If you’re new to pyroluria, it is a social anxiety condition, where physical and emotional symptoms are caused by deficiencies of vitamin B6 and zinc. As well as feeling anxious, shy, or fearful or experiencing inner tension since childhood (and often hiding these feelings from others), digestive symptoms are common and we cover these in my interview Low zinc, social anxiety/pyroluria and the gut on the virtual conference called Better Belly Project 2.0, hosted by Summer Bock, one of the leading gut health experts.
What you’ll learn:
- How to figure out if you have the social anxiety called pyroluria and what key nutrients are missing in these cases
- The zinc connection to the microbiome, digestion and social anxiety
- Digestion symptoms we see in pyroluria
- Is introversion a personality trait or a biochemical imbalance?
- Can collagen and gelatin make you more depressed and anxious?
I talk about how you can feel when you have pyroluria and how I can relate to all this:
You may feel uncomfortable in group sittings, you may feel uncomfortable with interacting with large crowds of people. A lot of people will say, “I’m really good at speaking on stage, but don’t make me mingle with the people after I presented on stage because then I’ve got to interact with a lot of people.” You’ve got this inner tension where you deal with it, and you cover it up, and you push through.
I can totally relate because I have pyroluria myself. This is why I’m so passionate about sharing this topic because I grew up pushing through and dealing with it. I remember the first day of school, wanting to walk to school on my own. I didn’t want my mom to take me into school. I was always this person who kind of pushed through and forced myself to do things.
We get through life like that, but it can get pretty exhausting. With my whole anxiety that started in my late 30s, which was a result of this perfect storm, it was gluten sensitivity, and adrenal issues, and low serotonin, and low GABA. And part of my perfect storm was this pyroluria that I discovered. I find that a lot of my clients will push through, and they’ll deal with this, for many, many years.
But, as things start to shift, as they’re starting to go into perimenopause, and the hormones are getting disrupted, and they’re becoming more stressed, and they’ve got adrenal issues going on, and they discover they’ve got food sensitivities. This all conspires together to make their symptoms much worse. Then, they find they can’t socialize, or when they are socializing, they just feel so anxious, it’s just debilitating, and they can’t actually function.
There are overlaps with the pyroluria questionnaire and an introverts questionnaire I came across on the Huffington post. Based on feedback from 100s in my community I’m proposing that introversion is not a personality trait, or maybe it’s not all personality, but there’s this biochemical component.
We also have a great discussion about collagen and gelatin, which can help to heal the gut, but may also be depleting serotonin levels and increasing anxiety/depression in some susceptible individuals:
I actually did a mini-survey with the people in my Facebook community, and I said, “Anyone using collagen or gelatin, have you noticed an increase in anxiety, an increase in depression, agitation, heart palpitations, insomnia?” I got very varied response. Half of the people said yes, they felt worse, more anxious, more depressed. Another 40% said no, they feel great. Then, interestingly enough, there was a few people that said they use collagen and gelatin to actually lower their serotonin levels.
If you aren’t yet signed up you can see the event schedule and register here for Better Belly Project 2.0. It runs through December 14th and Summer is interviewing 49 experts who are leaders in the field of digestive health.
Here are some topics you may also enjoy:
- What To Do If Your Gut Isn’t Getting Better: Jennifer Fugo (also today)
- Leaky Gut and Your Child: Dr. Elisa Song (also today)
- 17 Right and Wrong Ways to Eat Ferments: Summer Bock (also today)
- Treatment Options for Chronic Yeast Issues. What is the evidence?: Dr. Jessica Drummond (coming up tomorrow)
- Metals That Impact Gut Function: Wendy Myers (coming up in a few days)
I hope you enjoy my interview and these other expert interviews!
Do you have pyroluria and can you relate to any of this? Feel free to leave your comments and questions and comments below.