Ever wonder why your child’s “mystery” stomach aches keep coming back even when every test comes back normal?Dr. Ali Navidi is a GI psychologist who specializes in the gut-brain connection in kids. He’s on a mission to change how we understand and treat chronic belly pain, nausea, IBS, and other gut issues that don’t always have an obvious medical cause.

In this episode, we break down what every parent should know about the gut-brain axis. How the “little brain” in the gut talks to the “big brain” in the head and how stress, anxiety, and past experiences can turn real stomach sensations into ongoing pain cycles.

We cover:

• Gut-brain connection in kids and why stomach pain is real, even with normal test results

• How parenting responses and visceral hypersensitivity affect chronic belly pain

• Why this often goes undiagnosed and how anxiety plays a role

• Proven treatments for gut-brain disorders, from targeted CBT to clinical hypnosis

To connect with Dr. Ali Navidi follow him on Instagram ⁠@gipsychusa⁠, check out all his resources at ⁠Gipsychology.com ⁠and schedule a free consultation here: ⁠www.GIPsychology.com/free-consultation/⁠

We’d like to know who is listening! Please fill out our ⁠Listener Survey⁠ to help us improve the show and learn about you!

00:00 – Welcome to the PedsDocTalk podcast
02:16 – Meet Dr. Ali Navidi, GI psychologist
03:35 – Why GI psychology was created
05:45 – How gut-brain issues show up in kids
06:21 – Explaining the gut-brain axis for parents
08:15 – What is functional abdominal pain?
10:14 – Why kids’ pain is real, not “all in their head”
13:00 – Why kids feel anxiety in their stomachs
14:00 – PTSD of the gut explained
16:11 – Stress, IBS, and real-life examples
18:13 – Visceral hypersensitivity: why pain feels worse
19:43 – How parents’ reactions shape pain cycles
22:39 – Teaching kids coping skills early
27:26 – IBS, vomiting, and gut-brain examples
30:12 – How to respond when your child has pain
33:18 – Treatments that actually help (CBT & hypnosis)
36:34 – Final advice for parents: kids don’t need to “just live with it”
38:38 – Where to find help with GI psychology
40:00 – Closing thoughts and takeaways

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00;00;00;05 – 00;00;24;09

Dr. Ali Navidi

But because their brains are conditioned to find threat in the body. And remember, the brain, translates threat into pain. Yeah, you remember that? That’s that’s another important one out there. The brain translates threat into pain.

 

00;00;24;11 – 00;00;49;02

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m Doctor Mona, and thank you for making the show a top 30 parenting podcast in the United States. Your downloads, reviews and shares of the episode helped make that happen. And today we’re talking about something that might completely change the way you think about your child’s belly pain. Here’s the deal. When a kid shows up in my office with stomach aches, I don’t just think constipation or reflux.

 

00;00;49;09 – 00;01;09;06

Dr. Mona

Of course we rule those out. That’s the medical side of the differential diagnosis, which is just your doctor speak for. Here are all the possible causes we have to consider. But here’s the part most parents don’t know. Mental health is always on that list too, because the gut and the brain, they’re in constant conversation. And in kids, that connection is supercharged.

 

00;01;09;08 – 00;01;32;14

Dr. Mona

Anxiety doesn’t always say I’m anxious. Instead, it shows up as belly aches before school, nausea that appears on the weekdays, or constipation that magically only happens on school days. This is not all in their head. It’s real. It’s physical. And it’s why I’m so excited to bring you this conversation with Doctor Ali Naveed GI, psychologist and co-founder of GI psychology.

 

00;01;32;16 – 00;01;54;04

Dr. Mona

He’s going to explain how the mind gut connection works, why these pains are really real, even when tests are normal, and how your response as a parent can actually shift your child’s entire experience of their symptoms. And gosh, how I’m so happy I found a GI psych because we need more mental health professionals and gut professionals understanding this connection.

 

00;01;54;06 – 00;02;16;17

Dr. Mona

So buckle up. This is one you’re going to want to listen to again. Download and share with every parent you know. If your child has abdominal pain now or ever will in the future, this episode could be the light bulb moment that finally makes it all click. Let’s get into it.

 

00;02;16;20 – 00;02;19;17

Dr. Mona

Thank you so much for joining me today. Doctor Navidi.

 

00;02;19;20 – 00;02;27;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

My pleasure. Doctor Mona, thank you for having me here. I’m excited to talk more about all those little kiddos with stomach aches.

 

00;02;27;22 – 00;02;47;26

Dr. Mona

Well, I like to give origin stories for my listeners on how I find my guests, because sometimes I follow them on social. Sometimes people, you know message me, but I have a guest form and my guest form I go through every time I’m looking to schedule guests. And your team had put in the request to be on the show, and I was like, oh wow, this is amazing.

 

00;02;48;03 – 00;03;10;17

Dr. Mona

A GI psychologist. And the reason why I’m so excited to have you on is that I don’t think a lot of people realize how connected a lot of our abdominal complaints are to our mind, especially in children. And we’re going to dive into that. And I think when people hear this, they sometimes think, oh yeah, I might. Well, that means all my abdominal pain is in my head.

 

00;03;10;20 – 00;03;30;26

Dr. Mona

No, it means that there is a heavy connection between how our tummies can feel and how our brain can exacerbate that. It doesn’t mean that the pain isn’t real. So I’m so excited we’re here to have a practice that’s very rare. I want to hear more about that. What made you decide to start, you know, GI psychology.

