuff and you can't figure it out. This could be a neuro inflammation thing, but food sensitive. I mean, we got to figure out the food as soon as it gets in the mouth. So as soon as that food gets in there, now we have step one of creating a food sensitivity. Step two, we go down into the gut. Like I said, you're eating on the run. You know you're grazing off your kids plates as you're yelling at them.
Juanique Roney
That's true. I sometimes do.
Dr. Jannine Krause
It's life. Right? But it's when the gut's like, oh, well, the blood's all in my arms legs because I'm supposed to be running away from this bear or my children, whatever it may be in that day. And what's happening is now we've got a gut that doesn't have a lot of circulation. So the food sits. The longer the food sits, the longer we have issues that the food molecule might not get broken down, get across in the bloodstream. They get across the lining, leaky gut, the same kind of thing happens because food sits for too long. And when you're stressed out, if you've ever seen a marathon runner that has not had enough glutamine, which is your amino acid, that helps your gut lining, they have bowel problems with the marathon. Why does that happen? Because marathon equals stress for the gut equals bowel problems. You are running a marathon every single day when you don't take care of your parasympathetic nervous system. So bowel problems. Now, leaky gut plus food getting across the bloodstream. Now we start developing food sensitivity. So you're going all right, I used to be able to eat, you know, a pizza and be fine or at least feel a little bit but now it takes me out for three days. I can't breathe. I feel so bloated. I can't think. This is what happens. It's compounding over time and that's how food sensitivities really start to develop. Plus, a lot of us, we're on autopilot with food. We eat the same thing day in, day out. And then the nervous system and the immune system are like, OK, you keep giving me this damn thing every day.
Juanique Roney
I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think, like, the average American has, like, they expose themselves to the same like five vegetables or something or the same is a really low number. We do not branch out in a variety in our society and in our culture.
Gina Worful
And what's your stance on food sensitivity testing? Do you use it in your practice?
Dr. Jannine Krause
I will use it to create a point for someone. I know this sounds crazy and I full disclosure in my face, I tell him what I'm doing. I think that food sensitivity testing is going to show what you've been eating most recently and it'll show us how strong is your gut lining. Now are we going to solve the world's problems and the gut problems that you have completely by doing food sensitivity and test taking those foods out? Well, you can feel better temporarily, but if we don't go back and learn how to rotate foods and we don't go back and learn how to create a space to tell yourself you're going to eat food, that you're going to turn on your breast digestive system, you're going to end up with all the foods now that you rotated out, then you're going to eat these new ones and then you're going to become sensitive to those. And so, yes, I use food sensitivity testing, but I use it with a caveat on my patients, like, OK, this is going to show you what you're on repeat with that's causing issues and how bad is your gut? That's kind of how I use it.
Juanique Roney
Amazing, would you say, because I've actually never said this on air, but I actually feel this, but would you say that if you have gut issues, there's stress issues, there's emotional issues that are unaddressed?
Dr. Jannine Krause
One hundred percent, a hundred percent. When someone has used to gut infection, there's no amount of herbs. There's no amount of pharmaceutical medications that I can give you that are going to work on the long term until you get your mind in your gut right. And really, you got to get your emotions.
Gina Worful
That's powerful.
Juanique Roney
That is so powerful.
Gina Worful
That I think everyone needs to hear.
Juanique Roney
And here's one of the mechanisms that I have learned to understand around that, because, you know, your bacteria, your yeast, it's so sensitive to your environment. And you mentioned earlier, when we're in a stress response, our circulation is going to our legs and our arms and it's not our gut. And so from temperature change to contractions the PH, it's all completely changing the environment for these yeast and bacteria is to live in. And so that stress environment, that lack of blood flow and that temperature change and that contraction and that change, that's all really important. And I don't want to say it has to be perfect, but the body knows how to create a perfect environment for you to thrive in when it comes to good bacteria and good yeast and in controlling that and what we've done is we've literally revamped the environment for antagonistic beings to grow in there and make us not feel so awesome. That's one mechanism that I understand. Are there any other mechanisms that listeners could learn about from you Janine, or would you say that's kind of like a good one?
