Help for Gut Health Struggles in Knoxville
Constipation, bloating, diarrhea, IBS, leaky gut, or microbiome imbalance can all take over your daily life. When your digestion is unpredictable, even simple decisions like what to eat become stressful. But gut health isn’t just about digestion.
Your gut is foundational to nearly everything else: immune function, hormone balance, mood, energy, and nutrient absorption. When it’s struggling, the rest of your body feels it too. Dr. Meghan Palmer will help you get to the bottom of what’s going on and find a path toward real, lasting relief.
Getting to the Root of Your Digestive Symptoms
Using functional lab testing like GI MAP testing, Dr. Palmer identifies whether you have an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, a lack of beneficial bacteria, or other imbalances driving your symptoms. From there, she digs into which foods you can and can’t tolerate well, how food sensitivities may be showing up in your body, and how your gut health is directly affecting your mood, energy, and even your hormones.
Every plan is built around your specific microbiome profile and what your body actually needs.
What Tends to Throw Digestion Off Course
The Standard American Diet (SAD) is one of the most common contributors to gut disruption. Antibiotic use, chronic stress, certain infections, oral birth control pills, and other medications can all play a role in compromising gut health over time. For some practice members, additional factors like gallbladder removal create ongoing digestive challenges that require a uniquely tailored approach.
One practice member came to Dr. Palmer struggling with gut symptoms, anxiety, and allergies, and had no gallbladder, which meant bile was constantly dripping into his digestive tract and making almost everything hard to tolerate.
Through GI MAP testing and careful food strategy, Dr. Palmer identified his specific triggers including gluten, dairy, oxalates, and high-potassium foods, and helped him build a nutrient-dense meal plan around what worked for his body.
Personalized supplements including digestive enzymes with ox bile and targeted pre- and probiotics supported his gut lining as it healed. The result was dramatically improved energy, mood, and quality of life, and even a noticeable reduction in his allergy symptoms.
A Gentle, Sustainable Approach to Healing
Dr. Palmer is a firm believer in going low and slow when it comes to rebalancing the gut. Extreme cleanses and flushes often spike cortisol and create more stress than healing. Instead, she uses food, herbs, and targeted supplements to feed the good bacteria, discourage the harmful bacteria, and help your body rebalance in a way that’s sustainable and kind to your system.
A good starting point for many practice members is shifting away from the Standard American Diet toward a more Mediterranean-style approach, with plenty of vegetables, fish, olive oil, and whole grains. Removing gluten for at least six weeks and monitoring how you feel is another practical first step, and the same approach can be used to assess dairy tolerance.
Start Your Journey to a Healthier Gut
Most practice members begin to notice positive changes within six weeks. Dr. Palmer typically works with practice members for at least 90 days to dial in the right protocol and allow deeper healing to take place. Contact Innate Wellness to book your consultation.
