The GI Specialist Who Stopped Prescribing Miralax to Her GLP-1 Patients—And What She’s Telling Them Instead Has Other Doctors Furious

If you’re on semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro, Zepbound)—and your doctor keeps telling you to “drink more water and take Miralax”—you’re not doing anything wrong.

The advice is wrong.

Dr. Maria Santos has been a gastroenterologist for 19 years. Board-certified. Fellowship-trained. She’s published research, trained residents, and built one of the busiest GI practices in Phoenix.

And six months ago, she stopped giving her GLP-1 patients the standard advice.

“I was handing out textbook recommendations,” she says. “The problem is, the textbook was written before 12 million Americans started injecting themselves with medications that fundamentally change how the stomach works. We’re using 1990s solutions for a 2024 problem.”

What she’s telling her patients now has made her a pariah among some colleagues—and a hero to the women who finally feel heard.

Here’s What’s Actually Happening Inside Your Body

Both semaglutide and tirzepatide work by slowing down your stomach. That’s the whole point—they make you feel full longer so you eat less.

For a lot of people, things slow down too much. Your stomach basically falls asleep. Food just... sits there.

And when food sits in your stomach for 12, 18, even 24 hours—it starts to ferment. Like leftovers that sat out too long. That’s where the sulfur burps come from. That’s why you can taste Tuesday’s dinner on Thursday morning.

“This isn’t just constipation,” Dr. Santos explains. “It’s actually three problems happening at once.”

Here’s the kicker: Miralax, Dulcolax, fiber supplements—they all work on your colon. That’s the exit. Your problem is in your stomach. That’s the entrance.

“We’re telling patients to unclog the drain when the pipe is blocked at the top,” Dr. Santos says. “It’s medically correct in theory. It’s practically useless in reality.”

Why Your Doctor Keeps Dismissing You

It’s not malice. It’s training.

Gastroenterologists learn about motility disorders, but the standard protocols assume a different cause. They weren’t designed for medication-induced delayed emptying in otherwise healthy patients.

“When a patient tells me they’ve taken an entire bottle of Miralax over a weekend and still can’t go, they’re not exaggerating,” Dr. Santos says. “They’re not doing anything wrong. The Miralax is just working in the wrong place.”

She’s heard every version of the dismissal:

“My patients aren’t failing the treatment,” Dr. Santos says. “The treatment protocol is failing them.”

The Discovery That Changed Her Practice

Dr. Santos started digging into research that most GI doctors never look at—studies on gastroparesis, delayed gastric emptying, and the compounds that actually affect stomach motility.

“I found something interesting,” she says. “Patients who consumed celery in any form showed better gastric motility. Not because celery is magic—but because it contains a compound called Apigenin that helps wake up the nerves controlling stomach muscles.”

Think of it like physical therapy for your gut. Instead of forcing things through like a laxative, it gently nudges the muscles to start moving again.

But that was only one piece.

For the sulfur burps, she found that Chlorophyll—the green stuff in plants—acts like an internal deodorant. It actually neutralizes the hydrogen sulfide gas before it comes back up.

And for the constipation, she discovered that soluble prebiotic fiber—not the bulk fiber that makes things worse—dissolves in water and draws moisture into the stool. Softens the “concrete” without adding volume to an already overwhelmed stomach.

“Three pathways,” Dr. Santos explains. “Motility. Deodorization. Hydration. The celery to wake up the stomach. The chlorophyll to scrub the sulfur. The soluble fiber to soften things downstream. Miss any piece and you’re still stuck.”

Why You Can’t Just “Do It Yourself”

Dr. Santos tried having her patients juice celery.

“Disaster,” she says. “You’re asking someone with a paralyzed stomach to drink sixteen ounces of liquid first thing in the morning. Most of them threw it up. The ones who didn’t felt so bloated they couldn’t function.”

The compliance problem was even worse. The mess, the prep, the expense—even motivated patients lasted about a week.

She tried separate supplements. Celery extract pills, chlorophyll drops, prebiotic powder.

“Nobody could keep up with it,” she says. “These women are exhausted. They’re nauseous. They’re barely functioning. I was asking them to manage a complicated regimen on top of everything else.”

What Actually Works

Then one of her patients came back after finding something on her own. A celery juice gummy called Motilli.

“Her sulfur burps were gone,” Dr. Santos says. “She was having regular bowel movements. She wasn’t living on Zofran anymore. So I looked it up.”

All three pathways in one gummy. No juicing. No mess. No sixteen ounces of liquid on a paralyzed stomach.

It’s pectin-based, not gelatin—easier to digest for a slow stomach. Vegan, non-GMO, allergen-free, third-party tested.

“I was skeptical at first,” Dr. Santos admits. “But the ingredients were right. The forms were right. And my patients were finally getting relief.”

What Actually Happens When You Take It

“I had a patient who hadn’t gone in eleven days. She’d taken an entire bottle of Miralax over a weekend. Nothing. Four days after starting Motilli, she finally went. No cramping, no emergency. Just movement.”

Another patient was ready to quit Wegovy entirely—down 40 pounds but so miserable she told Dr. Santos she’d rather be fat than live like this.

“Three weeks later, the sulfur burps were gone. She stayed on her medication. That’s the part people don’t understand—this isn’t just about comfort. When people quit their GLP-1s because of side effects, they lose everything they gained.”

“But Will It Interfere With My Shot?”

This is the number one question Dr. Santos gets.

“Motilli doesn’t interfere with your medication,” she says. “It supports it. When your stomach starts moving again, you can actually eat small amounts of the protein you need. You stay on the medication because you’re not suffering through side effects that make you want to quit.”

Think of it as the GLP-1 companion. It makes the medication tolerable so you can keep going.

Your Three Choices

Right now, you have three options:

Keep the Weight Loss. Ditch the Digestive Nightmare.

You fought too hard to get here. You finally found something that quiets the food noise. You shouldn’t have to choose between the body you want and the ability to leave your house without fear.

Motilli isn’t a cure. It’s not going to make gastroparesis disappear. But for most people, it makes the difference between “I can’t do this anymore” and “I can actually live with this.”

Three pathways. Not one. Three gummies. No mess. Just done.