The reason I became a health coach is because of a life changing experience that happened to me in my late 20s and 30s.
I was diagnosed with IBS. But that was not the traumatic part of my experience. My doctors, including the GI specialist, seemed uninterested in helping me regain the health I enjoyed for the last 28 years.
What’s even worse than IBS symptoms is feeling helplessness, disillusioned and abandoned by the people you trusted to help you.
I respected doctors until they shrugged me off, prescribed meds that didn’t help or caused more harm. Laxatives, antidepressants, antibiotics and acid blockers (PPIs) made things worse over the long term.
And when someone chalks your issue up to stress, it only stresses you out more.
In the late 1990s, when I was diagnosed, there were few resources for educating myself.
These days the opposite problem exists. There’s too much information, much of it conflicting. Carbs are the problem. Or fat. Don’t eat meat. Don’t eat soy. Low fiber. High fiber. FODMAPs. Paleo. SCD, GAPs, broth, collagen, celery juice. Fix leaky gut.
Yikes.
Everyone has the “solution” but nothing seems to help.
You begin to wonder if it really is I your head?
For me it was a 4-year journey of trial and error with researching, different diets, supplements, detox protocols and holistic practitioners before I found my solution.
During that time that hardest part was keeping my spirits up. And finding the energy to keep going. No matter how much I believed in a cure, my daily failures and symptoms were getting to me.
I turned to IBS healing success stories to stay on track. It was proof that it was possible and my doctors were wrong about their incurable prognosis.
Hope through testing
With the testing practices I use with clients, I’ve had more success identifying what’s wrong.
A recent client agreed to share her story of how functional gut testing worked for her after trying so many things that didn’t.
In a low moment of researching her symptoms, Rebecca found my blog. She listened to her gut and took a leap of faith.
She was following a restricted Low FODMAP diet at the time but feeling little relief.
After testing, we ruled out SIBO, and found h pylori, a parasite, bacterial overgrowth in her large intestine and candida.
Her beneficial bacteria was also low and not protecting her against the overgrowing pathogens.
We worked on each issue step by step, and Rebecca’s symptoms, complaints and anxiety began to ease. She was good about her diet and taking supplements and finally found the relief she was looking for.
Testing helped her save time and money on unneeded supplements and unnecessarily restrictive diets.
Rebecca listened to her gut, took a leap of faith, and agreed to inspire others with her experience.
This is what Rebecca’s wrote about her experience.
“Angela gave me my life back….
I’ve always been a very healthy person. From an early age, health and fitness became my passion. Eventually these led me to opening my own gym. My goal was to help others and to live a life that represented what I taught to them.
For many years I felt amazing. Even in my 40’s I could keep up with people much younger than me, and I felt proud of the way I looked.
About two years ago, that all ended. I had no clue what was happening to my body. Suddenly I felt sick a lot, and my stomach was so bloated and distended that it was physically uncomfortable.
My energy levels plummeted and I would have to stop workouts before they were complete. I did a lot of power lifting and I had to switch my entire approach because my body could not handle the weights anymore. I was miserable. Not only did it affect me, but also my family, my gym and all of the members I wanted to inspire.
I started a long journey to understand what was wrong with me. My family doctor ran some basic tests but I didn’t have celiac disease or anything obvious. I decided to go to my gynecologist. After all, I was in my mid 40’s and my cycle had become irregular after years of being perfect. Was it perimenopause? She didn’t think so, and said my symptoms were different than what she would expect.
I decided that it must be nutrition-based and reached out to several nutrition and life coaches. Was I gluten intolerant, or maybe it was lactose?
While I appreciate the information I learned from some amazing people, it was a mystery to them and I was sent down several rabbit holes. There were different theories about what was wrong with me from HPA dysfunction (adrenal fatigue) to hormone imbalances. Each possibility gave me hope and sent me researching, and eventually taking a new supplement. But still, nothing was helping.
At some point I remember sitting in my car in front and texting with a friend about an upcoming trip to Italy (a dream vacation), and how I didn’t even want to go since my restricted diet was nearly impossible to follow and I felt so miserable in my own skin. She insisted that I needed to make an appointment with a GI specialist, which I did on the spot. Surely they would be able to help me.
I was wrong, and that ended up being the most frustrating appointment of all. She didn’t run a single test. She immediately told me that it was severe IBS and stress related. With a printout of the Low FODMAP diet in hand, I left the office doomed to a life of limited food options and constant discomfort. Not only did I physically feel sick, but mentally I was broken.
Several months and many diets later (I tried everything) I experienced an incident that had me searching the internet. I won’t go into detail, but it was bad. But sometimes, when you hit rock bottom, everything can change. My Google search connected me to someone who knew how to help.
I randomly came across Angela’s website and read her story. It was so much like my own! I could relate to everything she went through and it gave me hope. She too had been diagnosed with IBS, but eventually found that this would not be a lifelong sentence, regardless of her doctor’s prognosis. I contacted her right away and have been working with her ever since.
In the end, Angela identified exactly what was wrong. My gut biome was unhealthy, and causing the symptoms I was suffering from. To make matters worse, all of the limiting diets that I’d been prescribed were only exasperating the problem.
My GI doctor had given me a meaningless diagnosis while making suggestions that had actually worked against me. Angela, on the other hand, has truly helped me by suggesting all natural supplements to slowly fix my gut.
My mom had recently gone through some pretty serious medical issues and antibiotics had done horrible things to her body. I was excited for a natural way to combat my health issues. Angela also helped through our consultation calls. She has a way of calming me down, and making sure that I focus on the current task at hand.
I am so very thankful that I ran across Angela’s website and read her story. Today it is incredibly rare to experience the bloat and discomfort that I had suffered from every single day for years. I can work out again and not feel drained. I honestly feel like I’m getting my life back!
I believe Angela will be a part of my journey to remain healthy for a very long time.”
Angela Privin is proof that IBS is NOT an incurable disease or a disease at all. IBS is a body out of balance. It’s an invitation for change. After solving her own IBS mystery more than a decade ago Angela trained as a health coach to help others.
Angela uses both science and intuition to help people figure out what’s out of balance in their body. She works with lab tests, dietary changes, supplementation and nervous system rebalancing. Get help rebalancing your digestive system and solving your IBS mystery here.
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