 

00;03;30;26 – 00;03;35;06

Dr. Mona

And why do you think it’s such an important thing that we have as a resource in this community?

 

00;03;35;08 – 00;03;59;20

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. So I’m a psychologist and I’ve had a private practice in the DC metro area for about 14 or so years. And, and I slowly found myself becoming more and more specialized, and I think mainly because there just wasn’t anyone else who was trained to do that kind of work. So slowly, over time, I just started seeing more and more GI patients specifically.

 

00;03;59;22 – 00;04;33;28

Dr. Ali Navidi

I think just the combination of skills just wasn’t available, meaning psychologists who could see kids and adolescents who is trained to do GI work, who is also trained in the modalities of treatment needed, which are very specific, protocols of CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy and specific protocols of clinical hypnosis. And so slowly over time, you know, all the gastroenterologists who are working with kids just I became their go to person because they didn’t have anyone else.

 

00;04;33;28 – 00;04;38;16

Dr. Mona

And so then you decided to start this platform based on just what you experienced?

 

00;04;38;18 – 00;05;06;29

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. Yeah. And the idea of GI psychology is, to, to make available this kind of treatment and to try to make available in all 50 states, because, up until now, the only other option was very specialized university medical centers, that often had tremendous wait lists. You had to go in person or you had to be in the state to get there.

 

00;05;06;29 – 00;05;15;26

Dr. Ali Navidi

And we wanted to change that. We wanted to make it available, for for patients all over, all over the United States.

 

00;05;15;29 – 00;05;39;11

Dr. Mona

I love this, I love having this podcast to be able to platform resources like the ones that you are creating. I think it’s such an important thing, like you said, knowing that you’re seeing a lot of people come in with GI complaints, it probably sparked this light bulb of, okay, if I’m seeing if I’m a psych all, you know, psychologist and I’m seeing all these people come in, there must be something here that we need help to provide help with.

 

00;05;39;18 – 00;05;45;21

Dr. Mona

And were you also seeing a lot of children and if so, how young were these children that were coming into your offices?

 

00;05;45;23 – 00;06;13;05

Dr. Ali Navidi

I was typically seeing them as young as eight years old. But at our practice, we see them six years old and sometimes younger. We have some specialists who specialize in the youngest kids. Although that work tends to be more about, like increases and working with the parents a lot. But as they get to at least six years old, then you can start working directly with the kid.

 

00;06;13;07 – 00;06;21;13

Dr. Ali Navidi

They might be having functional domino pain or or nausea or some kind of vomiting issue, and, and you can work directly with them at six.

 

00;06;21;15 – 00;06;48;11

Dr. Mona

Well, I’m excited because we are going to dive into the that term later functional abdominal pain, which is so important as a pediatrician. And I know for yourself as a GI psychologist. But before that I want to take a step back a little bit. And if you could explain to our listeners the gut brain axis in simple terms and why it matters for children’s health behavior, and especially as we talk about stomach complaints as we will with pain, nausea and anything else kids may complain with with their bellies.

 

00;06;48;14 – 00;07;13;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

So, kind of a simple way to look at it is if you think of our nervous system, the central nervous system that includes the brain, and then the gut has its own nervous system, and that’s the enteric nervous system. And because there’s almost like a little brain in the gut, that little brain has a really close relationship with the big brain, and they’re always talking to each other back and forth.

 

00;07;13;19 – 00;07;38;28

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. So what happens in the gut affects our brain. And what happens in the brain affects our gut. And that’s probably the easiest way to think of it. And so when, when something is happening in the brain, you know, for example, they change schools or they’re getting bullied or they’re struggling in their classes for, for a large percentage of kids that’s going to have effects in their gut.

 

00;07;39;01 – 00;07;55;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

And sometimes those effects are not just temporary. They become cyclical and self-reinforcing. And that’s when you have what’s called a disorder of gut brain interaction, which is this broad class of disorders.

 

00;07;55;21 – 00;08;15;19

Dr. Mona

I love the way you describe that. The little brain talking to the big brain, that’s perfect, especially not only for a parent, but also a child like I. I love that explanation because obviously most of my listeners are parents, but now they can talk to their kids about how, hey, you have this big brain that does a lot of thinking, but your tummy is also doing a lot of thinking and learning too, every day.

 

00;08;15;19 – 00;08;30;14

Dr. Mona

I love that, and I think this is a good segue to talk about that term. Functional abdominal pain. And I would love if you could define that for, again, parent who may not know what that term is and how it relates to that gut brain connection that we just talked about.

 

00;08;30;16 – 00;08;55;16

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. So you can think of an example of a maybe a typical patient like a ten year old. And, suddenly they’re they’re complaining about stomach. Their stomach is hurting and it’s happening more often in the morning around, you know, kind of when they wake up and, you know, of course, they go to their pediatrician and their pediatrician goes through and rules out all these warning, these, like, danger signs.

 

00;08;55;18 – 00;09;19;22

Dr. Ali Navidi

And once they’ve ruled those out, depending on the pediatrician, sometimes they can. Yep. There you go. Sometimes they can even say with with a good amount of confidence. Hey, this looks like functional abdominal pain. And what that means is that there isn’t anything, struck naturally wrong. There’s no inflammation. Like, there’s a lot of things that it’s not.

