Inside Health Magazine: A Better You Starts With What's Inside May. 2016 | Page 22

My Life with

Food Intolerance
A Q&A with Erica Dermer,
managing editor of Gluten
Free & More magazine.

Enzymedica offer tailed enzymes to suit your
digestive needs.
There are enzymes inside that are specific to
what you need to break down. Lactose is used
for dairy intolerance to help digest milk. Xylanase
helps break down certain types of fiber.
High protein foods can be broken down
with the help of protease enzymes. Fat
can be broken down with the help of
lipase. Amylase helps digest starchy
portions of grains. There are so many
enzymes that together help break
down about anything you could eat.

What made you choose Enzymedica?
They were an exhibitor at one of the first glutenfree expos I attended. They were handing out
samples. I was quite impressed at how
effective their enzymes were. Once
I realized how well they worked, I
become an advocate for their use.

Erica Dermer is a blogging machine.
In a few short years she’s become one of the
go-to bloggers in the natural food and
supplement industry, based on her personal
experiences as a celiac—but also as a person
who has conquered her condition. We
caught up with Erica recently to find out how
she functions in her often topsy-turvy foodchallenged world.

What was the first time you thought you
might need additional digestive support?
To be honest, I’m pretty sure my life is just one big
need for additional digestive support. I’ve always
been a type A personality who’s been stressed
pretty much all the time, and that definitely was
felt in my gut. Nothing I ate ever felt that great,
and it only got worse after celiac disease kicked in.
One night, I got extremely sick after a night of
wine and bruschetta with friends. My digestive
tract never really recovered after that night, and I
was stuck with years of digestive distress. Doctors
tested me over and over again for what was
wrong. I was treated for ulcers, which I ended
up not having. I was tested for gallbladder issues
with multiple HIDA scans. Finally, I was diagnosed
with gastroparesis – delayed stomach emptying.
Basically my food stayed in my stomach for way
longer than it was supposed to – sometimes even
days. My stomach had a hard time breaking down
food, and my brain didn’t necessarily signal my
food to empty into my intestines either. It was
uncomfortable – I was nauseated and bloated
and dealt with heartburn and gastritis every day,
every hour.
Anything I ate needed help and assistance to
digest and deliver any nutrients to my body. I
took multiple prescription medications to help
my stomach to empty, but I believe that digestive
enzymes were a big help in making me feel like
my body was actually doing something with
22  •  INSIDE HEALTH

anything
that I ate – or
attempted to eat. I was on a
strict diet of easy-to-digest foods with low fiber,
but as the medication kicked in, I added more
and more food back into my diet.
Only later, after visiting yet another doctor, did
I find out that it was celiac all along, and the
delayed stomach emptying was just a sign that
things were really, really wrong in my body.

It’s clear you avoid gluten because of
celiac, but what about other foods?
Yes, I avoid beef, dairy, and eggs. These are food
intolerances -- not food allergies. I’ve been tested
for anaphylactic allergies and I’m clear.
While I do my best to avoid the offending foods,
sometimes I do cheat and crave an item made
with dairy and eggs. I haven’t reintroduced them
fully yet, and I’m not sure that I plan on doing so,
but I at least know I can tolerate them in small
doses with digestive enzymes.

How did you find out about digestive
enzymes?
One of my doctors recommended digestive
enzymes for every day use for anyone with gut
health problems. I started small by using papaya
enzymes off the shelf at the grocery store.
However, they weren’t specified for any particular
food. It’s not specific for protein, beans, gluten,
dairy, vegetables, etc. I learned that brands like

I like that the digestive enzymes I use
contain no egg, dairy/casein, soy, wheat/
gluten, or yeast. In addition,
they do not include preservatives, salt,
sucrose, nuts, corn, potato, rice, artificial colors
or flavors.
They also offer enzymes plus probiotics, multivitamins plus enzymes, etc. It’s nice to have
everything in one pill from a brand you can trust.

How did you know what type of enzyme
to choose?
With multiple intolerances, from eggs to dairy to
gluten to beef, I decided on the Digest Spectrum
for any time I eat something suspicious. I never
ever cheat on a glu