Hi, this is Dr. Rusho and how long do you need to stay on the low FODMAP diet? Do you need to be on forever? No. Can you realize all of the improvements from the low FODMAP diet in just a couple of weeks? Probably not. And how long should you therefore then be on it? Well, here's what I would recommend at the two to three week mark you should be able to tell. Yes or no, the low FODMAP diet is helping. Not that everything has been resolved, but that is clearly inching you in the right direction. The next step is what tends to allude many people in terms of how long do they stay on the low FODMAP diet? And what you should really aim for is to stay on the low FODMAP diet until you've seen a peak level of improvement and then wait at least in my opinion one to two months before you undergo a robust reintroduction of foods. People will very slightly within how quickly they can successfully reintroduce foods. But let me share our story with Mona, which is one of the recent case studies that we published a video discussing on our website. And Mona had chronic acid reflux. She had seen a number of doctors and no one was really able to help her until she came into the clinic and we used a couple simple supports, a low FODMAP diet paired with probiotics. And this led to a strong response with her reflux. There's a detail here that's really important, which is she went from chronic daily multiple times per day, bouts of reflux to only it appeared maybe one or two bouts per week and only induced by foods. And she was very happy with that response. However, once she became acclimated to that improvement, she got frustrated and she said, I feel like this isn't working because people very quickly and rightfully so get acclimated to their new level of improvements. And if they're not perfect, they complain that they're not yet perfect, which again is totally understandable. But the point that you don't want to miss, the mistake that you don't want to make is to mistake not being at perfect with things not working. Now, what Mona noticed is she had to maintain that low FODMAP diet, which was a little bit annoying to her admittedly because there's many foods that one has to cut out in her probiotics for a couple months until she could successfully introduce FODMAPs. Now, during that couple months, she expressed frustration that she couldn't have garlic or avocado or whatever it was without flaring her reflux. And I kept telling her, well, you're much better than you were. Let's give your body time and we should see the ability to tolerate FODMAPs in the future. And what do you know? At about the second or third month mark, she was very happy that she was able to, over the holidays, have a lot of bad food. And she specifically noted a full avocado and she had no reflux. This is an important point. It's very important that if something is working, you maintain that plan and you give it ample time. Now, on the other side of the coin, we don't want to be doing things for eight months, 12 months, two years without any additional benefits. That's being too patient. But it's not abnormal to see a fairly large jump in improvements initially, the first, let's say four to six weeks. And then the rate of improvement slows or even plateaus. This is because, especially with things like low FODMAP in probiotics, you're modulating some of the bacterial colonies in your gut, which can take time. And further yet, still, this is a bit more of a presumption, but there's some preliminary evidence to support this. That the bacteria impact away your immune system functions and reacts. And we've seen this with leaky gut studies and inflammatory cytokine studies that do show these interventions impact these mechanisms, which are immune mediated. And this response may take longer to be attenuated and calmed down, which is why you're looking to see the initial improvements, yes, but then give your body some time on your plan before you try to go into a reintroduction. And that increases the probability that you'll be able to undergo the reintroduction successfully. So remember, if you're making dietary changes, you will likely see some pronounced improvements at the start and then a slowing in terms of the rate of response. Don't let that fool you into changing what you're doing, jumping ship, or complicating matters. If something that you're doing is working, give it time, realize that for some of these finer points to correct, especially if they are immune or inflammatory in nature, it may take some time a couple months for these things to be seduced. And once you get over that transitional hump, then you're in good position to reintroduce. Again, I share this to help protect you from rushing to other stuff if you have a plan that seems to be working. So again, in this case, in a specifically, a monos case with chronic acid reflux, some very pronounced improvements within the first four to six weeks, but then she needed really two to three months on maintaining that plan before she could successfully reintroduce. She did not need to do additional therapies, which is the key point here I'm hoping that you don't miss. So be a little bit patient. Don't be a lot patient. Don't expect to take years, but give your body some time a few months in this case before you undergo the reintroduction. And if that does work, fantastic. If it does not work, look too healthy, got healthy you, which lays out a litany of steps to help you on your gut repair rate of journey. This is Dr. Ruscio, and I hope this helps you get healthy and get back to your life.