 

00;09;19;22 – 00;09;44;01

Dr. Ali Navidi

And what it is, is the way that the system is functioning is a problem. And even more precisely nowadays, because functional was the old term, and now it’s a disorder of gut brain interaction. And what that means is the way we can go back to our old metaphor. Yeah. The way the big brain is talking to the little brain is causing some trouble.

 

00;09;44;04 – 00;10;06;08

Dr. Ali Navidi

And that trouble comes out as pain. And that pain to all the parents out there is 100% real. It’s not just in their head. It’s, you know, no different than pain that you’d feel if there was, you know, something really wrong in there, like physically wrong.

 

00;10;06;10 – 00;10;14;09

Dr. Mona

Now let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show.

 

00;10;14;11 – 00;10;34;14

Dr. Mona

I’m getting a little emotional, and I don’t know if it’s because I see this so often, or because I think parents sometimes can get frustrated when their kid keeps complaining of that belly pain, right? Like they’re like, nothing’s wrong with you and they see it, right? And then maybe their pediatrician, who’s not like myself and many other pediatricians, says that everything’s normal.

 

00;10;34;14 – 00;10;50;04

Dr. Mona

Like everything looks great, like, you know, and doesn’t bring up the fact that the mind is involved in this. And I’ve had many times in my office, and I’m sure you have as well, where I’m talking to the family, and it’s that ten year old or 11 year old, and I tell them, I’m like, I need you to understand that I believe you.

 

00;10;50;11 – 00;11;15;15

Dr. Mona

I know something is not feeling good in your tummy or stomach or whatever the age of the child. I sometimes use tummy and this the relief they feel to know that we don’t believe as a medical professional that it’s fake is so important. It’s like anything. And you know, you think we’re talking about belly pain, but we think about people who are struggling with any sort of pain in their body that we cannot put a value on or we’re not in that body.

 

00;11;15;15 – 00;11;25;06

Dr. Mona

But just to say, I believe you and that I know that this is real and that it’s not in your head, I think is such a valuable thing in itself. And I’m sure you feel the same way.

 

00;11;25;09 – 00;11;32;22

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. And and especially when you can give the patient and the parents, an understanding of how and why this is happening.

 

00;11;32;22 – 00;11;33;07

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;11;33;07 – 00;11;58;04

Dr. Ali Navidi

Because otherwise I understand. You know, being a parent myself, I understand, how easy it is for a parent to see it that way. Yeah, because it does look suspicious. You know, you’re kind of like, okay, I know my kid has been having trouble in school, and it seems like their stomach is always hurting right before school. So maybe they’re doing this to try to get out of school and stay home.

 

00;11;58;11 – 00;12;17;21

Dr. Ali Navidi

Like, it’s understandable why they think that, right? However, you can see that, in case after case, this pain is very real. It’s really affecting. And, and people just don’t understand the power of that mind gut connection.

 

00;12;17;23 – 00;12;36;03

Dr. Mona

And what we do as clinicians and our job. And you really talked about that beautifully is when I have a patient coming in, I always rule out the organic issues. What I mean by organic. And for anyone who’s not familiar as I go through my Rolodex of if this is something like reflux, is it constipation, is it something like an intolerance to a food?

 

00;12;36;03 – 00;13;00;12

Dr. Mona

Is it a food allergy? Like anything that can be treated either with a prescription or a specialist or something like that is what I’m looking at first when I think about the rule out, you know, maybe we have to do some celiac panel or, you know, looking for that celiac disorder. But then I always talk to the family about that differential, which is I’m going to do all the testing, but I don’t want us to rule out that this could be something called functional abdominal pain.

 

00;13;00;12 – 00;13;04;17

Dr. Mona

But you said that the better term now was disorder of gut brain connection interaction.

 

00;13;04;17 – 00;13;08;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

I like that, yeah, disorder of gut brain. So d g b.

 

00;13;08;19 – 00;13;29;21

Dr. Mona

I, I love that I’m going to actually see this is why I love having people on my show. Because I didn’t know that there was a new term. I love that. And so it’s so important that we do that. It’s so important for all of our listeners that if you’re going through this with your child, that we understand the frustration, we understand when there’s something that seems invisible, how it can feel like, oh my God, they’re trying to get out of something.

 

00;13;29;21 – 00;13;55;06

Dr. Mona

But it’s not them trying to avoid something. It’s them feeling some feelings and just don’t. They don’t know how to respond to that. So I guess my question for you, having, you know, being a GI psychologist is why do some kids have these real GI symptoms, even when all the tests come back normal? Or why is it so much stronger that they’re, you know, when they’re feeling nervous about school or changing school?

 

00;13;55;06 – 00;14;00;04

Dr. Mona

Why is it that that’s manifesting more in the belly than, let’s say, an adult would feel?

 

00;14;00;07 – 00;14;29;06

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah, it’s interesting. And and I think part of that, to me at least, is kind of like a question mark. Yeah, right. It maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s some small biological developmental issues. However, I think a large part of it comes from experience. And what I mean is, there’s this concept that I like to call PTSD of the gut.

 

00;14;29;09 – 00;14;56;17

Dr. Ali Navidi

And what that means, as I describe it, is, there are people out there, they’re kids that have had some sort of gut trauma. Yeah. Whether that’s, bacterial infection and, or maybe they’re just always been prone to GI problems. But, for those people, their brain has learned to kind of view the sensations coming from the gut with a bit of suspicion and fear.

