With hiking, climbing mountains or traveling, choosing the best pathway can be daunting. Often you might be hearing “word of mouth” for a particular trail or you’ve found a great “hiking trail” app on your phone. Individuals provide a few pictures, “what to look out for”, and perhaps a few pros and cons.

This is so similar to treating those with eating disorders. Especially when it comes to navigating GI issues, food intolerances or perceived allergies. You’ll find they have eliminated every possible “route” (food) due to fear and misunderstanding. As the provider you are tasked with pushing them towards a trail head they are terrified of and YOU are equally scared because you have never hiked the trail either. Do you know what you are talking about? What will this look like in the room? The client is convinced they have gluten intolerance but they binge on pies, cookies and cakes with normal flour/gluten content.

What now? In this episode we dig deep into allergies and food avoidance. First though, you need to have a decent understanding of food allergies, tests that are often ordered yet are not evidence based, and a general understanding of what causes food intolerances. Clients get to the point of severe malnutrition due to all the food elimination at the same time having visited multiple doctors (with their own bias and opinions) and a myriad of tests that are expensive, time consuming and often unnecessary. Understand an intolerance (often due to malnutrition) vs a food allergy (immune system). We’ll also talk about a few clinical presentations and how we support these cases in session...

Happy Listening!