5: Why Your Gut Feels Off (Even When Tests Are “Normal”)

Team Gut Girls naturopathic doctors Dr. Dominique Vanier, ND Dr. Whitney Baxter, ND and Dr. Christina Carew, ND discuss chronic digestive symptoms that persist despite normal tests, focusing on disorders of gut-brain interaction (DGBIs), which affect over 40% of adults and children and include IBS, functional dyspepsia, functional constipation/diarrhea, bloating, reflux hypersensitivity, and more under Rome V criteria. They explain a biopsychosocial model of causes and risk factors (trauma, infection, stress, genetics, early life events, anxiety/depression, sleep, smoking, obesity, surgeries) and myth-bust that bloating isn’t automatically IBS, symptoms aren’t “nothing,” you can have overlapping DGBIs, and the microbiome isn’t the whole answer. Key mechanisms include motility disturbance, visceral hypersensitivity, altered mucosal/immune function, dysbiosis, and altered CNS processing. Practical options discussed include CBT, gut-directed hypnotherapy, diaphragmatic breathing, consistent movement, personalized food strategies, supplements (nervines, demulcents, motility agents), and medications including neuromodulators, plus advocating for collaborative care and referrals.