My name is Max and I am a radio host at a small local station. I have agreed to write my success story here because I hope to help others. I suffer from the so-called “Leaky Gut Syndrome”, which means a permeable intestinal mucosa. The mucosa is meant to be a line of defense, letting nutrients into our blood but keeping the bad stuff out. With a leaky gut, toxins, bacteria and metabolic products can pass the damaged intestinal mucosa, get directly into the organism and can cause a variety of problems. Unfortunately, for a long time I didn’t know I had this syndrome. In fact, many of my complaints had nothing to do with the bowel. Or at least to me it didn’t look like it. I didn’t know that the gut affects our whole body and that a damaged intestinal mucosa can show in different ways.

Food intolerances

The one problem I could roughly attribute to my gut was food intolerances. It started with the fact that I could no longer tolerate particularly high-fat meals and, for example, got bloating from very high-sugar foods. That did not bother me at first. But over time, more and more individual foods, including fruits and vegetables, even carrots, were added. My food choices got narrower and I couldn’t tell why. And even though I reacted with flatulence or diarrhea to these foods, I didn’t even think that the gut could be the cause. For me, those were allergies that just happened to show up. In the meantime, I also went to the allergist because of this, but apart from a rotation plan to find out exactly which foods I reacted to, I did not receive any help.

Further complaints

In addition to the food intolerances, gradually more and more symptoms added: I was sick a lot, felt tired and drained, had skin problems and joint pain. Some things, such as catching every cold available, I attributed to my now very limited diet. Other things didn’t make sense to me at all, like the joint pain. In my family, there was no one who suffered from rheumatism or the like and arthritis was more of an “old-people problem” for me.

Root cause analysis

I spent hours searching the Internet for possible causes of my symptoms. Finally, in a Facebook group, I came across the topic of gut health and began to read about various intestinal diseases and the effects on the body. When I stumbled upon the leaky gut syndrome, it struck me. It matched all the complaints I had in the last year. I decided it was time to find out what was wrong with me.

The Leaky Gut Complete Test

Verisana offers a variety of leaky gut tests. I opted for the Leaky Gut Complete Test because it’s the most comprehensive. In my research I had already read that the gut is a very complex system and a permeable intestinal mucosa is often accompanied by a bacterial imbalance or a candida infection. In order to rebuild the mucosa in the long term, it is therefore important to know and treat all intestinal problems and not just one.

The test and the result

I ordered the test and got the test kit 2 days later. I admit it is a bit strange to collect these samples yourself, but still quite uncomplicated. I liked that a mouth swab for a possible candida infestation in the oral cavity is included as well. Also, that the results come by e-mail, so you save yourself at least another day of waiting. My results showed that my intestinal mucosa was indeed damaged, meaning I had a so Leaky Gut Syndrome. But it also showed the possible cause: the good bacteria in my gut were clearly outnumbered by the bad ones. Plus I had a high count of Candida. Both factors may have added to the damage of my mucosa, which became weaker and weaker over time. Thank God I had chosen this comprehensive test.

Gut renovation

With the results, I started a gut renovation. First, the Candida infection was treated and then I rebuilt the intestinal flora with probiotics. I also changed my diet to speed up the process. Especially my beloved lemonades had to go. Unfortunately, bowel rehabilitation takes time and I wanted to take it too. Interestingly, my joint pain disappeared first, after a few weeks. After 3 months I was able to eat carrots again for the first time. Slowly but surely my repertoire expanded again, and more and more foods found their way back to my diet. Overall, I felt fitter and barely never caught a cold (unlike the year before).

That’s how I feel today

Meanwhile, I can eat everything I want again. But I still strive to be healthy and balanced. I can only guess how my gut problems started in the first place. But I had to take antibiotics for several weeks, about a year before the first symptoms started. Since at the time I had no idea about the importance of gut bacteria and the like, I did not waste any thought on rebuilding my gut. I think that might have been the reason why my intestinal flora was out of balance. Through the antibiotic treatment, the good bacteria were destroyed, and candida was able to spread unhindered, until finally it affected the mucosa as well. I would wish for doctors to tell their patients more about the importance of the gut and to always recommend taking probiotics either during or after an antibiotic treatment. It would save a lot of people from suffering the way I did.