Dr. Jannine Krause
I mean, that's in a nutshell. If I had to take the broad picture and throw it down for someone, yeah, I mean, it's we're creating the environment in our gut. I mean, we truly are. Now, are there issues where we have over development like Sebo and things of that nature? Yes. Do I believe that the mechanism needs to be where we go on attack and kill the heck out of this stuff and make you feel like crap for a while? I'm starting to believe that that's not the case. I'm starting to believe because, yeah, I've done it. I've been in practice almost 20 years and at this point I'm like I've made all the mistakes. I've made people feel like crap. I fully admit it and I'm looking at the point, though but like you said, it all comes back down to I can try to manipulate your gut microbiome as much as I want. We can give you, like, the most strongest probiotic and rotate the heck out of it and do the whole restore raw food, blah, blah, blah. And if we don't get the stress on point---
Juanique Roney
It's not going to matter.
Gina Worful
So for people who are listening, there are some people who have the very obvious gut issues, very obvious stress issues. What are some other maybe symptoms or things that are red flags to you that are like we need to actually start with the gut and the gut brain connection. What are some other symptoms that might be more subtle?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Subtle stuff would be chronic bloating, that's one for a lot of people, that sometimes you push it off, feel like I'm a little bloated and like I probably ate too many grains or--
Gina Worful
I hear that a lot, that people are like, doesn't everybody get bloated? Don't we all? It's like, no, it's not normal.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Right. That's one of the ones that's probably my number one that I'll hear. And so bloating is a biggie. Another biggie is like when you eat and you feel like you have a food baby and then you're kind of like feeling gurgling there. And you might not have acid reflux, but you're just like, wow, we kind of sit for a while. It doesn't seem like it's moving. That's another subtle thing that like you might not be making enough enzymes to break down your food as you're basically stressed out. So thinking of that nature. The other biggie that a lot of people I don't think think about is super noisy gut. A super noisy gut, like all the time we talk, especially if we're hearing like some gurgle. So sometimes people have gerbils coming upwards. It's not like a burp, but you hear this and you're like, what's happening?
Gina Worful
What is that telling them?
Dr. Jannine Krause
So what that's telling us is that we've got the sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach is opening up and it's usually because there's not enough enzymes and the belly is just holding too much and so it's kind of like letting a little bit up and it's not a burp, it's not the acid reflux, but it's just like a little bit of gas. It's kind of like if you are trying to get a little bit, don't know where to go. That kind of thing which they got from this airplane is like, I'm cool with. I don't have to smell.
Juanique Roney
To mean, like, where have you been all my life? Oh my gosh, you're hilarious. Yeah. Thank you for those masks. But going back to that, the burping that also can lead to like acid reflux. How many people are on PBIS? You know, it blows my mind. And those are being like handed out like Skittles by doctors right now. Everyone has heartburn even in my practice, my clinic. I'm not a doctor, guys. In my counseling, I am seeing 15 year olds with heartburn. I'm seeing 18 year olds with heartburn. It's insane that this is happening to younger people now, like we have issues and we could go into why our younger generation is having got issues in a whole other episode but holy cow.
Dr. Jannine Krause
I'm laughing only because I'm like, oh, you want some serious comedy? I'll go into that one, like big time. But that's you save that for another..
Juanique Roney
Another episode, part 2, Dr. Janine Krause part 2.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Part two in Instagram filters. We will go into that. So anyway.
Juanique Roney
Right, no kidding.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Where were we?
Juanique Roney
So, yeah, we were we? No we were talking about the imbalances that have been normalized and Gina, what was your question again? I'm sorry.
Gina Worful
So like some of the symptoms, the symptoms that we you might want to look out for.
Juanique Roney
Yeah.
Dr. Jannine Krause
I have one more that does really kind of common that a lot of people don't tie in. Your oral health is like related to your systemic health. Sometimes we'll be like, oh, my gums keep bleeding or I keep getting cavities like what the heck's going on that is related to gut health too. Anything in the mouth, like you ended up in a root canal, you ended up getting your crown, you know, all of that stuff. If you're starting to notice that your dental health or your gums are getting funky, we got trouble.
Juanique Roney
Yeah.
