Diagnosing Digestive Disorders by Gas

[shelley]

Yep, your farts can tell you a lot about what's going on with your digestion! Didn't you just know that I'd get around to making you smell your farts?

Okay, to review a bit, remember that it is normal to have a bit of gas when you pass feces. But passing gas in between feces is not good, it means too much fermentation is going on and over time that can lead to IBS, Crohn's and systemic candidiasis.

Foul-smelling gas and feces is usually due to poor protein digestion. Since protein digestion starts in the stomach and is continued in the small intestine, it's usually a combo of low stomach acids, pancreatic enzymes, particularly protease, and sometimes low bile salts since protiens are usually combined with fats. Eat smaller portions and follow the guidelines for digestive power, such as not drinking a lot of fluids or eating a lot of fruit with a high-protein meal. A bit of cooked fruit sauce is okay, like the way we have cranberry with turkey, or pineapple with sweet and sour chicken, or lingonberry with swedish meat balls. But don't follow a meat meal with a huge raw fruit dessert! Especially if you have company! If you have chronic foul-smelling gas, best to take the acid stomach test.

If eating fats causes nausea, burping, sudden feelings of illness like you're about to vomit or actual pain, and then you have smelly gas or slick floating stools or a visible oil slick in the toilet bowl, that's all poor fat digestion. Fats are digested by bile, which is produced by the liver and held at the ready by the gallbladder, and also lipase from the pancreas. It could be due to not enough pancreatic enzymes, bile salts or heavily contaminated bile salts due to eating things like margarine, deep-fried foods, commercial salad dressings, and a low-fiber diet or low-fat diet that caused a bunch of stones. Liver and bile cleansing is in order, which means carrot juice, carrot salad, liver herbs, stone dissolvers and perhaps liver flushing.

If you have lots of gas with no odor really, you're not just lucky, you're probably having problems digesting carbohydrates. For that, lactic acid is the best response. Lactic acid is found in fermented cabbage (cortido, kim chee, sauerkraut), or you can actually buy lactic acid tabs. Digestive enzymes are also good, as are organic salts which can be found in Bieler Broth, or zucchini and celery.

If milk and milk products give you diarrhea, gas and bad breath, you are lactose intolerant and should avoid milk unless it is hot milk simmered with spices (see recipes in FAQ) or cultured milk/kefir, and even then only in small amounts, rarely. Digestive enzymes will help with this too.

These are the foods that are most likely to cause gas:

beans, especially when combined with sugar and ketchup. When they are soaked overnight and then slow-cooked with carminitive spices (cumin, turmeric, garlic) they are much less likely to cause gas to form.

vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, onions, artichokes, and asparagus, especially if raw. Eat them cooked or fermented.

fruits, such as pears, apples, and peaches. Eat them cooked with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg.

whole grains, such as whole wheat and bran. Bran is very hard to digest, one of those foods that we think is good for us but in fact is not great. Best to get the benefits of bran from wheat germ oil.

soft drinks and fruit drinks. High in sugar, the sugars bypass the stomach, hit the small intestine and ferment, especially when combined with other foods.

milk and milk products, such as cheese and ice cream, and packaged foods prepared with lactose, such as bread, cereal, and salad dressing.

foods containing sorbitol, such as dietetic foods and sugarfree candies and gums.

Hope that helps! This will be posted in the FAQ under Vital Health Management/Diagnostics.

[Rosnor]

Great info Shelley. I've officially got big digestive problems! Is it only me, or do onions and garlic always produce smelly gas? They actually smell like they do before you eat them I've stopped eating them as you suggested, but had some garlicy soup the other day, and got a whiffy reminder. Could it be the sulphur content?

Also, I recently tried some Bromelein, for protein digestion, and was in severe pain all night, AWFUL continual pain for hours (intestinal), I had to get up and take strong pain killers. Do you think it was aggravating the inflammation, or digesting my intestines? I can take tummeric and acv ok, and even cats claw, so I was a bit puzzled about this reaction (its happened twice in all). Would love to hear your opinion.

[Ritchie]

Interesting.. I have a dodgy pancreas and so had to take insulin and digestive enzymes for a while.. but since changing over to a new diet of fruit/veg I have managed to stop taking the insulin and now only take an enzyme pill when eating meat or have a lot of oil.. I believe alot of my ills have been down to a clogged up system which in turn has caused me acne and acid reflux symptoms.. I was wondering if you think lecithin would be a good supplement for me to take as does it not help somewhat with fats?

[shelley]

yep, the sulphur content. I'm a huge fan of garlic and onion, but after eating garlic I get a bit of BO and smellier gas. Usually I have no smell and use no deoderants whatsoever. When I combine garlic with turmeric and cumin, like in Kichadi, I get no bad smells.

That's very interesting about the bromelain. Could be you don't have enough healthy mucus lining and should do aloe vera, marshmallow root, slippery elm and vitamin A before bromelain. Bromelain is supposed to help with general inflammation such as joints and sprains, but since it dissolves/digests proteins could have a negative effect on intestinal tissues if they're not properly protected. So avoid it if your tongue is full of cracks.

I recommend lecithin all the time. Try it and see. Don't overdo, however, as an overdose of lecithin will bring on an acne outbreak. Eating it in my Protein Shake with digestive enzymes will get you all the good things you need without clogging you up to badly. And you can sprinkle it on salads to help digest the oil in the salad dressing, which should be homemade.

