Digestive Issues Treatment in Greenville, SC
Digestive Issues Treatment at IHP Greenville — TCM, in-house herbal pharmacy, functional medicine. Dr. Hendry, DAOM. Call (864) 365-6156.
"I was referred to Dr. Will Hendry after spending thousands of dollars for medical doctors and procedures regarding a digestive issue. I will never forget the amount of time he spent with me on my first visit — something that had never happened with conventional medicine."
— Stuart M. · April 2015 · Google Review
The gut produces approximately 90% of the body's serotonin, houses 70% of the immune system, and communicates bidirectionally with the brain through the vagus nerve. When I see a patient with fatigue, mood dysregulation, and cognitive fog alongside their digestive complaint, I don't treat those as separate problems. The estrobolome — the bacterial genes responsible for estrogen recycling — means gut dysbiosis directly affects hormonal balance. A leaky gut driving systemic immune activation explains the autoimmune condition that started eight months after the GI infection. Digestive treatment at IHP starts from this systems understanding, not from symptom suppression.
How Digestive Issues Treatment Works
Digestive treatment at IHP begins with a detailed GI history: symptoms, timing relative to meals, bowel patterns, food triggers, prior diagnoses, and prior treatments. Dr. Hendry performs Chinese medical diagnosis focusing on Spleen/Stomach function and identifies whether the pattern is excess (Liver invading Spleen, Damp-Heat) or deficiency (Spleen Qi Deficiency, Kidney Yang Deficiency causing cold digestive symptoms). Functional medicine testing may include stool microbiome analysis, SIBO breath test, food sensitivity panel, inflammatory markers, and gastric acid assessment.
Conditions Treated with Digestive Issues Treatment
Comprehensive Functional GI Evaluation vs. Endoscopy and Acid Suppression
A 52-year-old presents with daily bloating, alternating bowel habits, and fatigue after meals. Standard gastroenterology appropriately rules out structural pathology through endoscopy and colonoscopy, both of which return normal results. The patient is prescribed an acid suppressant and advised to avoid spicy food. Twelve months later, the symptoms persist. What the standard workup does not assess is microbial composition: the ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes, the presence of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), or the production of short-chain fatty acids like butyrate that govern colonocyte health and epithelial barrier integrity. Our protocol adds a 3-day comprehensive stool profile, a lactulose breath test for SIBO, and a 96-food IgG panel. If dysbiosis and elevated zonulin are confirmed, a structured elimination and re-inoculation protocol is initiated alongside acupuncture points targeting parasympathetic enteric tone. This mechanistic sequence addresses the tissue-level dysfunction that endoscopy is not designed to detect, offering patients resolution rather than symptom management.
Research & Evidence
Gastrointestinal complaints rank among the most common reasons patients seek care, yet standard GI workups frequently return unremarkable findings. Research from Cryan et al. (Physiol Rev. 2019) established that the enteric nervous system and the gut microbiome operate as interdependent systems, with microbial metabolites directly modulating intestinal motility, epithelial tight-junction integrity, and systemic immune tone. Fasano's 2012 work in Clinical Reviews in Allergy and Immunology demonstrated that increased intestinal permeability precedes and perpetuates systemic immune activation, creating a mechanistic pathway from gut dysfunction to widespread symptoms. Vojdani (Autoimmune Dis. 2014) further documented how environmental triggers interacting with a permeable epithelium can initiate autoimmune cascades well before organ-specific pathology is detectable. Our clinical approach begins with comprehensive stool analysis, organic acid testing, and food-sensitivity panels to identify the specific microbial imbalances, enzymatic insufficiencies, and permeability markers driving each patient's symptom profile, then applies targeted dietary, botanical, and acupuncture protocols to restore function at the tissue level.
Your First Appointment
Bring a 3–5 day food diary and any prior GI testing (colonoscopy, endoscopy, stool tests, breath tests). Describe your bowel pattern in detail — frequency, consistency (Bristol Stool Chart), urgency, bloating timing, and pain location.
Why Dr. Hendry for Digestive Issues Treatment
Dr. Hendry's DAOM training in Chinese medical nutrition and gastroenterology, combined with his functional medicine expertise in gut-brain-immune axis science, makes him uniquely qualified for complex digestive disorders.