 

00;14;56;20 – 00;15;19;17

Dr. Ali Navidi

And it’s not something that’s conscious. It’s something that happens unconsciously. And one of the things that happens when the brain views an area kind of like, oh, this is dangerous, is that manifests through pain. Pain is the brain’s way of saying about something, this is dangerous. I’m worried about it.

 

00;15;19;24 – 00;15;20;17

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;15;20;19 – 00;15;48;11

Dr. Ali Navidi

Right. And I know for some people, that’s hard to hard to believe who’ve never kind of experienced it, but it’s it’s really profound. These are not this kind of pain is can be just as, you know, damaging just is, hard to deal with as any type of pain they’ll experience. Many of the patients I’ve worked with have been to the E.R. multiple times, because the pain has been so severe.

 

00;15;48;13 – 00;16;11;14

Dr. Ali Navidi

But it’s but it’s kind of like their once their brain has been conditioned to view that, that those GI symptoms with danger, it’s always kind of keeping an eye on it and, and that makes it really easy when they’re stressed or difficult things are going on in their life that stress and anxiety gets transmitted right down to the little brain in the gut.

 

00;16;11;17 – 00;16;31;27

Dr. Mona

Well, I think a lot about IBS, right? Irritable bowel syndrome. My husband and I both had IBS in in medical school and residency. Yeah. And and when I say that we probably had some degree of it, but it got worse. What I mean by that is our stress in residency. And we didn’t know each other in residency. Our stress caused diarrhea, constipation.

 

00;16;32;03 – 00;16;49;28

Dr. Mona

It caused us to feel that butterfly in the stomach feeling. And I think we all can relate to that, that terminology, like you feel that pit in your stomach, like just say something happens emotionally and all of a sudden you feel that weight or you feel nauseous all of a sudden, or maybe you got some really bad news and you feel like you want to throw up, right?

 

00;16;49;28 – 00;17;08;24

Dr. Mona

Like that is a powerful feeling. And I, I, for one, have been there right when my, my emotional state has caused that little brain to be like, oh yeah, you know what? We don’t like this right now. No, I don’t want to keep this food down. Yeah. And, you know, I think it’s a real I mean, obviously it’s a real thing that I think any adult can kind of relate to as well.

 

00;17;08;26 – 00;17;26;25

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. And you can see in just in terms of that simple little history. Your history before medical school kind of primed you. Yeah. Maybe you had a few little here and there problems but nothing too big deal. And then you went through this kind of meat grinder of of an institution.

 

00;17;26;28 – 00;17;28;07

Dr. Mona

Right way to put it I like it.

 

00;17;28;11 – 00;18;13;04

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. They just kind of crunch you and through all that stress, anxiety, constantly feeling uncertain and unsure, all those emotions and feelings get transmitted into the gut. And there’s one other thing I want parents to really understand who’ve got kids that have these types of problems is this concept called visceral hypersensitivity. And that’s a really important concept because what it is, is with these disorders like functional abdominal pain or IBS, not only does the brain send that stress and anxiety into the gut and then the gut reacts with more symptoms, but then all the sensations from the gut get sent back to the brain.

 

00;18;13;11 – 00;18;41;26

Dr. Ali Navidi

But the brain doesn’t just accept those sensations, it actually amplifies and distorts them. So what might feel like, a little gas gets amplified and distorted to feel like crippling pain and discomfort, and they can’t even want to move. Maybe it makes him nauseous, right? Everything gets. It’s like someone has a joke. Takes your, iPhone and turns and volume all the way up when you’re listening to music.

 

00;18;41;28 – 00;18;43;11

Dr. Ali Navidi

Right?

 

00;18;43;13 – 00;19;00;21

Dr. Mona

I love that example. Your analogies and descriptions are like, spot on because I’m listening and I’m like, yes. And I, you know, even if I haven’t been through that, I when I speak to that patient in front of me and they’re feeling that cyclical, you know, that cyclical feeling. Right. And I know we’re talking again about pain in the abdomen.

 

00;19;00;21 – 00;19;15;17

Dr. Mona

But this is pain in any other part of your body. You know like yeah. And I, I talk about it with my, my son like when he hurts his knee. Right. And it’s hurting so bad at that moment. And I say I know it hurts. I don’t dismiss him. I don’t say, you know what, sweetie? It doesn’t hurt.

 

00;19;15;17 – 00;19;30;19

Dr. Mona

It’s not a big deal. I say, I know it hurts, but can I tell you something? It’s going to feel better. It’s going to feel better. And I’m almost trying to his psychology so that he’s not like going into the spiral of this is going to be painful forever. And in many kids. And I think we’re going to get to this.

 

00;19;30;19 – 00;19;48;23

Dr. Mona

But in many kids, they get I feel like they get trapped in this sort of cyclical pain cycle, right? Their belly hurts. Their brain is telling them it hurts more. It makes the belly hurt. It makes the brain tell them more. And it’s like, do you feel like there’s that amplification response to something that is pain? But it’s because it’s the cycle.

 

00;19;48;23 – 00;19;50;21

Dr. Mona

The psychology’s being involved as well.

 

00;19;50;24 – 00;20;10;16

Dr. Ali Navidi

At 100%. You brought up so many things I want to respond to. Just in some of it. Just that example of every parent knows this, right? You’re watching, let’s say you’re a little kid and they’re riding their little bike and they’re all unsteady, and then they fall. And right after they fall, they don’t cry right away.

 

00;20;10;19 – 00;20;14;01

Dr. Ali Navidi

They look at you.

