wifeneedshelp said...
I hate sounding ignorant here but what is a integrative practitioner?
You don't know how sad it makes me to read that comment. :(
An integrative practitioner is a doctor that looks at all aspects in managing a disease, with lifestyle being the most crucial. It initially begins with testing for things like nutritional deficiencies and pathogens via stool cultures. For instance, most IBD patients, or even Americans for that matter, are generally deficient in Vitamin D and magnesium. B12, zinc, cholesterol, vitamins A, D, E, K deficiencies are also fairly common, and never addressed properly. These deficiencies play a huge role in the development and progression of disease, and they need to be addressed pronto.
The workup may be extensive, but it seeks to address the root cause of illnesses, which in many cases is a bacterial component of the gut. These bacteria work in conjunction with each other in modulating the immune response and they are strengthened by prebiotics, probiotics, herbs, nutrition, stress management, sleep, etc.
Medicines may or may not be necessary depending on the situation, but most are generally useless and ineffective. The studies show that by themselves, medicines are only slightly better than placebos. You'll notice that most people are on a combination of meds to keep their symptoms under control, since combined efficacy is better than individual efficacy.
There are starting points like the SCD diet, but it's better to work with a practitioner to lay the ground rules and for monitoring purposes. People fail on these diets because there are intricacies and nuances that they aren't aware of. It really becomes a starvation diet for most people and they end up worse than before because autoimmune diseases have a strong metabolic backbone component behind them.