curing digestion problems?

[lenae]

hello to everyone,

I just started to be interested in fermentation but already read quite a bit about the gut, flora and how this is connected to our immune systems. I do have a very natural and holistic approach to health and so fermentation seems to be the right thing for me to support my health and wellbeing.

I do have some ongoing digestion problems since about 2 years. I have had a bad diarrhoea in Australia in mid 2010 (after what I think was a food poisoning from eating out of a can) and I guess my flora didn't recover totally since. I had some issues with candida already before that. So my digestion seems to be my weak point. I did some tests to check for parasites as I was scared about that, but this seems to be ok. But I didn't manage to get my digestion back into balance again. The doctor says it is an irritable bowel syndrome. I do see a psychosomatic side of it too, but I don't think it is just that as my body just is so much more intolerant with many different foods, for example fatty foods or bread and sweet stuff and the like. It gets upset regularly and I do have flatulence very often. I don't want to explain symptoms further here as this might be a bit embarrassing... ;)

I would like to hear about experiences with taking a cure with eating fermented foods, stories about healing (or improving) health issues and the like... why and how you did it.

I just did some sour pickle style kohlrabi and carrot about 10 days ago, using the recipe from "wild fermentation" on page 51, additionally adding 2 bay leaves and some coriander seeds. I left it for one week and the taste is really great, already slightly sour and exactly how I think it should be. But I got really bad smelling flatulence after eating a small portion of it. I am sure the process went alright. So I wonder if this might be some adjustment reactions of the gut or why this could have happened.

Did you experience some problems first when you started eating fermented foods? Did you do some kind of cure at all, for example not eating any flour/bread/sweet stuff and so on or did you just add fermented foods to your regular diet? Just to explain: I already don't eat any industrial sugar, for quite a while even didn't eat any sweet stuff at all even no fruits but added them to my diet again. I don't eat any white flour too and no wheat. Had phases of not eating any bread at all too. Tried quite a bit but nothing worked so far.

Hope this message wasn't too long now... Looking forward to some answers :)

Lena

[lealdragon]

Hi Lena!

I don't know if you're still around (I'm new!) but yes, foul-smelling flatulence can be a sign that the health critters are eating up the toxins in the body. So it's actually a good thing! It'll pass.