If you’ve had IBS symptoms this Blog will help you understand how your belly talks to you while following the RightSleep Program.
Many people with low D and sleep issues also have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). “Irritable Bowel” is a pretty goofy name! (Does it mean my belly’s mad at me?) It describes symptoms of diarrhea, constipation, bloating and belly pain but it does not really explain why your belly is cranky and misbehaving. If your doctor has already ruled out infection or more serious issues such as Crohn’s disease or Ulcerative Colitis the most common cause of these symptoms is having the wrong belly bacteria.
Your belly bacteria act as an organ of your body, they do many important things for you, and having the normal, healthy population of bacteria in your intestines is even related to how you sleep. Normal belly bacteria need vitamin D in order to grow, so you actually share your vitamin D, with your belly bacteria. That means if your D has been low ( <40 ng/ml) you have usually lost your helpful, healthy bacteria and you have ”bad” bacteria who make you feel ”bad ” too. The RightSleep program will bring back the right bacteria again, usually in the first three months. Other GI challenges such as milk or dairy intolerance, and wheat sensitivity show up for the same reason, so both of these will be made better by bringing back the right bacteria. (Gluten sensitivity, as tested by your doctor, is a little more serious and can be helped by RightSleep but is more complex than just getting back the right bugs.)
When you are supplementing with D and B50 for the first three months of RightSleep you are feeding two people, you and your bacteria. Your bacteria are not that picky, they just want a source of D and all 8 B’s for three months and our heroes are back! On the other hand your brain is pretty picky about the D level and the B5 level to produce normal sleep. So some people do need more B5 than B50 in the first three months and a specific D level to have better sleep. That is discussed in the RightSleep Workbook.
Once you finish the first three months of RightSleep the normal belly bacteria are back. If you never let your D level fall below 40 again they will never desert you. Even if you take antibiotics they will grow back once you finish the antibiotics. But that does not mean that your belly will never complain again. If you had IBS before RightSleep often in months 6-7 your body, including your gut, will start to ask for more B’s. ( See Part III of the RightSleep Workbook). The symptoms will return, exactly as they were before starting RightSleep, but they mean something slightly different!
The nervous system of the gut is run by the Autonomic Nervous System which runs all sorts of automatic things such as heart rate, blood pressure and sleep. When the body asks for more B5 it does it with symptoms that are related to this nervous system. The Part III of the Workbook is specifically dedicated to telling you how to slowly increase the B5 supplement to get to a place where this nervous system is happy again. If your IBS symptoms come back during RightSleep, first check your D level, if your D level is in range then be sure that you’re following the instructions in the Workbook concerning adding back B’s.
In months 7 and after your body is very specific about how much B5 it needs. Just adding back B50 is not the answer and may make everything worse, please read Part III and follow those instructions carefully follow your unique symptoms including your belly symptoms if they have returned. When you get the B5 dose just right your belly will calm down again.
