My daughter has recently found out that her stomach problems are due to irritable bowel syndrome. She also may have endometriosis. She is only 17 years old. What can I do to help her get well and be rid of the daily stomach aches and horrible menstrual cramps she experiences. The OB/GYN put her on birth control pills that she takes daily. They don’t seem to be helping. She also may have gastritis. Please send me suggestions on how to help her get well so that she can experience days, weeks, months and years without this chronic stomach pain and cramping.  Thank you for your quick response.

Two problems, each with pain. Seventeen-year-olds should not be this sick (and frankly, neither should anyone else).

Treatment starts with cleaning up the diet–no sugar or processed foods. Why?  Because many of the ingredients in processed food are pro-inflammatory, and both of these conditions are inflammatory conditions, so they will only make it worse.  If that diet is not cleaned up, nothing else is going to work.

1. Endometriosis is uterine tissue outside the uterus, that bleeds monthly like the uterine lining. This causes pelvic pain. Often there is what we call estrogen dominance in this setting, which means that the estrogen to progesterone ratio is in favor of estrogen, which causes an imbalance.  Obviously I am not your doctor, and you’ll need to consult your doctor about these options: Try progesterone in the last half of the cycle, days 16 to 27, and see if it helps. The birth control pills increase her risk of vascular disease (strokes and heart attacks long term), so I am against them, especially if they do not seem to be helping.
2. Irritable bowel syndrome is a ‘leftover’ term that folks often use to describe any gastrointestinal upset that can’t be diagnosed as anything else. Try the following–

• drink plenty of water,
• increase fiber,
• add probiotics,
• try L-glutamine,
• address stress reduction and emotional issues.

All of these will help, particularly the last one.