"The Listen to Your Gut program is a tour-de-force in better understanding our body's second brain. From the specificities of a wide variety of physical treatments, to probing the inner workings of our psyches and how they relate to our gut, it has something to offer almost anyone who has an intestinal tract. In fact, I have already recommended it to two friends with intestinal/rectal problems and begun using a few of the recommended supplements myself."
- John W. Travis, MD, MPH
"I worked as a PA for a GI specialist in Seattle, but when our 19-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Crohn's her freshman year at Whitman College, we skipped her doctor's recommendations and used your program for the last 7 years with no recurrence. She is now a 2nd year medical student at UW and lives with her twin sister who is third year, so there is some stress there. Our other 2 children are physicians at UCDavis and San Francisco General. My husband is a family physician here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and he takes my Listen to Your Gut to give to his newly diagnosed IBD patients. I have given it to others who have followed traditional medical advice for years to no avail, and they say "it has given them their life back" and their friends even see immediate improvement in their energy and appearance. We all truly believe in this scientific, thoughtful, healthful, wholesome, and economic approach to this terrible disease. Thank you so much again."
- Robin Chisholm
"No one can be less satisfied with conventional medical treatment for these complaints than the medical profession itself. Patel Thompson gives excellent dietary advice and the clearest message from Listen To Your Gut is that one should cease to be a victim of illness and make a determined effort to take charge of one's fate and welfare."
- David Bamford, MD
"I became a physician in 1976 and then I did my specialization in cardiology. I received my training as a clinician in a heart surgical center. I was always a very curious, inquisitive practitioner. At the beginning I bought into the concept that medical science "saves lives" and that the scientific method was the gold standard that someday will defeat illness. I didn't know how wrong I was.
Years later, I went into my second specialization, emergency medicine. This is yet a more structured medical practice than cardiology. In those days I was proud to be a mainstream doctor.
Some years ago I began to think differently. I started outlining a book. My main goal was to define "health". What does this concept imply? When can someone be considered healthy and when do we lose our place in this category? A common expression says that if you give a doctor enough time, money and resources, he/she will find something abnormal in you. You will lose your position of being a healthy person and become their client. I recommend you take the time to read a funny article published in 1994 in the New England Journal of Medicine called "The Last Well Person": http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/330/6/440
As the years went by, I discovered that medicine approaches medical problems in a very simplistic way; as if the body has only one way of reacting. And even if medical science doesn't have a consistent definition, or treatment, it still acts as if the doctor can effectively study, identify and treat any case. It is hard to find a practitioner who will admit his ignorance in a particular case. This is called the "biomedical model": the notion that the disease activity determines the clinical outcome, in other words, disease does not equate with illness.
On the opposite side, there is an alternative model that is slowly starting to win popularity among clinicians, it is called the "biopsychosocial model". It proposes that illness and disease are the result of simultaneously interacting systems at the cellular, tissue, organism, interpersonal and environmental levels. This approach integrates biological science with the uniqueness of the individual, to determine the degree to which psychosocial factors interact, in order to explain the disease, illness and outcome. For the last 15 years I have been exploring this model. I went to the School of Anthropology and tried to learn medical anthropology. A completely new approach. I now feel that if I'd had this knowledge right at the beginning of my medical career, I would have been able to understand much more about human suffering.
Last year my 13-year-old daughter taught me the biggest lesson of my career. After a mild flu she started to have diarrhea, abdominal pain and blood with every bowel movement. We visited her paediatrician, who gave her a diet. She did not improve at all. After a couple of weeks with the same symptoms we decided to consult one of the most prestigious paediatric gastroenterologists in the country. A so-called "big name".
He immediately made a diagnosis. But, not satisfied with it, he wanted "confirmation". This meant performing a colonoscopy. on a 13-year-old girl with two weeks of diarrhea. At that time, I thought this was crucial for him to make a decision as to whether to treat her with certain medications, or a specialized approach.
The procedure did not show anything definitive, nor the biopsy. Slowly, I started to realize that they had only one protocol to treat IBS/IBD patients, and that the colonoscopy procedure was totally irrelevant other than to contribute to a morbid curiosity. Of course, he wasn't taking into account that it was producing more suffering and pain for my child.
