Dr. Amy Nett: No. A lot of people come already on a Paleo diet, so in general, I tell people that we don’t make a lot of suggestions during that time period. Of course, if patients are really sick, there might be some things we do. Let’s say, someone has a really severe case of Crohn’s and we know they have iron deficiency. I might recommend some iron supplements, maybe some butyrate or VSL #3 for probiotics. But if people are relatively healthy or have more of a chronic issue, there are not a lot of changes or interventions that we do until we have the test results.
Remember also that normally most patients are going to get the test kits that we order within about 10 to 14 days, and then they’re probably going to be spending two to four weeks completing those test results. It might be a SIBO breath test one day, stool testing the next week, a hormone profile the next week, so I feel like it can be a little bit too much for people to implement the Paleo reset diet on top of thinking about, “What do I have to do for the SIBO breath test? Now I have to change my diet and stop these supplements for the stool test.” A lot of patients, especially our really sick patients, feel totally overwhelmed by the process, in all honesty, so what I generally recommend is people schedule their case review appointment, which we do at the time of the initial consult, and once they have their case review appointment, to count back 30 days prior to the case review to do the Paleo reset diet. I tell them that if they want to start it sooner, fantastic. They are more than welcome to start the Paleo reset diet the day of the initial consult. But sometimes people need to sort of mentally prepare, especially if you have someone who’s eating, more or less, a Standard American Diet. They need to have that mental prep time. So we find that it actually works pretty well, and we still have patients who don’t even do a 30-day reset. It’s just too much for them, and they decide they’re going to come to the appointment and do the 30-day reset after the case review appointment. I generally find people have an idea of what they’re willing and/or interested to do, so hopefully that answers that.