My Gut Healing Journey: From Frustration to Freedom (Part 1)

My gut healing journey started back in 2021. At the time, we had been working with a functional medicine practitioner for about a year to help one of our children, and we were successfully putting their epilepsy into remission by detoxing their body from all sorts of toxins—bacteria, mold, heavy metals, etc. (That’s a powerful story for another time!) But through that process, I became fully convinced of the benefits of functional medicine—which focuses on identifying the root cause of health issues rather than just masking symptoms with pharmaceuticals.

At that point in my life, I had been to multiple doctors for my own symptoms with no real answers.

The Symptoms I Couldn’t Escape

For years, in between pregnancies, I could not lose weight no matter what I tried.

✔️ I logged every bite of food, eating as low as 1,200 calories a day.
✔️ I exercised five days a week, doing everything from HIIT to weightlifting.
✔️ I gave up grains, sugar, and even tried keto and intermittent fasting.

Nothing worked.

After my sixth baby, I was carrying an extra 50 pounds that would not budge. I also struggled with:

Chronic fatigue – No matter how much I slept, I was always tired. I would hit a 2:00 p.m. wall every single day.

• Eczema rashes – My hands constantly flared up with itchy, painful blisters that would crack and bleed—what I now know was dyshidrotic eczema.

• Anxiety & intrusive thoughts – My brain was always in worst-case scenario mode, especially about my kids.

I saw multiple doctors, spending hundreds of dollars on prescription creams that did absolutely nothing and heard completely useless advice.

One GP told me:

“Exercise 30 more minutes a day and try the Mediterranean diet.”

Another doctor said:

“You have six kids. Of course you’re tired.”

That was it. No real testing, no asking questions about what I had tried, no curiosity about why I felt this way.

I thought my body was just broken. That this was just my life now. But after seeing functional medicine change my child’s life, I decided to try it for myself.

The First Breakthrough: Identifying My Triggers

The first thing my functional medicine practitioner did was put me on an elimination diet. Almost immediately, I discovered that conventional dairy was a massive problem for me.

As soon as I gave it up, my bloating disappeared, and the weight started falling off.

It turns out my body had been in a constant state of chronic inflammation, which was preventing it from functioning properly. Once that inflammation subsided, my body did what it was designed to do—heal itself.

Within a few weeks:
✔️ I lost weight effortlessly for the first time in years.
✔️ My fatigue disappeared – I could sleep seven hours a night and feel amazing all day.
✔️ My anxiety improved – I had far better emotional control in stressful situations.

When I reintroduced foods, I found that gluten gave me overwhelming fatigue. Like so many others, I began believingthat gluten was the enemy. (though we now know that it wasn't gluten, it was the processing of the flour like I've blogged about before!)

But even though I had healed in so many ways, one thing wouldn’t budge—my hands.