Fixing Leaky Gut: Avoid These 10 Mistakes

Have you been dedicated to your leaky gut treatment, only to have your digestive issues, eczema, brain fog, seasonal allergies, or other symptoms persist? Don’t give up! Fixing a leaky gut can take time and there are many factors that can complicate your leaky gut treatment.

In fact, you may simply be overlooking a few key steps to fix leaky gut. Once you’ve made the necessary tweaks to your leaky gut treatment protocol, and continue to use essential supplements such as Leaky Gut Revive® (now in delicious Strawberry Lemonade!), it should be smooth sailing. As a quick reminder, let’s discuss The Myers Way® protocol to fix leaky gut.

Fix Your Leaky Gut

The 4R approach is a proven approach that I recommend to all of my patients to fix leaky gut and restore gut health.

1. Remove toxic and inflammatory foods and gastric irritants such as alcohol, caffeine, and medications.
2. Restore essential ingredients for proper digestion and absorption that may have been depleted by diet, medications, diseases, or aging.
3. Reinoculate with beneficial bacteria to reestablish a healthy balance of good bacteria in your gut. 
4. Repair your gut lining by providing the nutrients necessary to help reduce gut inflammation.

Following this protocol to fix leaky gut takes commitment, so of course you want to know if all your hard work is making a difference. While there are lab tests available, I typically didn’t use them in my clinic to diagnose leaky gut. 

Once you’ve followed my protocol to fix leaky gut, the strongest indication of whether or not you’ve been able to restore gut health is your leaky gut symptoms (or lack of them!). You might notice that your digestive issues disappear, food sensitivities go away, skin issues clear up, autoimmune labs improve, and you are your optimal self. 

If you’ve been following The Myers Way® and aren’t noticing any improvement in your symptoms, discover how these mistakes can get in the way of your leaky gut treatment.

10 Mistakes to Avoid When Fixing Leaky Gut

1. Eating too many raw vegetables

While it’s true that vegetables are good for your gut, too many raw vegetables could slow the progress of your leaky gut treatment. This is because digesting raw vegetables takes a lot of work, and if you’re short on digestive enzymes, raw veggies can contribute to bloating gas, and other kinds of GI discomfort. Instead, focus on cooked vegetables while trying to fix leaky gut.

Another option to fix leaky gut is to drink juice or smoothies, as the vegetables are already broken down in a way that makes their nutrients easier for your body to digest and absorb.

2. Not doing an elimination diet

If you’re working to fix leaky gut, you’ve presumably cut out triggering foods such as gluten, dairy, sugar, and all packaged and processed foods. However, if you’re still struggling with leaky gut symptoms such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or chronic fatigue, you could be dealing with undiagnosed food sensitivity.

It’s crucial for anyone working to fix leaky gut to do an elimination diet to rule out hidden food intolerances, or serious food allergies. If you have symptoms such as bloating and constipation, brain fog, or joint pain that seem to mysteriously come and go, chances are that you have a food sensitivity or allergy and could benefit from going on an elimination diet. For additional support, enroll in my Leaky Gut Breakthrough® Program to receive resources for leaky gut treatment such as a symptom checker, shopping guide, and easy-to-follow meal plans to fix leaky gut.

3. Cheating on your gut-healing protocol

Let’s face it—nobody’s perfect! With that said, if you want to fix leaky gut, this is one step you cannot skip. Each time you figure “a little pizza can’t hurt” or “I’ll just have one glass of wine,” your digestive system takes a hit, as does all the progress you’ve made to restore gut health.

On the other hand, once you fix leaky gut, it can be tempting to go back to the way you ate before your leaky gut treatment. However, this is exactly what triggered leaky gut syndrome in the first place! 

Instead, there are plenty of recipes that will help you enjoy the plethora of delicious, nutritious gut-healing foods you CAN eat during your leaky gut treatment so that you’re not focusing on inflammatory foods that compromise your gut health and increase intestinal permeability.

4. Eating when you’re stressed out

We all know stress is bad news for your digestive health and is one of the main causes of leaky gut. Eating while stressed can significantly derail your leaky gut treatment! That’s because when your stress response kicks in, your digestive process slows down to a crawl. 

Rather than trying to force down your lunch when your stomach is in knots, try going for a walk or doing some deep breathing exercises first. Just these little changes will support your leaky gut treatment and your gut will thank you too.

5. Missing one or more of the 4Rs

I know it can be challenging to stick with your leaky gut treatment when you can’t physically “see” the progress and don’t know how long it might take to restore gut health. You might be tempted to cut corners or skip steps. You figure, “I’ve removed the toxic and inflammatory foods from my diet — do I really need the gut-healing supplements? 

Although removing inflammatory foods is an important and necessary step to fix leaky gut, healing the damage that’s already done may require more than simply incorporating gut healing foods into your diet.

