Welcome back to another edition of health hack, as I round out my discussion around the at home lab testing that is available to you, and today I'm talking about the stool test. And doesn't sound very fun, I know, but it is an excellent test for testing for h pylori and parasites as well as bacteria and yeast overgrowth as well as digestive function. So when it comes to h pylori, people think, oh, that's nothing that we have in North America. But here's the thing we do. In fact, 14% of the North American population has h pylori. We can get it when we travel to third world countries, but we can also get it in our own contaminated water, even within North America, among many other ways of contracting it. Now it's really important to diagnose h pylori and deal with it. It is an awful microbe that gets into our stomach and embeds itself in our stomach lining. It stops our stomach from being able to produce produce HCl hydrochloric acid, which means we're not breaking down our food well, we're not getting nutrients from the meals that we're eating, and the longer it stays in our stomach, the more likely it will lead us to end up having an ulcer. In fact, 90% of all people with ulcers have had untreated h pylori. Now at the doctor's office, they might test for it with a breath test, but the best way to truly test for it is with a stool sample. And not just one stool sample, but a three day stool sample, because the amount of stool you put in the sample is so small that there is the chance that you miss it with just a one day sample, which is why we offer a three day sample, because it really increases the chance that you will find it. Then you know exactly what's going on, and we know exactly how to treat for it with parasites. It's similar to 30% of the North American continent has parasites within their body, and again, we can contract them through our own water, but also from traveling to other countries and bringing it home with us. And it's also something that negatively impacts our digestion and our body's ability to break down our food. It can cause a myriad of symptoms that can sometimes be hard to assess what it is until we do this stool test, and again, a three day sample is so much more effective at finding these things than a one day sample. As I said, this lab test will also show bacterial overgrowth as well as candida overgrowth, and it will also show digestive function. So when our digestive system isn't functioning well, because, you know, we're not producing stomach acid, and that's not only caused by h pylori, but that can be caused simply by high stress, poor sleep. We start to see what's going on in the digestive system. Food takes too long to pass through, and that causes all sorts of things, constipation, diarrhea, just you not having the nutrients that your body needs to thrive. And again, when we see all of that, we know exactly what to do with it, how to support your body in a eliminating the things that we don't want, like the H Pylori, the parasites, the bacterial or candida overgrowth, as well as supporting the digestive system and getting it functioning properly again. So a very, very helpful lab, and if this is something that you are interested in, please reach out. Melissa, at your guided health journey.com. We can have a chat about this. This lab, I do have to say, is only about available in the US. It cannot be shipped overseas anywhere else. However, if you are in the US and you would like to know more, please reach out. I'd be happy to have a conversation with you around how all of this works and how I can support you in optimizing your health. Melissa at your guided health journey.com.