Gina Worful
How about the side of the digestive tract. What do you think about brain fog? Skin issues, drain pains, that connection there?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, the skin is a biggie. And for ladies in particular, one of the things we'll start to see is that we'll get like redness around the eyes, around the mouth, sometimes even behind the ears, kind of eczema like stuff. And then it kind of goes away and then you'll end up with, like sometimes lot people that a whole rash and their entire body. That's a yeasty kind of rash usually. But your dermatologist can be like, oh, it must be your detergent and you're like, I didn't change anything. I don't have anything new. And so, yes, those kind of things can definitely be part of it. Athlete's foot even. I will look back and go, all right, how much are you eating? What are we doing in that department in the brain fog? If you're not digesting your food well and you're sitting all of those signals, remember that, too. But like I said at the bank, if you guys are old enough to remember how the bank tube things go, it's like that those messages aren't getting up there, nor do they get back down very well. And so you end up in this like fog that world.
Juanique Roney
I want to add to this that every time without fail, you guys, every time it was finals when I was in college, UTI every single time I get a UTI because of the stress. And it like that stress changes your microbiome. I also drink a lot of Shakal milk back in the day because I would like to study and you know, they had those vending machines and the chocolate milk was amazing on campus. But every time they were finals, I would get UTIs. And so that's just like that's a reflection what everyone says of you like your gut imbalance and your stress. And so that was also the same time I got my first root canal is actually in college. So UTIs root canals like it was all there. The stress was there, the food was there, the inflammation was there, it was a nightmare. It was all downhill from there. Just kidding.
Gina Worful
Can we talk about hormone imbalances and how that relates to this topic?
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah. Yeah. So hormones, wow, where do I begin? Let's begin with estrogen, because estrogen will be reabsorbed through the gut and can reap a lot of havoc on your immune system, but also your weight. So we have three different types of estrogen. We have a strong which is inflammatory. We have Estradiol, which we want lots of and estriol, which is really great for the vaginal area and lubrication and all those good things. But what happens is we will try to pull a lot of Astron from the gut and we'll put it right back into the system. This is a big, big issue. The more stressful we become, the more, like I said, blood flow out in the arms and legs. So if you tend towards constipation, chances are you're getting a lot more estrogen coming back in through the gut and hanging out. Like if you're like man, I've done all the things I'm trying to eat clean. I'm not losing weight. I'm getting puffy in certain areas. That's a strong thing. So that's kind of my biggie in terms of that department. The other side is Progesterone. Progesterone is Archil. This is our hormone that helps us sleep. It's our calm. It's the one I call it. It takes the can I say the B word takes the B word down, it takes the B word down, the B switch down and it just kind of puts you on an even even keel. And what will happen when we're stressed will steal all the precursors to making Progesterone. And so we make the cortisol. So that kind of thing is on one side. The other side of it is that lowered Progesterone will Jack with what happens with our gut, but with all the the lining of the gut, while we want that good beneficial estrogen and if we don't have enough of it, we're going to mess with the gut lining, too, because if it keeps it stable, so lack of Progesterone and Estradiol will cause issues with like leaky gut skin rashes, things of that nature, especially in perimenopausal folks experiencing that joy of life.
Juanique Roney
Yeah.
Dr. Jannine Krause
And testosterone, not as much to do there, but testosterone tends to follow wherever the stress is going. If stress is off the charts in your DHEA, which is a precursor to your hormones, if that guy's off the charts, then the testosterone is going to either go really high up or you're going to make a lot of testosterone and back converted to inflammatory estrogen.
Juanique Roney
Insane and this is all news to me. Yay, right. Oh, my gosh. Like, all of this is related to that stress component. Right? Like that blows my mind. That blows my mind. I knew about the Progesterone cortisol, but I didn't know about the gut lining and the estrogen and the Progesterone, like, I had no clue that it was so... Isn't so beautiful that the body is this interconnected web, like you hurt one area and all the areas are hurt, all the areas are affected. This is why medicine today doesn't work, because medicine is put in boxes. You go see a heart specialist for heart issues. You go see an endocrinologist for endocrine issues. You go see a gut person for gut issues. We can't keep doing this. We can't compartmentalize the body because you are not going to find the answers you need, because as soon as you pick up one crumb, that leads to five more and then that five leaves the ten and that ten leads to like thirty is just this ongoing revelation after revelation of how they're all connected and it's not like parallel, it's not a parallel.