That’s why I love Leaky Gut Revive® powder. It contains a high concentration of L-glutamine, an amino acid that helps seal the tight junctions in your intestinal walls, along with aloe vera to replace the lost mucus in your gut, deglycerized licorice, and other powerful ingredients to help fix leaky gut. 

In addition to Leaky Gut Revive® for your leaky gut treatment plan, I also recommend Complete Enzymes, which aid in digestion. It’s also beneficial to include a high-potency probiotic to restore gut balance, and collagen to help heal and rebuild damaged gut cells.

6. Taking medications that damage your gut

Medications are the double-edged sword of our modern world. Some are life-saving and non-negotiable. Yet there are other gut-damaging medications such as antibiotics, oral contraceptives, and NSAIDs that can do more harm than good and get in the way of fixing leaky gut.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics are one of the most over-prescribed medications. Nearly half of all outpatient prescriptions are unnecessary, according to the CDC.¹ They work by blocking bacterial processes by either killing the bacteria or stopping them from multiplying. Unfortunately, antibiotics cannot tell the difference between the “bad” bacteria causing an infection and the “good” bacteria that belong in your gut. As the number of good bacteria in your gut decreases, you become susceptible to gut infections including Candida overgrowth and SIBO, which can contribute to leaky gut and interfere with leaky gut treatment.

Oral Contraceptives

Oral contraceptives or birth control pills contain synthetic hormones such as ethinyl estradiol and norethindrone, which are not recognized or broken down by the body in the same way natural estrogen is. Birth control pills also disrupt your internal balance of Candida by causing something called estrogen dominance – meaning too much estrogen in the body. Candida cells have the ability to permeate your gut lining, causing leaky gut. When working to fix leaky gut, talk to your doctor about alternative methods of contraception.

NSAIDS

NSAIDs such as Advil and Motrin work by stopping your body’s production of a chemical called prostaglandins, which promotes inflammation, pain, and fever.² They do this by blocking cyclooxygenases (COX) enzymes. These enzymes produce prostaglandins, but they also protect your stomach and intestinal lining. This is why NSAIDs can damage your gut and derail your leaky gut treatment.

7. Eating “health” foods that really aren’t healthy

We grew up being told that foods such as dairy, grains, and legumes are “healthy.” As it turns out, these foods might be what’s keeping you from fixing leaky gut. Dairy is one of the two most inflammatory foods. Seventy percent of women overall (it does vary by ethnicity) stop producing the lactase enzyme needed to properly digest dairy after they finish breastfeeding, which is why so many people have a dairy intolerance.³

Meanwhile, grains and legumes contain chemicals such as lectins and phytates that can aggravate your gut lining, interfere with your leaky gut treatment, and even lead to autoimmune disease.

8. Taking the wrong probiotics

If your leaky gut is due to SIBO and you can’t seem to make it past step three of the 4R approach in your leaky gut treatment, your probiotics could be to blame. Bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine can be a surplus of good bacteria as well as bad, and typically involves lactobacillus or bifidobacterium species. When you take a lactic acid-based probiotic (which most on the market are) you are actually feeding the bacteria that have mistakenly inhabited your small intestine. 

Until your leaky gut treatment is complete and you fix leaky gut, I recommend soil-based probiotics which are able to bypass your small intestine and colonize your colon and large intestine instead.

9. Eating too many fermented foods

You’ve probably heard countless sources say fermented foods are a gut’s best friend. The truth is that when you introduce fermented foods into your diet and your gut microbiome, you don’t really know exactly what kind of bacteria or yeast they contain. 

As with probiotic supplements, if you have SIBO or Candida overgrowth, you should wait until after you fix leaky gut to eat fermented foods as they could potentially be worsening the overgrowth and derailing your leaky gut treatment.

10. Not addressing the other three pillars of The Myers Way®

Perhaps you’ve worked your way through the 4Rs and are wondering why you’re still showing signs and symptoms of leaky gut. Well, healing your gut is only the first pillar of The Myers Way®. The key to fixing leaky gut is to address all underlying environmental causes of your condition. That means you also have to optimize your diet, tame your toxic burden, heal your infections, and relieve your stress to restore gut health.

Completing Your Leaky Gut Treatment

Together, these four pillars are the recipe for overcoming chronic illness, autoimmune flares, leaky gut symptoms, and other health problems that can be helped by a leaky gut treatment plan. Once you fix leaky gut, you’ll see digestive issues disappear and food sensitivities go away, your mood will improve, and your energy will return.

Most importantly you will feel like yourself again and your healthy gut will be able to support your digestion, your immune system, and so much more. What are you waiting for? There’s no better time than now to fix leaky gut and achieve optimal health.