You may have done your research, found a practitioner to help you, done your gut testing, taken your supplements religiously and followed your dietary recommendations without much success in improving your IBS symptoms or clearing gut infections like SIBO, candida, parasites or h pylori.
Don’t give up. There could be a good reason why. Your immune system is too run down to fight.
While supplements and food can help your body clear pathogens and regain a healthy bacterial ecology, it’s actually your immune system that determines how successful you are in fighting off pathogens and over growths.
If your immune system is exhausted it will struggle to win the fight.
In this case, throwing more supplements at the problem, eating cleaner or trying harder won’t help. You need to pause your protocol and take time to rebuild your body’s immunity, energy and resilience.
The role of Secetory IGA or Sig A
Secetory IGA, also known as Sig A, is the marker that signifies the strength and state of the immune system. This marker is available on the GI Map test, and often helps me determine whether or not my clients are ready to take on any sort of protocol with success.
Other labs also have inexpensive, stand alone tests for Sig A, to gauge initial status or retest for progress.
When Sig A is out of range on the high side, this means your immune system is doing exactly what it’s meant to do. Actively fighting off a pathogenic threat. It needs help to win the fight.
If your Sig A is out of range on the low side, it indicates immune exhaustion, the system doesn’t have too much fight in it. Adding in herbs will not help at this point. Sig A is your first line of defense against pathogens, so when it is low, it leaves your body vulnerable to invasion by new pathogens or can’t seem to fight off the current parasites, viruses or fungal/bacterial over growths that are causing symptoms.
When your immune system is strong, it protects you against pathogens. If you eat a food containing a pathogen, your immune system will fight it off by enveloping it in Sig A mucus and escorting it out of the body. If your Sig A is too low to do this, the pathogen has a greater chance of taking up residence in your gut and causing problems. This is why Sig A is one of the most important markers for determining gut health.
What lowers Sig A?
Physical or emotional stress depresses Sig A, and can also result in adrenal dysfunction. Stress comes in many forms: emotional strife and worry, lack of rest, over exercise, toxic exposure, toxic relationships, trauma, or a processed/high sugar diet.
Also existing pathogens or overgrowth in the gut can lower immunity by challenging immune resources. These opportunistic bugs use lowered immune function to colonize the gut and multiply, adding additional stress to the system and creating a viscous cycle of dysfunction.
Knowing your Sig A status and immune function is an important part of building a successful healing protocol. If it’s too low, then you may be wasting your time jumping to the killing phase. You need to rebuild your defenses before you launch an attack.
How to support and raise Sig A
First, get your Sig A tested so you know where you stand.
If it is low you need to target and support the adrenals, nervous system and manage current or ongoing stressors in your life.
Improving digestion with enzymes or fat metabolism support, if needed,
(the GI Map provides marker for these also) is another essential part of
supporting and healing the immune system.
Targeted probiotics, adaptogens and support formulas with immunoglobiulins are all ways to support and boost Sig A with supplements. My favorite are:
Immunoglobulins (IgG) binds to antigens to help clear them from your system, giving your immune system much needed rest and support. They have also been shown to lower zonulin, the main protein that causes leaky gut. Patching a leaky gut can help reverse food sensitivities. IgG works in the same way that colostrum does but is lactose and casein free for those who are intolerant.
Managing your stress may be the hardest piece of the puzzle. Finding time to help our body unwind and release tension and your nervous system calm down is an important part of healing the adrenals and immune system.
It should take one or two month to boost and restore Sig A, depending on levels, and then your body will ready for an antimicrobial protocol.
If you are frustrated with failed healing or have had little success with herbs, this could be the reason why. Another reason could be the order in gut infections are addressed.
I help people rebalance and heal their gut with the right steps and in the right order so their efforts don’t backfire.
I am currently taking on new clients here: https://www.diyhealthblog.com/coaching
Angela Privin is proof that IBS is NOT an incurable disease, but a cry for help from a gut out of balance. When the body AND mind are complaining, it’s an opportunity to examine what’s not working and change it. After solving her own IBS mystery almost two decades ago, Angela became as a health coach to help others. Angela uses root cause medicine protocols personalized to the individual to solve each IBS mystery. Her tools are lab testing, dietary changes, supplementation, subconscious mind work and nervous system rebalancing . Learn more here.