Functional gastrointestinal disorders are ubiquitous in our society and complex clinical conditions to navigate. Providers are always seeking testing tools to help navigate these conditions for their patients. Functional lab testing can help us customize protocols to practice individualized medicine. With the huge expansion of microbiome research in the past decade, stool tests are gaining popularity in our field. These tests can be profoundly useful, not only for treating gut symptoms, but also for bridging connections with other symptoms such as the gut-brain and gut-skin connections. Different dysbiosis patterns are being uncovered in both research and clinical practice correlating with distinct clinical conditions.
The GI-MAP™ is an industry leading stool test designed to improve gut health outcomes. The test includes a combination of GI microorganisms measured by quantitative PCR (qPCR) technology and a collection of intestinal health proteins. Functional medicine clinicians have dubbed the GI-MAP a “game changer” in their practice, producing better clinical outcomes than any stool test they’ve used before.
But a test is only as good as its interpretation. Distilling a GI-MAP test result all the way into an actionable protocol can be intimidating, especially if you are new to the test. Practice and education are key for clinician success. Typically, the more complex the result, the more questions providers have on how to best prioritize action steps. Join Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory’s educators, Lisa Pomeroy, Cat Simmons, and Amy Rolfsen as they explore a few complex GI-MAP cases and produce succinct protocols which result in positive clinical outcomes.
