I didn’t sleep last night and wondering if you have any advice or wisdom to share on this digestion issue. Seems I have low hcl so I’ve been taking a digestive enzyme at dinner the past few years. If I don’t my stomach will keep me up.
2 weeks ago I ran out of my hypo D enzyme so I started drinking about ½ to ¾ jigger of organic apple cider vinegar before dinner and happily it seemed to work. Last night I forgot to take it so my brain doesn’t let me go to sleep because my body hasn’t digested the food and still is trying to send its acids 3am4am 5am.
I finally took a digestion essential oil 7am so I could fall asleep for a few hrs and that helps. Wondering if you have any suggestions or preferences of digestive enzyme. Last night for dinner I made butternut squash soup and salad which tells me that even the enzymes needed for plants I have a hard time digesting in the evening.
Dr. Amy:
Digestive enzymes and taking HCL are helpful to break down what we eat… though,
I encourage you to also consider why you need them. When we don’t have adequate
gastric juices to break down what we consume, it’s typically because we’ve trained our body over time to stop producing what we need for digestive power from a high cooked diet. This becoming a habit, gone unquestioned, may make us presume we just can’t live without those supplements.
Though – lets question why we need them in the first place! Ultimately, our
body is telling us the food we’re eating isn’t digesting well. Sure, we can take supplements for that, though we’ll always need them likely, and we aren’t addressing why we need them. And digestion continues to weaken, which means so does immunity. .
This is where changing diet comes in, and using supplements, vinegar (for those whose
body agrees with it – not everybody does) and a shoot of lemon juice before eating – to rebuild digestive power comes in… then these helpful acts are acting as a bridge while we’re improving diet. This is healing, and that’s because the body is finally getting living enzymes, so long as we eat a high amount of living food in the diet… as a primarily cooked diet is largely devoid of living enzymes, hence why we take them in supplements instead – and why digestion suffers.
Using supplements with dietary improvements, the body can rebuild its digestive power rather than continually suffering as a result of acidic foods which produce more acid in the body, gas and inflammation…. this means lots
of burping and farting, and possibly even heartburn, acid reflux, belly aches, skin issues, aches and pains, etc… (all which can lead to major health issues).
Digestive oils are great, though when the next onslaught of indigestible foods hits the stomach, they will only marginally help – not heal. So, treat the root cause, and the rest will take care of itself. Some people won’t give up foods they love, and will opt for supplements instead. It’s a personal choice, though as a naturopath,
it’s my responsibility to help you understand the root cause so you can make an educated decision in your choices – and know you have options!
