Gut Healing vs. Gut Maintenance: Why Kombucha Isn’t Always Your Friend

Gut Healing vs. Gut Maintenance: Why Kombucha Isn’t Always Your Friend

Let’s talk guts. Not metaphorical guts, your literal, squeaky, sometimes-sassy digestive system that’s trying to keep you alive despite your history with gas station sushi and TikTok cleanses.

One of the biggest confusions I see (and trust me, I’ve had this fight with my own intestines) is the difference between healing the gut and maintaining it. They are not the same thing. What works for a healthy gut might absolutely wreck a gut in crisis. And that’s why some people sip kefir and feel fabulous, while others end up looking five months pregnant with a side of brain fog, acne and a histamine hangover.

Phase 1: Gut Healing Mode

(AKA: Your gut is on fire and everything you eat feels like a personal attack)

What You Avoid:

• Fermented foods (sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, miso, kefir): These are high in histamines, and if your DAO enzyme (the one that breaks histamine down) is underperforming, you’re going to feel itchy, anxious, puffy, or worse.

• Bone broth (Yes, the wellness holy grail): Long-cooked broth is histamine soup. Not healing for everyone.

• Citrus, avocado, spinach, tomatoes, leftovers, aged cheese - Histamine landmines.

• Probiotics that make things worse, like L. casei or L. reuteri, which produce histamine.

 What You Take Instead:

• DAO supplements before meals to help break down histamine

• Quercetin, vitamin C, B6, magnesium - to stabilize mast cells and support histamine processing

• Low-histamine probiotics, like Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG and Bifidobacterium infantis

• Digestive enzymes and bitters (histamine-safe ones) to ease the load on your overworked gut

What You’re Doing:

You're in recovery mode. The gut lining is damaged, your immune system is freaking out, and your bacterial balance is shot. You're pulling back on triggers, not forever, but for now, to calm inflammation, reduce histamine overload, and give your gut the peace and quiet it needs to rebuild.

Think of it like this: You don’t do CrossFit with a sprained ankle. You rest, heal, and THEN you train.

Phase 2: Gut Maintenance Mode

(AKA: Your gut is chill, and you're trying to keep it that way without living like a monk)

What You Can (and should) Enjoy:

• Fermented foods: Now that your system can tolerate them, fermented foods like sauerkraut, yogurt, and kombucha provide probiotic diversity and help crowd out the bad bugs.

• Prebiotic fibers from a wide variety of plant foods, seeds, and root veggies (assuming you’re past the FODMAP wars)

• Leftovers and bone broth (yes, they’re back!).  Once tolerated, these can actually help repair and nourish

What You Might Take:

• Broad-spectrum probiotics that include histamine-tolerant strains (L. plantarum, L. acidophilus, etc.)

• Glutamine or collagen peptides to keep your gut lining strong

• Digestive enzymes with harder-to-digest meals (you’re human, we eat pizza sometimes)

• Occasional DAO or quercetin as support when eating out or drinking wine

What You’re Doing:

You’re playing offense. You’ve done the hard work, healed your leaky gut, regulated your histamine load, and now you’re maintaining microbial diversity and supporting digestion without babying your system 24/7.

You're not living off steamed chicken and zucchini anymore. You’ve upgraded to "I can go to brunch without needing a nap or an EpiPen."

Why This Distinction Matters

Too many people jump into gut maintenance strategies while still in healing mode. This backfires. You can’t throw kimchi at a gut with inflamed mucosa and expect a miracle. That’s like putting glitter on a bullet wound.

At the same time, if you stay stuck in elimination mode forever, you risk starving your microbiome and becoming fearful of food, which can create its own set of problems (mental and microbial).

Gut Healing vs. Maintenance Cheat Sheet

	Gut Healing (Crisis Mode)	Gut Maintenance (Thriving Mode)
Ferments	Avoid	Add for diversity
Supplements	DAO, quercetin, antihistamine support	Probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes
Foods	Low histamine, low FODMAP	Broad variety of plants, fibers, ferments
Goals	Calm inflammation, rebuild lining	Feed the microbiome, stay resilient

My Gut Gave Me a Master’s Degree in Patience

Healing your gut is a process, not a punishment. It’s not forever, and it’s not about fear, it’s about phases. Know what your body needs right now, not what your favorite influencer with the glowy skin and collagen smoothie is doing.

When in doubt, remember this: Just because it’s healthy doesn’t mean it’s healthy for you.

Need help figuring out which phase you’re in and what to actually eat without losing your mind? That’s my jam. Reach out and let’s get your gut back on good terms with your brain, your skin, your hormones, and your peace of mind.