 

00;20;14;03 – 00;20;14;27

Dr. Mona

Yes.

 

00;20;14;29 – 00;20;20;21

Dr. Ali Navidi

And how you respond in that moment determines how they’re going to respond.

 

00;20;20;26 – 00;20;39;16

Dr. Mona

Do you watch my videos. I literally talk about this all the time. Oh really I that’s so funny. Like my one of my biggest things on social is I do response videos and I say parents you got to control your reaction. Like I don’t need the big reaction I’m talking about for everything and especially injuries, but also illnesses and health.

 

00;20;39;23 – 00;20;45;09

Dr. Mona

I mean, if we go like this every time they get ill, like with a fever and go into anxiety mode.

 

00;20;45;16 – 00;20;46;03

Dr. Ali Navidi

You’re.

 

00;20;46;05 – 00;20;49;06

Dr. Mona

Gonna go, yes, yes, yes, I preach it.

 

00;20;49;09 – 00;20;49;17

Dr. Ali Navidi

Preach.

 

00;20;49;17 – 00;20;57;11

Dr. Mona

It, I love it, I love this, this, this gut, little brain, big brain or two big brains, whatever. We’re doing it right now.

 

00;20;57;13 – 00;21;11;05

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. Look, because they’re they’re using you as they’re kind of like way to figure out how much danger they’re in. And if they feel like they’re in danger when they fall, their brain is going to be like, okay, ramp up the pain.

 

00;21;11;08 – 00;21;11;28

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;21;12;00 – 00;21;29;05

Dr. Ali Navidi

And the pain goes up and they cry. And then you run over and you know, versus the, the parent that’s like, oh, wow, that that probably hurts. But I bet you want to keep on having fun, don’t you, you know, and like redirect them and or whatever it needs to happen. Yeah.

 

00;21;29;05 – 00;21;29;25

Dr. Mona

Point.

 

00;21;29;27 – 00;21;54;15

Dr. Ali Navidi

Right. And and it’s interesting when you look at the research, they’ve done this research, let’s say with, I think it was with patients with functional dominant pain. The parenting style matters in terms of outcomes. Right. So what do you see? You see those parents who are overly empathetic. Actually, their kids get worse.

 

00;21;54;15 – 00;21;55;04

Dr. Mona

Yes.

 

00;21;55;04 – 00;22;14;00

Dr. Ali Navidi

They have worse outcomes versus the parents that are a little more matter of fact, a little more kind of like, okay, I know it’s tough right now, but we just got, we got to go to school today, like, you know, like, just matter of fact, not making too big of a deal of it. Their kids do better.

 

00;22;14;03 – 00;22;30;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

And if they take even just one thing from this show, I’d like them to take that is once you’ve gotten the problem checked out and you know, it’s none of these other dangerous things, how you react as a parent and just watch Doctor Mona’s videos and.

 

00;22;30;20 – 00;22;38;13

Dr. Mona

Know when you said that, I was like, oh my gosh, thank you, psychologist for telling me this. I like.

 

00;22;38;16 – 00;22;39;23

Dr. Ali Navidi

Oh, great.

 

00;22;39;26 – 00;22;55;02

Dr. Mona

No, it’s so true though. And I mean, again, we are talking about an area that I think is so important and I, you know, another reason, another story I didn’t tell you or my listeners is that in medical school, I’m sorry, I apologize in residency, I was seeing a lot of young children come in for functional domino pain.

 

00;22;55;02 – 00;23;15;17

Dr. Mona

And I actually did a study on functional abdominal pain. And it was a I forget the name of the project, but my project was that I saw so many kids coming in with functional abdominal pain that I wanted to go downstream and teach kids coping skills in the early ages so they can have coping skills that can potentially reduce the risk of functional abdominal pain.

 

00;23;15;17 – 00;23;35;22

Dr. Mona

Because my concern is that did these children not get healthy coping skills with anxiety, with new things that they’re learning? And that was my project. So we created a project of like going into schools, going into, you know, I’m talking like five year old six year olds and teaching them about their bodies, but also just teaching them about their feelings.

 

00;23;35;25 – 00;23;55;14

Dr. Mona

And I’m such a big feeling discussion person, not only because it’s great for parenting and for teaching for the child, but for physical ailments, right? Like, yes, I, I was sick in an ICU and if it wasn’t for my mindset and I believe this strongly, I probably would have been there longer. But I told myself, we’re going to get through this.

 

00;23;55;14 – 00;24;16;12

Dr. Mona

I’m going to heal. I need to have surround myself with people that are realists, but also that are going to be optimistic about my health. And it was really important. And, you know, I, I, I think this is such an important conversation because when I was in residency and I saw those patients come in and I saw a very simple strategy that they would be admitted to the hospital because they needed the workup.

 

00;24;16;15 – 00;24;42;07

Dr. Mona

Right, meaning they were having the cyclical vomiting, or they were having this abdominal pain and everything was coming back normal. And then the child life specialist would go and have them smell lavender essential oils, and the kid would just relax every time they had the abdominal pain. They told us that it felt better. And I we all, you know, we all knew that there was some degree of psychosomatic component there, that yes, they were feeling calm.

 

00;24;42;09 – 00;25;04;13

Dr. Mona

And then I would look at the parent that would ask for we need another CT. We need another image, we need this, we need this. And I’d have to pull the family aside and say, we are doing everything. We believe you, we believe the child. But I want you to look at how this child’s responding when they’re feeling calm, when they’re feeling relaxed, how that’s impacting their their abdominal deconditioned.

