I was in Egypt, lying in bed after a wonderful day's SCUBA diving, when all of a sudden I developed the most painful heartburn imaginable - it was as if someone had set fire to my stomach and chest! I couldn't sleep and eventually, a few hours later I vomited quite violently for what seemed like an eternity. Over the next few days, I developed diarrhoea and stomach cramping as well as nausea. Although the symptoms lessened, they were still present after four weeks and I felt tired and generally lethargic - not like me at all.
To be honest, these symptoms nagged away at me for a long time. I would sometimes feel nauseous in the morning and I'd have bouts of extreme fatigue. I was unable to focus or concentrate on tasks and I had constipation, despite eating healthily. I was exercising regularly but seemed unable to build muscle. I was always hungry and felt unsatisfied after eating huge meals of high quality, organic food.
About two years went by and, as luck would have it, I was studying a course in Clinical Nutrition and Functional Medicine when I learned about H. pylori. Wow, what a nasty bug - it could potentially have caused all my problems in Egypt and the subsequent symptoms I had been suffering with too!
I got myself tested using the Stool Antigen Test and sure enough, I had H. pylori. This is where it became really interesting. My Functional Medicine mentor, Dr. Kalish, who has worked with H. pylori every day for the last fifteen years, explained to me that in order to overcome the infection, just taking medical drugs or natural products is not enough and that, in his experience, if key nutrition, lifestyle and clinical factors are not addressed, the H. pylori either won't be killed or it will just come back.
First, I had to address my hormone system. I used simple saliva testing to determine the health of my adrenal glands. The hormones produced by the adrenal glands regulate how well your immune system works, and a healthy immune system is vital for overcoming any infection - including H. pylori - and to stop it coming back! It turned out that my adrenal glands were in stage 2 of adrenal exhaustion and my immune system was not working properly.
This is where nutrition & lifestyle comes into play. As human beings living in the modern world, we are now subjected to huge amounts of stress. This stress comes in obvious forms such as worries over money, disliking our job, relationship issues, life-events such as deaths, divorce, relocation, exams, etc. But there are also hidden forms of stress that most people don't know about: lack of sleep, over-exercising (especially too much aerobic or cardiovascular exercise), gluten, lactose and sugar intolerance, nutritional deficiencies, electromagnetic stress (e.g. mobile phones), pollution, alcohol, medical and recreational drugs, caffeine and processed foods.
We need stress - it is what helps us develop and move forward. But too much stress means that the adrenal glands constantly have to produce a hormone called cortisol. When cortisol goes too high, it shuts down your immune system, which allows infections like H. pylori to get in! Too much cortisol can also upset sex hormone balance, causing PMS, depression and other mood disorders. It also leads to fat gain round the middle and can lead to muscle loss (Aha - so this was why I couldn't put muscle on, despite a lot of weight training!).
Now, over time, if all the stresses keep piling up on your body, your poor old adrenal glands get tired of pumping out all these hormones. Both cortisol and another hormone, DHEA, then get too low. Because these hormones talk to all the cells in your body, low levels can cause all kinds of problems. Low energy levels, bad skin, poor digestion, depression, anxiety, loss of sexual appetite and many other symptoms persist. Another characteristic of low cortisol and DHEA is that you are more likely to develop infections and find it hard to shake them off. You may know of people who really struggle to shake off infections such as the common cold, for example. If your own immune system isn't capable of staving off infection, it's unlikely that you'll be able to get rid of H. pylori, no matter what drug or magic bullet supplement you take!
Using diet & lifestyle changes as well as nutritional supplementation I began to rebalance the hormones cortisol and DHEA and reduce the amount of stress on my body. I did all this before trying to take out the H. pylori. By taking this step first, I was able to strengthen my body so that when I did use some natural products to kill the H. pylori, there was a much better chance of success.
The key point was that there is no magic bullet for killing H. pylori - no drugs or natural products that are likely to be effective on their own - and that a truly holistic approach is required to beat the bug.
Now I was hooked. I researched H. pylori thoroughly - book after book, website after website. Nobody acknowledged any of this information! EVERY single approach I could find simply focused on killing the bug, with perhaps a few (often misguided) nutrition recommendations or an instruction to "stop smoking".
I also came across an online forum where people who have H. pylori can share their experiences. I was truly upset to find that many people had been suffering with horrible symptoms for many years. Some people had undergone several treatments with antibiotics and STILL had the bug. This, I found, was not surprising since even the doctors admit that the medical drugs have a high failure rate! The drug therapies create side-effects so that many people have to stop taking them before the course is finished. Even if they do finish the course of antibiotics, many strains of H. pylori are now resistant so they just don't die!
Many people had lost hope and felt like they were at their wits end because they had tried everything, in some cases spending tens of thousands of dollars in the process. People were scared about developing stomach cancer or ulcers. Their doctors had said things like "it's all in your head", or "you've taken the antibiotics, that's enough". Nobody knew about the need to balance the hormones and address stressors. I realised at this point that I had to get this information out to as many people as possible.