[Rosnor]

Great Shelley, thanks for all that advice. Yes, I have cracks in my tongue, at the tip going back about 1 inch, more obvious when I curl it a bit, with two smaller ones either side. Its not as bad as it was since taking the glutamine.

Aloe is another thing I can't have, it gives me cramps and diarhea. Slippery elm - I get through a lot of this, its great stuff, and sorts me out in no time, I even sprinkle it on soups. Would taking this 1-2 times a day be too much? I too, do not have body odour (unless I can't smell it!) and do not wear deodrants, the only time I sweat is if I've drunk coffee, or had some energetic exercise! I usually do mix garlic with turmeric, but it is definately still 'there'. I've more or less stopped eating it now, and I do feel better for it. Thanks Shelley.

[Ritchie]

Yeah thx alot shelley, gonna purchase some lecithin and give it a shot.

[shelley]

Slippery elm is pretty safe to use, so I wouldn't worry about dose and frequency as long as you take it for less than 3 months total. Do be sure to see about getting more B12, even B12 shots, as that will cure the gut permeability and cracks on the tongue very quickly when coupled with L-Glutamine.

[Ritchie]

Have purchased some HCL Betaine as well.. after reading up on the acid test and the symptoms for low acid stomach I firmly believe this might be a solution to alot of my problems.. especially as since I've started eating apples and ACV my stomach and mouth has felt alot better.. all of which I was told by my gastro Doc to avoid.. have thrown my acid reflux pills in the bin.. all they did was make me feel more ill anyway

[Tamlyn]

Hi Shelley,
Regarding the gas situation, I have the worst gas and its almost all the time! I have had a stool test at the doctor which showed that I digest my fats proteins etc. I have to believe that the test is wrong. So my doctor says I don't need to take enzymes. Do you think I still should because of the super bad smelly gas? I take PD 2 scoops a day. I have done 8 liver flushes in the past year with the last 2 showing no results. I have extreme brain fog from sun up to sundown. I am just miserable all the time and am afraid to leave the house. I take super greens everyday and use a colon cleanser to poop every day because without it I am extremely constipated. Sorry for all the bad news. Thanks for your help!
Tamlyn

[chickpea]

Thanks for that great post Shelley, it's really helpful!
Anne

[shelley]

Hi Tamlyn!

There's more to digestion than enzymes. Having enough pancreatic enzymes (which is what the stool test is analyzing) is just one small fraction of everything that happens in the bowels.

If you have chronic constipation and are not going regularly, at least once a day, preferably more if you eat 3 large meals a day, then the reason you have gas is because things are hanging around too long, causing dysbiosis etc.

First thing you want to do is take the stomach acid test, which is in the FAQ under Vital Health Management. That's the first part of digestion, and if that isn't done right then nothing else will go right either. Please be sure to read about the power of digestion, which teaches how to eat so that you don't overwhelm stomach acids etc.

THEN what you want to do is comprehensive bowel management. A really good cleanser, like Oxy-Powder for a month coupled with enemas/ colonics and good safe laxatives in order to force out mucoid placque, followed by fiber shakes like you're taking now. Triphala is the best laxative, not much of a laxative really. Just fiber shakes alone work too slowly and give you tons of gas as things get "stirred up."

If you've taken PD for more than a month, it's time to switch to probiotics that are the RESIDENTS, not the transients. PD is made up of transients. The residents are in Kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut/cortido/kim chee, Bragg's apple cider vinegar. These should be in your diet every day. Make your own cortido, it's quite tasty! I detest sauerkraut but cortido is awesome.

Read up on being Vata dosha and follow a Vata-pacifying lifestyle. Vata people are prone to gas, we have to avoid raw fruits and veggies for the most part, especially broccoli, cabbage, and any legumes that are cooked with sugar. We need things to be cooked and prepared with plenty of basil, cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, turmeric, things like that, like Kichadi.

Do a little bit of liver management too, particularly herbs that promote bile production and foods that cleanse bile - the carrot salad in the Essential Recipes is a good one, plus dandelion tea.

Hope that helps!

[Alicyn]

While we're all yacking about gas, I notice that sometimes I take EmergenC and it gives me really bad gas. Is that just because I'm fine on Vit C and increasing my threshold?

Ali

[shelley]

Yep, we all have a "bowel tolerance" for vitamin C. If you exceed your bowel tolerance you will get symptoms. The usual symptom is diarrhea but gas can be part of that.

[Tamlyn]

Shelley,
So do I need an enzyme supplements with meals or do I eat kim chee or cortido instead? How do I make cortido? Actually I took the dosha test and I tied for all 3! But like you said I probably need to follow the vata lifestyle. I did try the Kichadi once and it gave me the runs so bad I didn't dare eat it again! Tasted good though. What do you recommend to take to increase my bile flow? Hey thanks so much for your help!
Tamlyn

[jlogan]

Wow, great article and very informative!
I notice that after I am done eating foods very high in carbs, I get terrible gas and very painful intestinal cramps. How is poor carbohydrate digestion caused (and where does the cramping come from)? I was on Atkins for a year but I highly doubt that was what caused it because I know someone who's been on it for 2 years and she doesn't have this problem. I used to have candida and I would take huge doses of garlic for it, and I am wondering if that has anything to do with it. Anyways, which enzymes would you recommend (would just amylase be good, or should I get something with diastase, lactase, bromelain, and papain)? Also, I cannot find lactic acid tablets...any suggestions where to find those?