Gina Worful
Well that's why I love how your main message is that order of healing the whole body. And of course, you can't get overwhelmed with everything at one time through incorporating all those aspects, including the mindset and all of those pieces and not just like with your issue, are you just gut? are you just hormones? are you just that? Because it doesn't work.
Juanique Roney
Exactly.
Dr. Jannine Krause
No, no, it doesn't and compartmentalizing I mean, and even in the natural medicine world, we've kind of taken the regular medicine model and applied it to natural medicine. We're like, here's all your supplements for this issue. Well it's no different than the really fine print and someone talking really fast about this can happen and that can happen. This can happen and that can happen in addition to why you're taking a supplement. So supplements can also cause shifts in other things. So it's hard to chase down medicine or get your complete body in balance if you're targeting one specific thing for too long. I mean, granted, there's protocols that are short based for something. But long term, you've got to go back to the roots.
Juanique Roney
I want to put a small plug in for the summit that Gina and myself and Carlyn call are doing in June, because we're doing this nearish Youth Summit and it's all about becoming your own like healing advocate, like becoming the master of your roadmap in your healing journey. And so the three of us are talking but Gina is talking for one hour just on mindset and like mind, body connection and everything that you're talking about. We're spending a whole hour on the mind and then I'm spending an hour, unlike the six other areas of the body, and then Karlan's talking about like the implementation, but the fact that we're spending one third of our time on this topic of like we need to get in the right mindset because it bleeds into everything. That's the one thing.
Gina Worful
I think we care so much too about teaching people about looking at that whole body health , not chasing all these symptoms. I mean, I think almost everybody that I've worked with has been exhausted from chasing symptoms.
Juanique Roney
Yes, and everyone has skipped over the mind set piece. Everyone has. Right? Or actually, I think I see more prevalent trend actually, people are going back to that. It's like, hey, we actually have to face our demons before we can fully heal. Otherwise we're just going to do this loop de loop over and over again.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Absolutely.
Dr. Jannine Krause
So, Jannine, thank you so much for bringing that to our attention. Anything else about this topic that you think listeners need to know or learn about when it comes to, you know, gut brain, mind set hormones, any other things that you think we love?
Dr. Jannine Krause
I think I think the basis that I didn't talk about is where you start and really started looking at your habits in your teens first. Look at like where are you triggered, where you getting stressed out? Where are you not taking time to sit down and eat? And what can you do to change that? But also, so many people don't take breaks during the day and now we have this like black a disconnect between work and home because so many people are working at home. So it's going back and assess your day and assess your day for at least a week. And I know some people might cringe, OK, I want to do that. Do at least a day where, you know, like what you're doing and where you're literally self sabotaging your ability to put yourself in parasympathetic mode. Once you know more about you, then you can go back and go, all right, where can I make one change? Because it's not about like an all or nothing thing. Every little bit helps. So you change one thing, you master that, then move to the next thing, master that, and then you're going to start to see a lot of change happen over time. It's nothing with this is going to be quick. I have to always tell folks like I do not have a magic pill. You have a magic brain and belly that are going to communicate and you got this yourself. It's just going to take a little bit of time. Folks, we're here to help guide them. We're here to help and just cheer on, but also for accountability, because it's really about the little reps.
Gina Worful
So if you have like five things that maybe somebody can be like, OK, here's a couple like boom, boom, boom, like maybe a checklist of things that they could start working in, what would those five tips that they could work in right away?
Dr. Jannine Krause
OK, so first we'll be of course the routine, assess that. The second would be set up a routine or even if you give yourself thirty seconds before you eat, set that up. The next one would be to take a break during the day. I don't care if you stare at the wall. I don't care if it's a minute long. Do that. I also recommend with time kind of adding in that positional parasympathetic breathing and that could be like a minute if you can lay down on the floor for a minute doing that. But take a break during the day. My fourth one would be hammer down your evening routine, meaning heart stop on work and then we're working on easing in to the evening also like screen time, all that to everyone's ever heard. I mean, it's nothing new, but the reality of it is, is our evening routines are what we suck at to help ease ourselves in the evening because we don't sleep well. Nothing else can happen either. That part of stress management one on one.