Back to my story. After three months of balancing my hormone system, I began to kill the bug using two specific supplements that are known to be effective in the killing of H. pylori (I have since found another extremely effective product that can be used in combination). Most of my symptoms just went away. I don't know how much of it was down to the hormone balancing, how much was attributable to killing the H. pylori (I also had an overgrowth of E. coli in my system, which we cleared) and how much was down to the nutrition and lifestyle changes I made. Whatever it was, I felt a hell of a lot better!
I began testing my clients for H. pylori and wasn't too surprised to find that many of them had an infection. This was all very well, but I also noticed that some of them, despite having all the symptoms associated with H. pylori, actually didn't have it at all. Instead, they were infected with other bacterial overgrowths or parasites that needed completely different protocols. This showed me the importance of running stool tests. You see, all the other medical tests for H. pylori - blood, breath tests and biopsies - only look for H. pylori and are actually not that accurate. If a different kind of bug is causing the problem and you only do a test for H. pylori, where do you go from there if the test comes back negative?
From working with many clients and through liaising with Doctors around the world, I also started to see some patterns emerging. A bug called Blastocystis hominis is often found alongside H. pylori. This bug in its own right can cause all kinds of problems - stomach aches/cramps diarrhoea, etc. In these cases, even if you get the H. pylori, the Blasto may continue to cause symptoms. This really baffles people and it's one of the reasons why it's so important to have someone working with you while you are trying to overcome your symptoms!
If that isn't enough, most people also get an overgrowth of a yeast species called Candida albicans as well as the H. pylori or other bugs. The Candida itself will cause many symptoms and will always occur if antibiotics are used against the other bugs. It's not possible to get rid of Candida without a carefully planned nutrition program and the right supplements. By the way, antibiotics will kill all the good bacteria in your digestive system and it's imperative to replace these using effective supplements. The gimmicky products like Actimel or Yakult are not effective and often contain lots of artificial ingredients.
So I could see exactly why some people continued to have symptoms even if their H. pylori had gone away. Candida overgrowth and other parasites can cause overlapping symptoms with H. pylori so you don't know which symptoms are being caused by which bug!
At this point, I realised that programs to eliminate H. pylori that didn't include the following steps would only work for some lucky people:
1. Test the adrenal glands/stress hormone (cortisol/DHEA) and balance these hormones so that your own immune system works more effectively. You need to know exactly what the tests mean and which supplements to buy in order to accomplish this - not all supplements are created equal and some people may be sensitive to certain products or brands, especially if they are made cheaply and contain "filler" ingredients. I only ever use supplement companies that sell through doctor or practitioner referral only - definitely not the high street brands.
2. Eat an anti-inflammatory diet so that your gut can start to heal before you go after the bugs. You would be amazed at what effect cutting out some common foods can have on your health, even if you don't get rid of the bug. I have seen people's lives change just as a result of cutting out gluten, for example. But in order to cut out these foods, it's important to work with someone who can help you through the process, because many of the problem foods in our diet these days are the ones we eat most! You need to know alternatives!
3. Address your stress! It's so important to de-stress your body. What can you do to de-stress? Can you stop alcohol consumption, cut down the caffeine, have some time off work, delegate more of your workload or take counselling for relationship problems? What time are you going to bed and how many hours are you sleeping? Did you know that 10pm to 2am is the time when your body does most of its physical healing, but it can only do this if you are properly rested, i.e. asleep?
4. Test for the bugs using accurate testing - Stool Antigen Tests are best, but you need to know the best labs! Even if you have been tested for H pylori, you will still need this test. Incidentally, if you'd like information on how and where to get these tests, email me at dave@davehompes.com
5. Once you know which bugs you have, you need to kill them. Sometimes antibiotics in combination with natural products is best, sometimes people want to avoid the drugs altogether. Everyone is different and will need and want a different approach that suits them. You may want to try the antibiotics, in which case I would refer you to a medical doctor who is skilled in this area and has a good knowledge of the importance of diet and lifestyle. But after the antibiotics, you would need to address the Candida and take good quality probiotics to replace the ones killed by the antibiotics.
6. In terms of feeling better, there is no real guide as to when your symptoms will disappear. It really depends on what has been causing them and how long they have been there. Just as it would take time for a cut to heal on your skin - think about scabs and scars - so too will it take time for your digestive system to heal.
7. Family members and spouses should also be tested so that reinfection is minimised. H pylori and some of these other bugs can be passed through kissing and through sexual fluids. I usually find that H. pylori is found in most family or household members. It's an infectious disease!
8. Sometimes nutritional deficiencies have to be assessed. There's a great test available that I use to help people understand their nutritional deficiencies and it also looks at liver function and some toxins that may have built up in your body over time (e.g. plastics). If you have H. pylori, your stomach acid levels will drop over time and your ability to digest food will be compromised. You may have vitamin deficiencies as a result, which will create another set of symptoms themselves. Symptoms might range from depression to tiredness or a lack of sexual appetite.
If all these points are addressed, you will get better. It looks like a mountain, but it's really not that difficult as long as you have the right guidance. Again, I cannot emphasise how important it is to be working with someone who understands how the body works and not just focus on killing the H. pylori. Had I not been working with Dr. Kalish, I doubt that I would have ever overcome my H. pylori simply because I would never have thought to follow all the steps above.
If you'd like further information on how to enroll on one of our programs, please email me at dave@davehompes.com
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