Today I got the results back from my most recent breath test from March 9th.  The way I felt the day I took the test and the way I’ve felt off and on since I was expecting things to look much worse than they did back in January when I was showing between 33-44ppm CH4 from my breath, that is a fair bit of methane to be exhaling.   Well, today  the results showed that I’m actually doing much better.  In fact, good enough that according to most doctors I would not be classified as having SIBO any longer.   Dr. Pimental, however, uses a different standard and says than any CH4 over 3ppm anywhere in the chart is a sign of SIBO since we just should not be producing methane on our own.  That means my friend, Methanobrevibacter smithii, is probably still roaming around in my SI though in about 1/4 to 1/5 the quantity than before.

So, either the four days of nasty antibiotics did some actual good or I’ve just managed to starve out a big chunk of the bacterial population by diet over the last month. My guess is that it is probably a little bit of both.

This doesn’t answer the question as to why I still feel like shit much of the time though.  Last night I had a very hard night again with my gut churning like crazy and a lot of gas and bloating happening.   This was with eating only foods that had been deemed “safe” for me to be eating, foods that I’d been doing OK with last week.  Dr. Bowen thinks that the weird cycles may have nothing to do with what I’m eating but with a growth and die-off cycle of the bacteria themselves which makes some sense and can maybe give me some piece of mind since I’m driving myself crazy trying to find THE THING that causes the symptoms to flare up.

So what is up if it isn’t SIBO, or at least not as bad a case of SIBO?   One thing that I found out yesterday is that my gluten intolerance level isn’t just an intolerance but is probably high enough to be considered Celiac Disease and that I could still be dealing with damage done from the last gluten I consumed about 6 weeks ago.  My casein intolerance too is high and I was having dairy yogurt as little as 3-4 weeks ago which could also have caused a reaction that I’m still dealing with.  I’m also having trouble with fat absorption right now which makes it hard to get enough calories in and I’m pretty sure fats do set me off.

Short of more tests to see if this can be narrowed down further the only course of action is to basically stay the course on the SCD diet and slowly, very slowly try to add in new foods.  My weight loss seems to have stopped and while it would be great to gain I’m content being an ultra skinny 151 for a while if I can keep it there.   I think sleep has been a huge part of stopping the weight loss since I know I haven’t even really replacing my daily calorie output for over a week.   Luckily my new “medication” seems to put me to sleep no matter how bad my gut feels when I go to bed and I’ve been steadily getting 8-10 hours of sleep per night.