Get the Data First: What I Learned Fixing My Gut

Published: 2026-09-20 · #Health

TL;DR

  • Don’t do a hot wings challenge.
  • Don’t accept PPIs as a blanket fix for GI issues. They’re a bandaid, and long-term use comes with its own problems.
  • Be wary of functional medicine too. The protocol works, but it’s a demanding lifestyle change, not a quick fix, and the space has its own bullshit.
  • If you want to fix your gut, get a stool test and bloodwork first.
  • Let the data drive the protocol.

In August 2020 I did a hot wings challenge with some friends. The next morning I woke up with a lump in my throat and a burning feeling around my Adam’s apple. I’d had heartburn before and figured this was more of the same, that it would clear up in a couple weeks. It didn’t. Six years later I still feel it every day, but I finally know what’s going on with my body. This is a brief story on how I’ve navigated my GI journey and what I’d recommend if you’re tackling your own issues for the first time.

Over those six years I saw a lot of specialists and ran through a lot of tests:

  • Four endoscopies
  • Two BRAVO capsules
  • A pH catheter
  • Years on PPIs, first Omeprazole, then Dexilant

The first endoscopy showed mild esophagitis, but that eventually cleared up. Going to ENTs was more of the same. Everything looked relatively normal. Nobody was being negligent, they just couldn’t figure out what was going on. Looking back, the blind spot was in how they were all framing it. The GI doctor was focused on my esophagus. The ENT was looking up top. Every specialist stayed in their own lane and looked at the part they were trained to look at. Not one of them suggested looking at my stomach, my sleep, or my gut health more broadly.

In the fall of 2025 I went in for another endoscopy. It came back clean. Healed. My GI doctor offered to lower my PPI dose, and for a second that felt like a win. The feeling didn’t last. As far as he was concerned, I’d take PPIs for the rest of my life. A clean scan proved the damage hadn’t turned into anything dangerous, but it explained nothing about why I still felt off every day. It also ignored the bigger problem: I’d been on acid suppression for five years, and long-term PPI usage comes with a whole new host of health issues. Staying on them forever wasn’t the answer I wanted.

Staying on PPIs wasn’t a real solution. Functional medicine had been picking up steam, so I decided to give it a shot.

I found a doctor and booked a visit. In the first few weeks he ran a round of tests nobody else had bothered with. What he found:

  • Candida
  • IBS
  • Leaky gut
  • Mild sleep apnea
  • A nervous system stuck on high alert
  • I eat too fast and I’m not a mindful eater

Five years of specialists, and none of them had looked at any of it.

What actually helped was measurement. Instead of guessing, he ran a full gut panel and bloodwork. The numbers lined up with the diagnoses:

  • Calprotectin: how inflamed your gut is. Mine was high.
  • MMP-9: your gut lining getting broken down. High.
  • S100A12: another inflammation flag. High.
  • Zonulin: how leaky your gut is. High, which is the actual measurement behind “leaky gut.”
  • sIgA: your gut’s immune defense. Mine was low.
  • Homocysteine: a blood marker tied to inflammation and heart risk. Elevated.

None of that had ever been put in front of me in five years of GI appointments.

His recommendation was straightforward to say but hard to follow:

  • Get off PPIs completely
  • Fix the sleep apnea
  • Starve out the candida with a strict diet
  • Start on a stack of supplements
  • Mindful eating
  • Meditation

The starting supplements alone looked like this:

  • RestorFlora
  • Vascanox HP
  • InflammaCORE
  • GlutaShield
  • Zinc Carnosine
  • Mitocore
  • Mega IgG2000
  • Arterosil HP

Once we could see the numbers, all of this had a point. The strict diet was there to starve the candida. The supplements mapped to what the tests flagged: repair the gut lining, knock down the inflammation, fill the gaps. It wasn’t a generic wellness stack, it was built around my actual results. That was just the beginning, though. Over the following months the list kept shifting as things got added, swapped, and layered in. That is the part people don’t see when gut health shows up on their feed. This is not a pill you add to your morning. It is a full rebuild of how you eat, sleep, and live, and you carry all of it at once. This protocol works if you live like a monk, but as someone in my 30s with a full life, it’s very difficult to stay on track.

Six months later, we ran the same tests again:

  • Calprotectin: 66 down to 6. From clearly inflamed to fully normal.
  • MMP-9: back in normal range.
  • S100A12: still high, but coming down.

Not everything moved. My zonulin was basically flat, and my sIgA was still low, so the leaky gut and the run-down defenses aren’t fixed yet. That’s the honest picture. Some of it responded fast, some of it is going to take a lot longer, and I’m still in the middle of it. What I can say is that for the first time in six years, I have numbers moving in the right direction instead of another doctor telling me to up my PPI dosage.

I’m not writing this to sell anyone. Functional medicine has real problems too. It’s expensive, most of it isn’t covered by insurance, and I’ve spent close to 10K between the testing, the supplements, the monthly practitioner fee, and a $3,000 sleep apnea mouth guard that was miserable to wear. The industry has its own version of the upsell, and here’s the trap: most people land at the functional medicine door only after the conventional route has already worn them down. You show up tired, discouraged, and ready to buy anything that sounds like hope. Gut health is having a moment right now, which is great, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less full of bullshit than the traditional Western medicine space.

I’m bought into the functional medicine journey, but on a slower timeline. Fixing everything at once isn’t sustainable. Right now I’m practicing an 80/20 diet, taking some of the supplements, and focusing on breathing before I eat. That’s it.

If you’re looking to solve GI issues, here would be my approach:

  • Get the data first. A stool test and bloodwork, so you know what’s going on before anyone sells you a plan.
  • Talk to a few practitioners, not just one.
  • Build something realistic for the life you actually have. Don’t try to fix everything at once. In my experience that’s not sustainable, and you’ll quit.

If you have stomach issues, deal with them. They catch up with you. Just don’t let a GI doctor default you onto PPIs for life, and don’t treat functional medicine as a miracle. It’s the better direction, in my opinion, but it’s harder, not easier.