Gastrointestinal Issues/Digestive Disorders
If you have a child with a digestive or gastrointestinal disorder, you likely know how it can affect their daily functioning and development. Your child’s symptoms not only affect their day to day lives but also the daily life of their families.
As a parent, you feel stress and fear about the wellbeing of your child especially as it pertains to their growth, development, and happiness. It can be difficult to navigate life when you have a child who suffers from a chronic or acute health condition.
Luckily with emerging research and openness to incorporation of targeting pediatric digestive disorders from a multifaceted approach, there is a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders that can be improved through a functional and integrative approach. Some are (but not limited to):
Abdominal pain
Constipation
Vomiting
Diarrhea
Celiac disease
Crohn’s disease
Irritable bowel syndrome
Food sensitivities and intolerances
Some signs and symptoms of digestive disorders your child may have experienced can include: abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloating, appetite irregularities, diarrhea, constipation, sleep disturbances, growth abnormalities, nutritional deficiencies and many more.
Conventional therapy includes nutrition and dietary changes, medications, surgery, and various therapies revolving around swallowing and/or eating. At times, parents and caretakers are not satisfied with the results from conventional therapies and seek other natural and alternative approaches to healing their child. Incorporating an integrative and functional medicine approach, in addition to conventional therapy, can optimize your child’s health, potentially minimize the need for extra support such as medications, and allow families to start living their lives to their fullest potential. Healing the ’gut’ (aka stomach) through an integrative and functional lens, includes development of a personalized plan created individually for each child’s needs. This plan should include optimizing digestion and absorption so that the food you digest and absorb can get to the right places for proper growth and repair. This approach focuses on healing the gut which is connected not only to the digestive tract but also other areas of the body including the brain. Utilizing an integrative approach focuses on the whole child which is crucial for children suffering from chronic and acute gastrointestinal symptoms. Diving deeper and determining the root cause of a child’s digestive symptoms in addition to combining functional and integrative medicine modalities can help your child heal and start enjoying the life you had envisioned for your family.