Skip to content Today class, I’d like to talk about something we don’t discuss anywhere near enough: your gut. No, not your belly fat. I’m talking about gut health. That thing we all ignore until we’re doubled over in pain or our skin looks like we’ve been dunking our face in acid rain puddles.
So, picture this: it’s 2021, I’m living the dream on Koh Phangan – an island in Thailand, where life is basically a postcard. There’s no covid, no tourists, just sun, sand and a hippie community who have never even heard of coronavirus. But then, out of nowhere, my fingers start peeling like I’ve been holding onto a cheese grater.
Now, I’m no Doctor Gregory House, but I do what any logical person would do: I change my soap. Then lay off the booze. Then switch up my diet. Does any of it work? Of course not. I change everything, down to buying my own hand wraps and boxing gloves at the Muay Thai gym. But nothing helps. Every time I train, the skin just peels right off. And I’m not talking about cute little flakes—it’s like watching my hands melt.
Strangely, the symptoms do vanish when I fly back to Europe for a couple of months at the end of 2022—only for them to reappear within a week of returning to Bangkok. Boom! It’s like the disease has missed me. Is it the local tap water? The heat? Should I be showering with mineral water? Maybe Thailand just has a vendetta against me. But hey, it’s just the hands, right? What’s the big deal if the skin’s falling off your fingers and you’re looking for love on the Bangkok dating scene?
Fast forward a year and the situation grows more perplexing. My nose decides it’s time to join the party. First, a little redness on the tip. Then, it spreads to teh sides.
So I do what any sane person would do—I bounce from one dermatologist to the next—but increasingly frustrated with the same diagnosis and no signs of progress. “You have sensitive skin. Rosacea. Probably down to your pale, white English skin,” they tell me. “Here, take this cream.” And can you guess the triggers for my condition that each one of them blamed?— The heat and humidity. Spicy foods and sweat. Direct sunlight and alcohol — basically, my life in Thailand.
But not one of them seems interested in investigating the root cause. I have to become a detective in my own health mystery, changing my diet, installing water filters and switching my soaps. Some creams provide temporary relief for my face, but one is a steroid that I shouldn’t use long-term. None of them helps my hands.
You’d think one of these skin specialists might ask, Hey, what’s going on INSIDE your body? Nope, they just embrace the typical mindset of western medicine—patch, patch, patch.
The real tipping point comes when a red, butterfly-shaped rash spreads across my cheeks.
I’m at my wit’s end. Now I’m walking around Bangkok looking like a mix of Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer and Santa’s ruby-red cheeks. And let me tell you, when your face lights up like Christmas, your confidence plummets.
One day, when my usual cream runs out during a particularly bad flare-up, I visit a local pharmacist. Now, I’m not talking about one of those, Take two aspirin and call me in the morning types. This lady takes one look at me and says confidently, “You eat bad. Not enough vegetables. Not enough water.”
Well, excuse me, ma’am, I happen to work out like a beast and eat really clean! But her blunt assessment hits me like a cold slap. And when a woman who spends her days selling cold medicine and multivitamins is the first to actually look beyond the skin, you listen.
She gives me some spirulina, Plukaow tablets—whatever the hell those are—and some fancy antibiotics from Japan. It’s desperate times and I hate handing cash over willy-nilly, but I give it a shot.
When I’m return home, the conversation gets me thinking: if my diet’s so healthy, why is my skin acting like it’s missing the memo?
And that’s when I start connecting the dots. With a family history of cancer—ding ding ding, we might just have a winner here! Is something really sinister at play? With the local hospital’s phone number practically on speed dial, I immediately book an appointment at the Digestive Care Centre.
I know I’m starting to sound like a private hospital’s dream customer— the hypochondriac, but I feel filled with hope when the gut doctor suggests running the whole gamut of tests. He seems like he’s actually interested in solving the case. And boy do we do all the tests: blood work, cancer markers and every type of allergy, followed up by a colonoscopy and endoscopy— the spit roast of medical examinations. But when the test results arrive a day later, I’m not really surprised— there are no internal issues and I’m very healthy for 44 years old!
Both relieved but still equally baffled, Doctor Gut and I discuss the test results at length and various other possibilities until we finally arrive at the holy grail of answers: gut flora. Now I thought gut flora was a medical condition fabricated by the hippies living on Koh Phangan; something blocking their body’s ability to heal from their childhood trauma.
But yeah… maybe this is it… gut flora.
In this part of the world, doctors tend to hand antibiotics out like sweeties at Halloween. Perhaps my years of antibiotic abuse have caught up with me! I’ve been prescribed antibiotics for all sorts of ailments over the years, from minor sniffles to the most common of transmitted diseases through sexual deviance.
The gut doctor explains the intricate connection between gut health and the immune system and the how antibiotics kill off all bacteria— the good and the bad.
Together we devise a plan. Probiotic tablets. Prebiotics like garlic, onions and asparagus. Kombuchas, yoghurts and bone broth – the whole pseudo science gut-repair kit. Or is it? I also decide to put the booze on ice for a bit. And you know what? It works. My hands stopped peeling and the redness on my face chills out. As it turns out, gut health isn’t just some hippie mumbo-jumbo after all.
This experience has taught me an invaluable lesson. While creams and topical treatments can offer temporary relief, the root cause often lies deeper within. Your gut isn’t just there to remind you when you’ve eaten bad sushi. It’s running the show. Your skin? Your immune system? They all bow down to your gut.
If your skin’s freaking out, or you’ve got health issues that won’t quit, don’t just grab the next miracle cream, tonic or drug. Check under the hood. It might just be your gut trying to tell you it’s had enough.
Several months have passed and I feel I do still have to keep an eye on it. I’ve realised my bad skin is definitely linked to regular drinking and/or dehydration. And while I continue to eat a healthy, balanced diet, I’m still taking those spirulina tablets.
Article written by James at Crunch
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