You might have spent years feeling unwell and visiting lots of doctors and despite all blood tests coming back normal, you don’t feel normal at all, in fact you feel rather unwell. The doctors cannot figure out what is wrong with you, it becomes a bit of a medical mystery. Perhaps you feel tired all the time, even fatigued from the moment you wake up and cannot get out of bed without a coffee; your sleep is disrupted, your digestion is not working well, you feel bloated, having excessive gas and suffering from either constipation or diarrhoea or both, something is affecting your mood and energy levels and you cannot put your finger on what it might be.
All these symptoms might have started slowly at first and over time they progressed and started affecting your quality of life dramatically and the more time went on, the worse they became. It can be depressing as there are no answers from any tests or doctors you have seen. Sounds familiar? Or, perhaps, your symptoms started after an acute stomach bug infection which was a result of travelling to a foreign country or eating out and getting food poisoning. One way or another you would remember when you last felt well and normal and when things started changing for the worse.
If you have seen a gastroenterologist, you might have been given the generic diagnosis of IBS which doesn’t really tell you what is causing the digestion/health issues. Or worse, you might not have been diagnosed at all and the doctors start asking you questions about your personal life trying to figure out if there is a mental health issue causing the physical symptoms. On the contrary, when it comes to gut health, in most cases, the physical health disruption causes the mental health problems! Have you heard about the vagus nerve? This is the nerve which connects our brain and our gut and messages are sent both ways. So, if our gut is not well then we wont feel well and we will have low energy and mood and if we get stressed, the stress will shut down our digestion. Both of these are so intricately connected that quite often long term stress can cause serious gut health issues.
This is especially true if you are suffering from a nasty and very serious infection of the small intestine called SIBO . The small intestine can actually become infected by bacteria which causes Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), might get infected by methanogenic organisms causing Small Intestinal Methanogenic Overgrowth (SIMO) or a fungal/yeast overgrowth causing Small Intestinal Fungal Overgrowth (SIFO). Alternatively, you might be suffering from a combination of any of these or all three at the same time!
Either of these are serious infections which are still very hard to diagnose and treat but can make you seriously ill, so make sure you don’t give up and get yourself tested for these because it might just save your life! The gold standard for this is a breath test which checks for hydrogen and methane gasses which are produced in the gut. Our bodies don’t produce these gasses, only the organisms living inside us and it tells us if we have a SIBO or not. Usually you get asked to drink a glucose or lactulose solution and the test is completed within 2-3 hours of taking breath samples. Doing a fructose malabsorption test is also helpful to confirm the findings of the lactulose/glucose. Most people with SIBO cannot absorb fructose so cutting down on fruit high in fructose is essential if your fructose malabsorption test comes back with SIBO.
Imagine a plant which has had its roots infected which, as a result of the infection, has cut off its supply of nutrients. If we use this analogy, this is in fact what happens to the human body when it gets infected with SIBO/SIMO/SIFO. Our digestive system is our “roots” (extracting nutrients from the food) and if we stop absorbing these nutrients which we need to stay alive and healthy, then…just like the plant in our analogy, we get sicker and sicker and sicker till we stop functioning. This gut infection can severely shorten your life span and the quality of your life while your poor immune system is struggling trying to fight it.
So, with SIBO/SIFO/SIMO, you are sort of stuck in a vicious cycle. Your immune system needs the nutrients to be strong and fight the infections, but if the nutrient absorption is cut off by the infection, then our immune system gets weaker and weaker and less able to fight them. Ever wondered why you get frequent recurring ear, skin, sinus, throat or UTI infections? If you do, then a SIBO test and a pancreatic enzymes test might diagnose SIBO or poor breaking down and absorption of nutrients. If the tests don’t show SIBO or pancreatic insufficiency, then it might be SIFO (fungal overgrowth such as candida and yeasts).
Ever wondered why you get anaemic or showing nutrient deficiencies even though you eat a super healthy diet and avoid processed foods? If this is the case, check for SIBO and pancreatic enzymes and if all clear, then you can try an anti-candida diet/supplements because one of these is likely affecting nutrient absorption. If you heal the root of the plant, the plant will thrive. If you heal your gut, you will be able to cope with any infections easily because your immune system is stronger and healthier.
So, in the conquest to recover your health, you may have come across functional medicine and spent thousands of your hard-earned money on functional medicine testing and consultations but hopefully you finally got to the bottom of your issues! You have tested positive for SIBO and you are relieved that, finally, there is hope to cure the underlying health problem because you have found out what the issue is!
This, however, may not be the end of the healing journey for many SIBO sufferers. The treatment may work for many but might come back again and again. For others, the treatment may not work at all or might make SIBO worse. So, you may end up stuck in a cycle of using antibiotics and diets over and over again and feeling temporarily well while on the treatment protocol but relapsing quickly after the treatment stops. For others, the treatment might not end up working at all, so you go and see another practitioner hoping for that miracle treatment that might magically finally cure you.
So, what is the only way to stop this vicious cycle? It is all about finding the root cause of your SIBO! Yes, understanding what started SIBO in the first place and what made it develop is the only way to cure it and stop it from re-occurring. This is easier said than done because we are all so unique, just like our finger prints, our microbiome – our gut ecosystem – widely varies from one person to another and we dont exactly know which strain of bacteria has overgrown. So, if one treatment works for some, it may not work for others. It all depends on what bacteria, fungi, yeasts or methanogens are populating our gut and how they may respond to treatment protocols. So, don't get disheartened if the initial treatment doesn't work for you! Try a different treatment or see a naturopath experienced in treating SIBO as they can use natural herbs to rebalance the gut health.
There are three important things you can do in order to overcome SIBO and keep it away once you have recovered from it:
First, find the root cause of SIBO, make sure your functional medical practitioner has identified what is causing your SIBO, it will save you from relapsing and having to repeat your treatment, you can see a list of causes here Root causes of SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) (nutritionjourney.co.uk)
Second, while on a SIBO treatment protocol, follow a SIBO friendly diet to allow your body to heal What is the best SIBO Diet? (nutritionjourney.co.uk)
Third, after treatment, your diet is just as important as during treatment, work with a nutritionist to find out what foods your body reacts to which causes inflammation and a lot of digestive issues. Your diet should create a friendly environment for beneficial bacteria and, at the same time, create hostile conditions for non-beneficial organisms to prevent them from overgrowing in your small intestine again.
Wishing everyone quick recovery and enjoying a healthy and full of energy life.
If you have successfully healed from SIBO, please do share with us which diet/supplements you found helpful (or not!) during your treatment of SIBO. If you are looking for a personalised diet from a Nutrition Coach, feel free to get in touch with us for more information: info.nutritioncoaching@gmail.com
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