 

00;25;04;19 – 00;25;32;01

Dr. Ali Navidi

I think as Americans were conditioned to find the thing. Yes. The thing what is the thing? This the thing is like something’s wrong. Something’s broken. You know, something’s, needs medicine and or a surgery or or something. And we’re not really taught about the subtleties of the nervous system and how it relates to the gut and how it relates to the body as a whole.

 

00;25;32;03 – 00;25;35;25

Dr. Ali Navidi

It’s no surprise that a lot of these kids also have a lot of headaches.

 

00;25;35;26 – 00;25;36;18

Dr. Mona

Yeah. Yes.

 

00;25;36;18 – 00;26;01;15

Dr. Ali Navidi

They also have a lot of musculoskeletal like pain. But because their brains are conditioned to find threat in the body. And remember, the brain, translates threat into pain. Yeah. You remember that? That’s that’s another important one out there. The brain translates threat into pain.

 

00;26;01;18 – 00;26;32;19

Dr. Mona

Now, let’s take a quick break to hear from our sponsors who support helps us keep bringing you this show. You know, I’m writing this down. I know I’m going to I’m writing it down because this is going to be the, you know, this is going to be the star statement of the of the of the episode because it is true, you know, and I don’t think people realize is that when we discuss pain management in so many different ways and in children, most children don’t have the back pain, the musculoskeletal pain, they have abdominal pain.

 

00;26;32;25 – 00;26;43;28

Dr. Mona

It is where they get it. And it’s because of this developing gut brain connection that I believe that that’s why it’s so strong, is that their gut is so in tune and they’re like, whoa, I’m feeling.

 

00;26;44;01 – 00;27;09;02

Dr. Ali Navidi

That you started that program. Yes. Start teaching them early because you know, I see it when they’re 13 or 16, or 45 and they’ve had all this time to reinforce these neurological pathways of pain and fear. Yeah. And if we can get ahead of that early, I think you’re going to help a lot of people.

 

00;27;09;04 – 00;27;26;10

Dr. Mona

And, you know, obviously, to be transparent, that was a residency project. So it’s not obviously something I’m doing now, but it is something that’s such a big philosophy in my education, which is why I was fangirling that you guys wanted to come on my show. And I was like, who is this? I need to meet him, I need to I need to talk to him because this is really important.

 

00;27;26;10 – 00;27;46;19

Dr. Mona

And it is something that I said, like, I, I know we can help so many people and obviously as adults as well because this all starts in childhood. So I want to, you know, I want to be able to talk about that. And, you know, I know maybe you’ve already answered this question, but like, how do conditions like IBS, cyclic vomiting syndrome or avoiding eating reflect this gut brain link and action?

 

00;27;46;23 – 00;28;16;25

Dr. Ali Navidi

Maybe you do a little bit of a patient of mine. You know, I think she had, you know, a nice family dinner and then, you know, eventually went to bed and then in the middle of the night, she woke up just vomiting. You know, think about how disorienting and scary it is to, like, go from dreaming and probably nasty dreams because you’re in pain and, like, your stuff and then just throwing up and you’re confused.

 

00;28;16;27 – 00;28;32;20

Dr. Ali Navidi

And so she went through food poisoning, right? And she, you know, of course, was miserable. And then and then got over it, the food poisoning was gone. But she ended up having pretty much constant functional abdominal pain.

 

00;28;32;26 – 00;28;33;18

Dr. Mona

 

00;28;33;20 – 00;28;53;20

Dr. Ali Navidi

How did that happen? Well, what happened is that episode that just that one episode left such an impression on her brain that there was a part of her brain that, from that point on, was constantly scanning for danger? We call that hyper vigilance.

 

00;28;53;24 – 00;28;58;28

Dr. Mona

It’s is it that almost similar to the PTSD of the gut that you were mentioning? Yes. Yeah. Wow.

 

00;28;59;01 – 00;29;17;01

Dr. Ali Navidi

Exactly. And so it was constantly scanning. And then if it ever found anything that seemed even a little off, there was this catastrophizing that would occur. Her brain would be like, oh my God, what’s going to happen? Are we going to be throwing up again? We can’t we can’t let you know. Like and this all happened super fast.

 

00;29;17;04 – 00;29;47;03

Dr. Ali Navidi

She was probably barely consciously aware of it, but all that stress and fear went down into the gut and caused it to react in, in such a way that it was clenching and and freaking out. And and then her the visceral hypersensitivity was amplifying and distorting this sensation. So you can see if we had a diagram right in front of us, we could loop out exactly how that feedback loop just keeps going over and over again.

 

00;29;47;06 – 00;30;12;26

Dr. Mona

Wow. That is a great example of what you had already alluded to at the beginning. I think that’s so important. And, you know, in that situation, or maybe in other situations, we already talked about the importance of the parents reaction to random falls. Right. But I would love to elaborate further on how a parent’s response and maybe a tweet with a teenager or a younger child, whether it’s anxious, dismissive, or overly reassuring, how can that affect the situation?

 

00;30;12;26 – 00;30;23;27

Dr. Mona

And what would be your recommendation to responding to a, you know, a child who’s going through something like a functional abdominal pain or abdominal pain in general, knowing the gut gut gut brain axis is so active.

