Gastric Health Mission

We help gastric bypass and gastric sleeve patients get healthy, lose weight and achieve your goals. Our holistic approach combines decades of bariatric patient experience with the power of whole real foods and quality supplements to help patients overcome common digestive health issues such as…

• Bloating
• Cravings
• Gas (often times foul smelling)
• Heartburn
• Indigestion
• Stalls
• Weight Regain

All are quite common side effects brought about by the surgery itself. Unfortunately, many of the healthcare professionals charged with patient care including Surgeons, Nurses and Nutritionists are often unaware of the important ways whole real foods and quality supplements can play in solving these issues.

Hi, I am Dawn Boxell

I am the founder of Gastric Health and I am a licensed Registered Dietitian specializing in Weight Loss Surgery. My career started in 1995, working at one of the very first Bariatric Centers in the United States, Winona Hospital Bariatric Center, Indianapolis, IN.

Over these past 30 years, I have been fortunate to counsel tens of thousands of Weight Loss Surgery Patients. I am proud to say the Center I started at has transitioned into one of the very best and most highly regarded Bariatric Surgery Centers in the United States, St. Vincent Carmel Bariatric Center of Excellence in Carmel, IN.

Digestive problems are common after weight loss surgery

Fortunately, during my career I have enjoyed being a part of thousands of weight loss success stories. Yet, despite all this success. I’ve witnessed many patients live with the frustration and embarrassment of….

severe abdominal pains, bloating, chronic constipation and/or diarrhea, gas (often foul smelling) and generally feeling less than themselves. And, not so coincidentally the majority of these patients struggle to achieve their weight loss goals.

It wasn’t until my health became severely compromised in 2003 that I discovered the key to help patients end this needless suffering.

My experiences with abdominal pain, constipation and unexplained weight gain

After the birth of my third child, I started experiencing many of these same symptoms…

Constant abdominal pains, severe bloating, and unexplained weight gain. As if this wasn’t enough, I was constantly exhausted and never felt like my “true-self”

The symptoms became so bad I developed a nightly routine of soaking in an Epsom salt bath, then crying myself to sleep knowing I was about to face a 3:00 am battle with extreme pain from chronic constipation (whew, there I said it 😉 ).

Over the next several years, I met with every Doctor imaginable.

Each took a few minutes to review my history and then scheduled an appointment for a highly specialized and expensive follow-up procedure. These included…. endoscopy, colonoscopy, CT and HIDA scans, endometrial ablation, x-rays, and blood draws.

Unfortunately, the results of all these meetings were the same. I was told everything was normal and all my symptoms were simply part of the aging process. The two options I was constantly presented with were…

“Learn to manage the symptoms with various medications or have a hysterectomy”

At just 39 years young, I choose to believe these were not my only options.

Discovering the power to heal digestive problems not treat symptoms

After a decade of getting nowhere, I decided to stop following “Doctors Orders” and started seeking answers outside the established medical community.

As fate would have it, during this intense time of discovery. I had a random conversation with my next door neighbor. She mentioned her physician had solved similar problems without pills or surgery by simply removing certain foods from her diet and adding some supplements.

Within a couple of weeks, I was meeting with the same Functional Medicine practitioner, Swathi Rao at Be Well Family Care in Indianapolis, IN.

Over the next few months, Swathi helped me realize the heart healthy, low fat, whole grain diet I had followed religiously and taught my entire professional career was severely compromising the integrity of my gut health which in turn was negatively impacting my endocrine (hormones) and immune systems.

This resulted in my estrogen to progesterone level being 2,000 to 1 as opposed to a more optimal 2 to 1. Plus, Swathi identified I had several food intolerance’s like wheat/gluten, corn, dairy and rice that were contributing factors to diagnosing me with hypothyroidism, and a poor functioning gallbladder.

I am happy to report that today through a regimen of eating whole real foods, proper supplementation, one prescription medication (Armour Thyroid), plus eliminating those foods my body doesn’t tolerate well. I am symptom free, plus I easily lost the extra weight I had gained over the past decade.

The health of your gut plays a major role in determining your overall physical and mental well-being

While I am extremely grateful for the benefits to my own health. The achievement I am most proud of is discovering the exact knowledge necessary to help WLS patients change their digestive health issues.

Now, more and more researchers, doctors and scientists are confirming what I have experienced to be true. And that is, to become the healthiest and happiest version of yourself you need to optimize your gut health.

If you find yourself constantly low on energy, struggling with digestive problems, dealing with unexplained weight gain, or in a mental rut that you can’t seem to get out of. Then, I encourage you to take the first step and join our Gastric Health community.

Like myself and many within our awesome community, you may discover the key to improving your overall physical and mental well-being lie in optimizing your gut health.

Why Gastric Health

At “Gastric Health” , we specialize in helping gastric bypass, gastric sleeve patients get healthy, lose weight and achieve your goals by using a holistic approach combining our decades of bariatric patient experience with the power of whole real foods and quality supplements.

As Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, said..“All Disease Begins in the Gut”

In Health,

Dawn Boxell, RD, CD