Caitlin’s gut story 

This episode sees Susannah Constantine welcome Charity Director and Symprove customer Caitlin Farrow to the sofa to share her story of living with recurring gut issues. 

After multiple bouts of food poisoning while travelling, Caitlin discovered the lining of her bowel was damaged, resulting in debilitating symptoms like diarrhoea, feeling uncomfortable, and bloating.   

And that’s before you add in kids and their winter sickness bugs to contend with. 

One thing Caitlin doesn’t lack is determination and a fierce sense of making incremental changes to her routine to serve her and her gut health. Whether that includes taking vitamin D, having cold showers or adding in a morning shot of Symprove.  

Thank you, Caitlin, for sharing your gut story so openly with us.  

Over to Dr Chris George to find out more about Caitlin’s gut story 

“Listening to Caitlin, it sounds like what we call post infectious IBS. It’s a subtype of IBS which a lot of people haven't heard of, but it’s a term used for when we have ongoing gut symptoms even though the infection has been cleared by the body. In Caitlin’s situation what’s happened is a harmful bug has got into the gut, and it’s caused a bit of an immune response and affected the lining of the gut. That’s then lead to symptoms like bloating, tummy pain and diarrhoea.” 

How can you help support your microbiome? 

“Some simple things from me would be to eat more plants as the fibre helps support diversity in your gut, drinking more water to stay hydrated, looking at how we manage stress and trying to eat less ultra-processed foods.” 

Thank you, Dr Chris.   

If you have any concerns about the issues discussed here, please contact your GP for further advice and support. 

Watch more episodes 
 
You might also like to read what’s normal when it comes to diarrhoea with Dr Sarah Jarvis.