 

00;30;24;04 – 00;30;49;01

Dr. Ali Navidi

I’m glad that you flipped it over to the other side of it too, which is dismissive. If you’ve got this dismissive reaction, I think the child ends up feeling angry, sad, alone. Yeah, right. Kind of like, oh my god, nobody’s here for me. And sometimes some kids will react angrily to that and some kids will react like kind of sad and hopeless.

 

00;30;49;03 – 00;31;14;23

Dr. Ali Navidi

But that’s not all. Obviously that’s not what we want either. Yeah. But then on the other side of it, we’ve got the, the parent who’s maybe just is scared or more scared than the kid, and they’re reacting with anxiety and, and treating them overly empathetically. And what that does is it reinforces in them that there’s something very wrong with them and that they’re not capable.

 

00;31;14;26 – 00;31;15;24

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;31;15;26 – 00;31;41;28

Dr. Ali Navidi

So what’s that middle ground? The middle ground is that, that that love with kind of I’d say expectations and boundaries. And so what I say to a lot of, my patients and the parents is, you know, if you get a stomach ache here and there, you know, stay home right? You know, stay home, it’ll probably feel better.

 

00;31;41;28 – 00;32;06;18

Dr. Ali Navidi

And and if it keeps going, go to your doctor. But for the most part, you can miss school. Yeah. But for patients that had these kind of chronic conditions, it just can’t work. It just can’t work. And so they have to learn to do something that’s difficult, which is, hey, hey, I know this feels bad. This is uncomfortable, and we need to go to school.

 

00;32;06;20 – 00;32;11;02

Dr. Mona

I love the and and not the but. Yeah. Yes. Very strategic. Yes.

 

00;32;11;04 – 00;32;12;03

Dr. Ali Navidi

Precisely. And that.

 

00;32;12;03 – 00;32;13;06

Dr. Mona

Language you. Yeah.

 

00;32;13;06 – 00;32;49;20

Dr. Ali Navidi

Very precise. It’s like we’re not dismissing you with a but. Yeah. But we’re saying and it’s tough and we still need to go to school and we still need to, you know, do our homework or whatever those things are. Because if we start giving in, then the world starts constricting. Yeah. And I see a lot of these kiddos when, you know, they been locked in kind of homebound for a few months, sometimes years.

 

00;32;49;22 – 00;33;00;16

Dr. Ali Navidi

And it’s so they develop all these secondary problems. Right. And it gets even harder to this is a bad analogy, but it’s like a tech that’s kind of burrowed really in deep.

 

00;33;00;16 – 00;33;01;04

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;33;01;04 – 00;33;18;15

Dr. Ali Navidi

It’s hard to get them out because they develop all these secondary anxiety issues around school and around other kids because now they’re not getting enough socialization. And so so we need to have those expectations that are paired with, you know, empathy and love.

 

00;33;18;18 – 00;33;45;17

Dr. Mona

And of course the next question is going to be multilayered because it’s not something we can fix overnight. But are there just certain behavioral therapies or psychological strategies that can help for these gut brain issues, whether it’s obviously with a licensed psychologist or things that a family can do that you feel like on a surface level is something that is important in addition to something like therapy, which I would all my patients that I’m I’m concerned about that functional abdominal pain is the diagnosis.

 

00;33;45;23 – 00;33;57;07

Dr. Mona

I recommend all of them to see a psychologist. But the negative is that not all psychologists, right, are like you that understand the sensitivity of the gut brain connection, which is wild.

 

00;33;57;12 – 00;34;23;10

Dr. Ali Navidi

So here’s the plus and the minus. Yeah. You know, sending them to a therapist or a psychologist, it’s not going to be bad. And it can be good. Yeah. Right. Is they’re going to help with anxiety. They’re going to help with stress. They’re going to build coping skills. The problem is that there are specific forms of therapy that have been shown to be effective.

 

00;34;23;13 – 00;34;50;06

Dr. Ali Navidi

CBT in general has not been shown to be effective for something like functional abdominal pain. However, there are specific protocols within CBT that have been shown to be effective. Then very few therapies are trained to do. And so that’s a that’s a big problem because a lot of my patients will come to me and I’ll start talking about CBT and they’ll say, oh no, no, no, we did that already.

 

00;34;50;06 – 00;34;55;28

Dr. Ali Navidi

We did CBT. And I have to say, well did you do did you do it like this?

 

00;34;55;28 – 00;34;56;22

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;34;56;24 – 00;35;19;19

Dr. Ali Navidi

And the answer is usually no because they were referred to a general practitioner. The other side of it is that that is that clinical hypnosis is an amazing tool for these kinds of problems. That a lot of people think they know a lot about. And what they know a lot about is entertainment hypnosis.

 

00;35;19;21 – 00;35;25;29

Dr. Mona

Yes. Like when you go to the show and they’re like yeah you’re like I can’t fall for that. Right. This is not the same type of yeah right.

 

00;35;25;29 – 00;35;44;18

Dr. Ali Navidi

This is clinical diagnosis which literally at this point has 40 years, over 100 of studies done showing how well it works, like 80% of patients will reach their treatment goals based on the research. And kids respond even better than adults do.

 

00;35;44;20 – 00;35;55;01

Dr. Mona

Amazing. And to find someone who does that, it would be a psychologist, obviously, who is trained in clinical hypnosis. Hypnosis is not something that all psychologists are, you know, able to do.

 

00;35;55;09 – 00;36;06;10

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yes, sadly, it’s even more specific. It’s it’s some kind of therapist that’s trained in clinical hypnosis, that’s specifically trained in clinical hypnosis for G.I problems.