For more than he six months we gave her immense doses of antibiotics (Cipro and Metronidazole), Mesalamine and corticosteroids at immunosupressive doses. We saw other doctors, still more brutal than the "big shot". One gastroenterologist suggested surgery.
I was more devastated still. My daughter's suffering continued. She couldn't leave her bed, she couldn't go to school. She had intense abdominal pain. She was still bleeding and having almost 15 bowel movements a day. We were disoriented, depressed, and devastated to see our princess going through this nightmare.
When her doctor suggested Azathioprine I decided to put an end to her treatment. This was way too much. By this time, I had become a specialist in IBD: forced by the situation, I devoured the publications on IBD/IBS. These medical textbooks were authored by the top specialists in the world, Mayo Clinic, UCLA, University Hospital Leuven, Belgium, etc. I spent hours on the Internet reading the latest medical literature. I found nothing but inconsistencies, contradictions, and lack of clarity. So I knew that if she became immune-depressed as the specialist suggested, the risks were enormous. As I told him, this is not just another patient, this is MY DAUGHTER.
Of course, we also tried some other approaches, such as medical homeopathy, acupuncture, nutrition - mainstream and also naturopathic - none of which helped her. My beloved daughter was still in massive pain and bleeding.
A good friend of ours put me in contact with a paediatrician in New York City. This woman has a daughter with Crohn's disease. She said to me: "Get the book Listen To Your Gut. It's written by a patient, it is not a medical text, but I think it is worth reading her approach to the problem, since traditional medicine has a limited approach to treat these problems."
I bought Listen To Your Gut just as a possible source to help my daughter with the "minor elements" of her illness. I have to admit that from the beginning I had to fight against my "medical prejudice". Jini Patel Thompson was not a physician, but still she was showing a radical way of treating the ailment. It made sense, a lot of sense. But I still had to fight against my medical mindset. It completely blew my mind and I decided to finish my "toxic" relationship with the medical world and embrace the "patient world". The more I read, the more I found that the book was actually based on solid evidence, and IT WORKED!!
Once we started the elemental diet, plus the supplements and the wild oregano oil (can you believe that? I was using herbs for the first time in my life) plus probiotics and vitamins and Aloe vera juice, she was in great shape, almost no pain and no bleeding, in just ten days. This, after more than seven months of intolerable suffering.
This was a great experience for me: one of the very first occasions in my whole medical career where I could finally have a very practical application of the biopsychosocial model. We could finally understand the implications and connection between the changes in her life - she had started a new high school, had her first period, left her childhood to become an adolescent, her eldest brother got married suddenly - and the impact all these new situations made on her body.
This is the key to help her cope with all the bumps on the road. Whenever she feels insecure, or afraid, she takes her hands and puts them on her belly. If she doesn't interrupt the circuit, disconnecting the loop, she ends up with abdominal cramps and diarrhea. Now after repeatedly experiencing these episodes, combined with the healing regimen, she has learned to cope with the tough situations of her daily life.
Seven months after starting with the elemental diet, the detoxification and the healing journey, she is almost free of symptoms, having a normal scholastic and social life.
I strongly believe that all the medication she received was aggressive and damaging. Now I feel we're on the right track: all the protocols that Jini suggests are beneficial for her, and to top it off, there are no side effects."
- Silvio Najt, MD
 Yes! I want to get started on healing my gut. I've had enough of pain, ulceration, inflammation, drugs and surgery, and I want my life back! So please send me my complimentary info package: the Listen To Your Gut Quick-Start Guide, List of IBS/IBD Resources & Chapter One of Listen To Your Gut Healing StoriesPlease Note: I do not list people's full names or city for privacy reasons - these diseases are very personal and can get people discriminated against (at work, for example). "Your elemental diet was amazing" "My 11-yr-old daughter has a completely happy, drug-free, pain-free life"
My daughter was diagnosed with Crohn's disease in July, widespread and in her stomach. And she had a course of steroids. The enteric coated ones which she did not do too badly on, but she was losing weight so the she was started on steroids at 50 milligrams and she went downhill from that stage really. When she went from 50 to 40 mg, she had an extreme pain and the gastroenterologist simply couldn't get her off the steroids. It was back up to 50 again. It was excruciating pain. She said she envied people who could stretch out in bed - and she's only 11 years old. |
