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Joel Sprechman is an engineer-turned-health-crusader on a mission to help those struggling with IBD, Crohn’s, and Ulcerative Colitis. Suffering from his own health crisis (after simply eating a homemade oatmeal cookie from his mom), Joel realized that conventional medicine wasn’t the answer to the questions he had. This began his quest to discover his own answers.
After being sent to a gastroenterologist and being diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis, and later Crohn’s, Joel Sprechman was given limited options for treatment from mainstream medicine. With an outlook that allowed him the opportunity to think differently, he found his own path. That mission would guide him to start One Great Gut, a foundation to help others see that there are other options available to them, outside of medication and surgery.
If you’re living with Irritable Bowel Disease, Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, or other chronic digestive issues, you’ll want to hear Joel’s journey back to health. Joel keeps it real and recognizes that while there are times for medication, the majority of the improvements over the long term come from diet and lifestyle changes. Learn how alternative therapies, meditation, stress management, and functional testing can help to gain a better insight as to what imbalances are contributing to the symptoms.
You can find Joel Sprechman and his work at his website www.onegreatgut.com. There is a whole resource section available for you to see just what the options are, as well as a Mastermind group you can apply to join.
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In this podcast you’ll learn:
- About the community Joel Sprechman has built around people living with Crohn’s that are not using pharmaceuticals to control their symptoms [3:30]
- How the One Great Gut Health Collection was launched in October 2019 [4:20]
- Joel’s history of issues since childhood that came to a head in 2001 when he was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis [8:45]
- Why Joel now sees his diagnosis as a gift, using it to see when his body is under too much stress [12:25]
- Joel defines colitis and what can contribute to it [13:30]
- Just how much stress affects digestion [14:40]
- That about 10 million are living with Crohns or colitis and is considered autoimmune [14:50]
- How inflammation with a gut health condition like Colitis or Crohn’s affects other parts of the body, more than just the colon [15:20]
- Joel Sprechman and Dave Korsunsky talk more about contributors to developing a disease like Crohns or UC. How root causes can be different for each person [17:15]
- How Joel is managing his “gift” through natural approaches. Also how Joel believes that conventional medical care is a big reason so many are living with chronic illnesses [20:50]
- How chronic illness is becoming more and more prevalent. Conventional doctors are working from the “prescribe and perform surgery,” without any emphasis or training on prevention, diet and lifestyle mitigation [22:00]
- About how ozone therapy and hyperbaric treatment can be really helpful for optimizing health with IBD [23:45]
- Why slowing down and paying attention to our bodies can help to understand what is happening. This can possibly prevent you from going into a full-blown attack, before realizing you need to course-correct [26:10]
- How we tend to default to wanting to mask pain through the use of NSAIDs, TV, caffeine, etc. We use this to power through and live in our heads instead of our bodies. This can lead us further down the path to disease, one day waking up to a full-blown autoimmune illness [27:20]
- Why getting the right type of healthcare provider can help you ask the right questions. This can help you to find out how to properly support your body. [28:30]
- How do you get started with a functional medicine practitioner for Irritable Bowel Disease or other gut health ailments? [30:00]
- Joel’s recommendations on where to go to find functional medicine doctors, and how most of them work remotely as well [31:25]
- What kind of diagnostic testing is helpful that Joel recommends. As well as the at-home tests he recommends utilizing and monitoring [33:15]
- About Joel’s personal experience with utilizing some of the functional tests before going on a new medication [35:50]
- How hyperbaric and ozone therapy helps with gut health; rectal ozone therapy can be helpful to someone with a compromised colon; and ozone topicals can be helpful for use in the mouth or even used with fistulas [37:45]
- There are topical, rectal and IV ozone therapies available for fighting pathogens and invaders to the body
- Hyperbaric therapy can boost the immune system
- That CBD and cannabis can be helpful to offset symptoms and get off of pharmaceuticals. Though medical marijuana seems to have a stronger medicinal effect for stress mitigation for most. How a topical marijuana salve can help keep things moving in the gut that can be shut down due to stress [42:50]
- Regarding hyperbaric therapy – when using just the chamber you have 25% more absorption than without, and if you add a concentrator or mask you can get up to 35-45% high-quality oxygen [45:30]
- What Joel Sprechman finds to be supportive as a starting point for someone trying to heal. And how you can use personal belief and your intuition to guide you as you experiment with your health [47:05]
- Fasting and/or elemental or elimination diets can halt things really fast if you’re trying to make a big change quickly; however fasting should be done under the guidance of a physician [47:25]
- How the elemental diet helps to arrest the progression of symptoms of IBD. And why SCD, paleo, and GAPS can also be great for people who like to cook as well [49:00]
- More about the summit and interviews Joel Sprechman has conducted that have been very well received with audiences. And how mindset and medication can help to go deeper with the healing capacity [53:10]
- How Google is censoring information and about the type of information you will find. How to decipher what is helpful and what is not [56:44]
- More about One Great Gut 2.0 is forthcoming with a lot more great information [58:10]
- How Joel uses the Heads Up app for tracking his own health and labs after years of using just a spreadsheet [59:10]
References
Institute for Functional Medicine
Thryve stool testing
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