 

00;36;06;11 – 00;36;14;11

Dr. Mona

Okay. But you’re I mean, obviously your platform is like, is trying to get even more of that availability via telehealth. Correct?

 

00;36;14;17 – 00;36;34;10

Dr. Ali Navidi

Exactly. Yeah. It’s GI psychology.com. It’s that’s our website. But right now we’ve got I think 14 therapists that are all fully trained up and we’re hiring more, and they’re all trained in these very specific modalities of therapy and techniques that that’s the whole idea.

 

00;36;34;12 – 00;36;58;13

Dr. Mona

I think this is so fascinating. I, I knew it was fascinating before because that’s why I wanted you on the show. But just hearing your terminology, obviously how, you know, how the, how the body responds to stress is pain. Like, there’s so much in here that was just so valuable. What would be your final uplifting message for everyone tuning in, which are mainly parents of children maybe, who have this issue or maybe down the line will have this issue?

 

00;36;58;16 – 00;37;24;02

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah, I think I think one important thing to know is that they don’t need to live with it. I think there are some not you, Doctor Mona, but there are some doctors out there that that will do all the tests, you know, rule out all the things, and then they’ll say, okay, you know, you just gotta live with, you know, try to try to relax more, you know, like, whatever, like, I don’t.

 

00;37;24;05 – 00;37;24;25

Dr. Mona

You’re right.

 

00;37;24;27 – 00;37;27;02

Dr. Ali Navidi

It’s horrible things I have to.

 

00;37;27;02 – 00;37;37;29

Dr. Mona

I have seen those colleagues of mine, and I’m like, whoa. I’m like, come on. Like, this is a real thing. And we can help them, whether it’s us or someone who’s like yourself or, you know, there are solutions, right?

 

00;37;38;01 – 00;38;10;07

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. And so they’re left with the impression that their answers aren’t in the traditional medical space. And so they either accept that they need to live with it, or they start kind of wandering the wilds of the internet. Yeah, right. And they they end up in supplement town or, or other kind of stranger places looking for help. And I’ve kind of heard it all over the years, but, but they end up in places where there isn’t very much, if any, actual research.

 

00;38;10;07 – 00;38;25;26

Dr. Ali Navidi

Right. Showing it can be helpful. So, so that you, your kid doesn’t have to live with it and that there are very, well studied effective modes of treatment for, for them, that are available.

 

00;38;25;28 – 00;38;38;04

Dr. Mona

This is such an incredible conversation. Thank you so much. I know, say the website again where people can get more information about obviously, what you’re trying to build and what you’ve already built and you know how they can stay connected with you as well.

 

00;38;38;07 – 00;39;09;27

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. So there’s the website is g I psychology.com, and we offer a free 15 minute phone call with a trained clinician like this is someone who already is clinically trained. They can answer all their questions about how this stuff works to see if it would be right for them. Yeah. And, and I just I just don’t want people to have to, have have these kids be in pain longer than they need to be.

 

00;39;09;29 – 00;39;31;19

Dr. Mona

I appreciate that because I think that is a mutual goal here. And in anything we deal with, especially, you know, I’m a parenting podcast parenting account. I don’t just talk about abdominal pain, but it is such an important area that I think, like you said multiple times, that many children get dismissed, get told that, okay, well, we have nothing on labs, so everything is good, right?

 

00;39;31;21 – 00;39;49;06

Dr. Mona

That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reason or that there’s a, that there’s nothing that we can do. It’s having those conversations so that we’re not just living with it. We can actually maybe get better. And I I’m a big believer of that and I’m happy you embody that as well. So thank you so much for coming on the show today.

 

00;39;49;09 – 00;39;54;08

Dr. Ali Navidi

Doctor Mona. It was a it was a pleasure. I didn’t realize who I was going to be talking to.

 

00;39;54;15 – 00;39;55;27

Dr. Mona

All right.

 

00;39;56;00 – 00;40;00;18

Dr. Ali Navidi

Yeah. Yeah, I loved it. This is so fun.

 

00;40;00;20 – 00;40;18;13

Dr. Mona

Did I not tell you that this is going to be a powerful conversation? I just want to give doctrine a video, a big hug for the work he’s doing. If there’s one thing I hope you carry with you, it’s this. When kids have belly pain, it’s not all in their head. The gut and brain are deeply connected, and sometimes what looks like a stomach problem is actually an emotional one.

 

00;40;18;15 – 00;40;40;01

Dr. Mona

Both are real and both deserve our attention. We’re releasing this episode at the start of the school year in America, because this is when these issues pop up most. But the truth is, this episode will always be relevant, whether it’s September or March. These are insights every parent can come back to. If this conversation resonated with you, please take a moment to download the episode.

 

00;40;40;08 – 00;41;03;22

Dr. Mona

That simple step really helps the show grow and reach more families. And don’t keep it with yourself. Share it with another parent, a teacher, or even a grandparent who’s been puzzled by a child’s symptoms. Tag me at the PedsDocTalk podcast and at GI psych USA so we can spread this message wide and far. And don’t forget to comment on our social post about this episode and share that as well.

 

00;41;03;24 – 00;41;14;29

Dr. Mona

Parenting feels so much lighter when you’re not carrying it alone, so let’s make sure more families hear this conversation. I’ll catch you all next time for another incredible chat with another incredible guest.