Are you dial-up or high-speed internet?

Remember dial-up modems? Remember that screeching, high-pitched noise they made when connecting to the internet? Slowly - very slowly - connecting to the internet? 

That was how I felt on this particular day. My brain was a dial-up modem, very slowly connecting.  

I yawned again for the umpteenth time in ten minutes. I had so much work to do, and I just couldn’t seem to engage my brain to do it. Physically, I was sitting at my desk. Mentally, I wasn’t awake, and no amount of caffeine seemed to affect how alert or energetic I felt.  

Maybe you can relate. Maybe you’re not fully present at work, at home, and in your life, because you’re just so darned tired.  

I bet you know something deeper is going on with your body, but it feels like no one is listening to what you have to say. You’ve probably seen specialist after specialist, been recommended a laundry list of supplements, medications, and therapies but nothing has really helped you to get your energy back. ...or experience it for the first time.  

You understand there’s a place for specialists and medications, but you think there’s a better way to get your energy back - to get yourself back - so you can enjoy your life to the fullest.

You want to know why you’re so tired all the time.  

Am I right?

I’ve been there. I’ve been told my blood work looked normal even when I didn’t feel that way, and that feeling tired all the time was just a part of getting older. I knew better, and I was searching for answers that no one else could seem to give me.

This is why I’m a Health Detective. As an exhaustion investigator, I can help you find the underlying reasons you’re so tired, so that you can stop missing your life.  

When I got my hands on the right functional lab tests, I learned that I had multiple issues that were causing me to feel so tired: I was eating the wrong foods for what my body really needed, I had severe gut health issues including leaky gut and bacterial overgrowth, and my hormones were out of balance.  

With this information, I was empowered to give my body exactly what it needed to be and feel energetic, present, and productive.  

You may have hidden underlying issues that are causing you to feel tired all the time. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could investigate what they are, so that you too can give your body exactly what it needs? That, my friend, is the essence of Health Detective work.  

There are myriad reasons why you might feel so tired.  

These include potential gut health issues, hormone imbalance, sluggish detoxification, weakened immune, or even things as simple as your diet and your habits.  

Let’s explore some of the gut-health-related issues that could be causing you to feel exhausted.  

First things first, though - what is “the gut,” and why is it so important?  

Why are you so tired? Your gut could be why.

When you have a healthy gut, you have a healthy body.  

The gut is where nutrients are broken down and absorbed, so if you have gut health issues, you also have nutrient balance issues. The function of literally every cell in your body depends on it receiving nutrients in the right proportions, so if you have nutrient balance issues, it affects your whole body.  

You don’t have to have “gut grief” symptoms to have gut health issues. You may not experience gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, or abdominal pain. That doesn’t mean you have a healthy gut. If you feel tired all the time, if you can’t lose weight, if you struggle with anxiety, if you are scatter-brained and foggy, if you are emotionally volatile, if you have headaches, if you have a chronic skin rash – these are ALL symptoms that point to potential gut health issues.

The Mucosal Barrier

Another name for the gut is the intestinal mucosal barrier, which is like a second skin. The mucosal barrier is the lining of the digestive tract that starts at your mouth and extends to your anus. 

“Mucosa” is the inner lining that creates a barrier of mucus between the contents of the digestive tract and the bloodstream. It facilitates digestion and assimilation, and it should not permit large or offensive particles, such as undigested food, pathogens, or immune complexes, into the bloodstream. It is critical for digestion, energy production, and immune function. 

If there is any loss of function in the mucosal barrier, it can cause issues like poor nutrient absorption and subsequent fatigue, and worse. 

 Within the digestive tract mucosal barrier, there is a single layer of cells called enterocytes that are held together very closely. Within the enterocytes there are finger-like projections called villi, on which there are microvilli. On the microvilli are the cells that take up nutrients, called goblet cells and epithelial cells. These are also held together very closely. 

This leads me to the first two potential issues that could be causing you to feel tired all the time: nutrient deficiency from damaged villi, and inflammation from loosening of the tight junctions between cells, aka, leaky gut.  

Nutrient deficiency

The cells that take up nutrients live on the villi and microvilli.  