Juanique Roney
And how many people have sleep disorder? How many eight year old, ten year olds, 12 year olds, these are the ages where I'm seeing these sleep disorders and it's blowing my mind. So I'm so glad you brought that up. Keep going.
Dr. Jannine Krause
You're fine, and then my last one is something that seems to be the hardest for everyone. And I don't know why this is for females. Guys seem to have it down. But as ladies, we need to come up with one thing a week that feels luxurious for us to get time away on our own, our own.
Gina Worful
I love that one.
Dr. Jannine Krause
That is key. And it doesn't matter what you do, but being alone, because most of us have family responsibilities, things of that nature. And like literally, if you think about it, when is the last time where you really didn't have anyone talking to you besides maybe when you were sleeping or trying to sleep?
Juanique Roney
Right, exactly.
Dr. Jannine Krause
So time alone, once a week, doing something doesn't matter what. Just no one talking to you.
Juanique Roney
And I want to add to that, put your phone on airplane mode because you're alone and you're on your phone and you're on Instagram or you're on Facebook, you're actually not alone. You are plugged into other people's energies and other realms, not realms, but other people's worlds. Leave your phone at home if you can and this happened to me last week. I went for a hike without my phone. And for the first five minutes, the last twenty was luxurious. I was like, why don't I do this more? You know? And I realize I am the pot calling the kettle black because I just realized two weeks ago I'm a workaholic, so I've been having, like these come to Jesus moments where I'm like, holy cow, I need to take care of myself. Like, my self care is so bad and I'm telling people to take care of themselves. So, ladies, let's look at ourselves. Let's look at our lives like let's be really honest with ourselves and be like on a scale of 1 to 10, are we tens ? You know, let's get down to relaxation and true self care. All right.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yeah. It does not mean a bathtub with a big old glass of wine. That's not self care.
Juanique Roney
So there we go.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Yes. Lock the door. Put the phone out. The big glass of wine not going to help you in that.
Juanique Roney
I love it. I love it. Thank you so much, Jannine. This has been amazing. How can people find you? Because you're just fantastic. People need to go listen to your podcast. It's called The Health Fix. But what are your other platforms? We know Instagram, you're doctor Janine Krause, will put that in the show notes. Are you taking on new patients?
Dr. Jannine Krause
I am taking on new patients for acupuncture right now because I have this. It's my ulterior motive. I get people in for the acupuncture to start moving things in the neck. Plus, it's also the only time that they can get people off their phones to not do anything because I'm sticking needles and I'm not going to move. It's kind of my secret to my secret spice there. So what's happening in my office? If you call my office, I'm not taking any naturopath because what I'm doing is working folks into programs, including acupuncture in person. So I'm in Tacoma, Washington, and I'm in Renton, Washington. I have two offices here. Now, if you want to see me virtually, by all means, send me a message via my website, which is doctorjkrausend.com. You can find all my resources, you can find all my quirky things about me and there you will see, see it all. So that's where I'm kind of directing folks at this point to hook up with me, because we're going to have some programs coming up here in the next month that will kind of showcase all the things I mentioned today. And then I am on Facebook as well but I like Instagram a lot more. So there you have it. And I do have a Facebook group that goes along with my podcast. The health Facebook group is called Find Your Health Next and we talk about all the podcast.
Juanique Roney
Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your energy, for your wisdom around all of these things. It's so funny, Gina, don't you think, how a lot of these episodes we've been doing lately, we kind of take it back to mindfulness again, like mindfulness, like mental state, like this is so important. Yes, the food's important. Yes, supplements can be important, but we can't skip the step because it's kind of like, you know...
Gina Worful
Mind controls the body.
Juanique Roney
It really does. Jannine, thank you so much again. This was fantastic and it was so fun to have your energy on here. And I don't think I've laughed this hard in an episode ever so and learn so many new things. So thank you and thank you, Gina.
Gina Worful
Yeah, this is great awesome episode.
Dr. Jannine Krause
Thank you.
Juanique Roney
And thank you guys for listening and until next time. Bye.
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