Eating and measuring gut motility
Today a sweet Little One came to me with serious acid reflux, digestive issues, and developmental delay. But, she is one of the brightest little stars in my day.
By spending more time together during our intensive this week it is allowing me to see her under more circumstances, such as before a meal and after. When she is wide awake first thing in the morn and later after lunch in the afternoon when she might be more tired.
Her reflux is so severe that she has been on medication for quite some time. She is rather small and as Mom mentions, in the lower percentile for size and weight. This makes me wonder how good her digestion is and what I might be able to do with this.
Why would it only be acid reflux?
What else can be involved with it?
In the morning when she came I could feel her spine along her back and somewhere around her 10th or 11th thoracic vertebrae something just feels off. I use touch to sense and feel nerve conduction and motility of her digestive system from her back side. After a while of working through each vertebra it seems to ease up. She moves wonderfully by the end of our morning session.
In the afternoon when she came back, I used the touch that I teach in my “Gut-Brain” course using a Feldenkrais® way of touching and listening and doing. Her stomach is very hard, just below the sternum and slightly to her left. I don’t feel much of any motility at all. If she just ate lunch it should be working, even if it is full.
We decide to do some interesting “testing.” I asked Mom to give her some food, so she started with a banana. Voila, motility in the stomach, it was absolutely beautiful! Little One smiled! Mom wanted to test a cinnamon bread and see how that would be for her, because they are trying to put weight on her. She gives her a little piece and wow, the whole motility of the stomach stops and it also stops with the pancreas. This gets me thinking, if the pancreas doesn’t send digestive enzymes then it isn’t participating in the digestion and breakdown of essential nutrients for growth, nerve function, and more.
Mom just happened to bring with her a new unopened bottle of digestive enzymes from her medical doctor. She added it to a little teaspoon of water and fed it to her daughter.. voila, motility of the stomach and pancreas!
We tested back and forth between the banana and the cinnamon bread, and when Mom added the digestive enzyme each time her belly started functioning in all its wholeness. How amazing is that! Mom even tested coconut oil, which can be a bugaboo for some people because of it being a short branched chain amino acid. It can also be a medium chain fatty acid, but for this purpose, some people actually don’t do well with this, and since she is rather sensitive we decided to check organ motility and with much luck, she is just fine with it. Lucky, because Little One loves it.
Tomorrow, Mom will bring two more foods for us to check how it effects her gut motility.
If our belly organs don’t turn on and digest the foods we eat, then what we are eating goes through us not getting to where we need it for growth and well-being. I am so happy we can use our Feldenkrais way of listening and touching to sense and feel how our organs are working and how we can help them work to their best ability.
Cheers!
Elinor Silverstein
https://onstickytopics.com