If the villi and microvilli become damaged, or if they shrink, this will decrease their surface area, and diminish their ability to absorb nutrients. If this is the case, your body will not receive the nutrients you’ve consumed. This causes nutrient deficiency, which can cause fatigue, weight gain, and other health issues, since all of our cells need nutrients to function.

Producing energy is one of the most important functions of your body’s cells, but they can’t produce energy if they don’t have the nutrients to do it.  

If the lining of your gut is damaged, you may be suffering from a nutrient deficiency, which could be causing you to feel exhausted, which is why it’s one of the factors I look for during a client’s exhaustion investigation.

Leaky gut

The cells that make up the lining of the gut are held together very closely. ...until they aren’t, and that could be causing you to feel tired all the time.  

One of the ways in which the gut can begin to dysfunction, is that the tight junctions between epithelial cells loosen up, causing the gut to be “permeable.” 

Tight junctions prevent the passage of molecules through the space between the cells. inflammatory particles and toxins cause the junctions to loosen. 

When the junctions loosen, larger particles including toxins, pathogens, and nutrients that aren’t completely broken down, “leak” into general circulation. This causes an immune response in the bloodstream, which overall creates a pro-inflammatory, pro-disease state in the body. Over time, a damaged mucosal barrier can cause issues like fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and hormone imbalance.

A damaged and permeable mucosal barrier absolutely will cause you to struggle with fatigue, which is why I investigate leaky gut as a potential exhaustion culprit.    

GI Pathogens, Bacterial Overgrowth, and Yeast Overgrowth

If you have an intestinal parasite (these are more common than you think), a bacterial overgrowth, or a yeast overgrowth in your gut, feeling tired all of the time is one symptom you are likely to experience. Here are some reasons why:

1 - Pathogens upset the oxidative balance in the body, increasing levels of oxidative stress and inflammation.

2 - Like all living things, pathogens breathe and make waste products, which add to the load that your detoxification organs must filter and process. This can cause your liver, kidneys, and lymph to become sluggish. The overload reduces capacity for accomplishing normal tasks like clearing hormones, metabolizing sugar, and filtering out toxins.  

3 - Pathogens also, quite literally, take up real estate on your mucosal barrier. Pathogens colonize in the gut by attaching to the lining of the intestine and then covering themselves with a membrane called a biofilm.  

The biofilm provides a protective layer under which the bad bacteria, parasite, pathogen, or yeast can proliferate and grow, reducing the mucosal surface area available for digesting and absorbing nutrients.  

4 - Lastly, pathogens cause a stress response in the body. Whether you’re cut off in traffic, yelled at by a toxic boss, bumped by a shark on your surfboard, or have a pathogen in your digestive system, the body’s fight, flight, or freeze response is the same.  

The hypothalamus and pituitary signal the adrenals to produce chemicals that help your body respond to stress: cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine, aka adrenaline. This stress response is meant to give you what you need to respond to the stress: increased blood flow, and readily-available sugar in your blood for running away. It also shuts down systems that aren’t essential for survival in that moment, like your digestive system and your immune system.  

The body isn’t meant to experience chronic stress. Yet, when you have a pathogen, or bacterial or yeast overgrowth in your digestive system, your body is chronically stressed. This means that your blood sugar is also high and then low, your immune system is chronically suppressed, and your digestive system can’t function properly. 

The Power of Investigation

With all of those potential gut health issues going on, honestly, it’s no wonder that you’re tired!  

This is why functional investigation of the root cause is so important, and why most importantly our focus needs to be proactively building health.  

When I investigated the causes of my own exhaustion, I learned that I had severe gut health issues: nutrient deficiency, leaky gut, and bacterial overgrowth. These all caused other issues, including hormone imbalance and chronic pain.   

Investigation was the turning point for me. It empowered me to follow an energy-restoring plan that addressed the reasons I was so tired. And then my brain wasn’t a squeaky, slow-connecting modem anymore!  

As a Health Detective, I’m an expert at looking for the hidden, underlying reasons you’re exhausted so that you can follow a truly customized plan for transforming your exhaustion into energy. Gut health issues could be the root of your fatigue. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know, instead of guessing?    

Stop missing your life. With investigation, optimal is possible!