I managed to drop quite a bit of weight during my two weeks of outdoor vacation steelhead fishing on the Deschutes and hiking all over near Mazama but it rebounded very quickly this time around and this week I hit a new high of 159!!!!  This is the most I’ve weighed in several years.   I hope that the 160 mark isn’t too far away, I’d like to get there and really I’d like to be back around 165 which was my best shape weight.

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This must be the week of good SIBO posts because here is another that was going around on various Facebook pages – Why Diet Alone Is Not Enough to Treat SIBO.   This is another post that I wish I’d read two years ago since I spent a LOT of time on the low FODMAP diet  while taking herbals when I probably should have been pigging out on FODMAPs at that time and saving the low FODMAP for after I eradicated the little buggers.   Instead the 18 months on low FODMAP caused the current imbalances I’m dealing with in my colon.

On that front, I have added in more good food for bacteria this week.  I made nomato sauce yesterday with the full dose of onions and garlic for the first time and seemed fine with it.  This morning I made banana flour pancakes, green banana flour is a great source of resistant starch and so far so good on that front.   Hopefully between the addition of more FODMAPs in my food, the probiotics with potato starch and the fermented foods I’ll build back up my colon flora and get my butyrate and SCFA levels back to normal in the next 6-12 months.

Here is a great post by Riley Wimminger entitled  Words of Wisdom for SIBO Newbies  that I really wish I’d been able to read two years ago when this whole SIBO journey started, it has some great advice on how to hang in there for the long haul.

On the point about restricting your diet only as much as needed, I was talking with Dr. Keller yesterday and this point came up in our conversation.  She recommended no one stay on the super restrictive low FODMAP diet longer than six months since it does mess with your microbiome.   Of course I was low FODMAP for almost 18 months so it is no wonder that my butyrate, short chain fatty acids and microbial diversity are all a bit out of whack.   It is a challenge for those whose SIBO won’t clear within six months though, what to do to keep the microbes happy yet also keep the symptoms down, a balancing act for sure.

I re-did my stool test a year later in hopes that I had wiped out the blastocystis hominis infection as well as fixed up my colon flora a bit and the results are in – no more blasto!   This is huge, I am finally parasite free.  That means my various treatments have killed off blasto and entamoeba histolytica (Montezuma’s Revenge) over the last 18 months.  I’m pretty sure the Mullen protocol at the end did in the blasto, that was a huge mix of anti-microbials and anti-parasitics.

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I decided to take the IBSChek test to see if I had the antibodies to vinculin so that I’d know if I was going to be prone to relapse for the next several years.   I figured that with my history of travel and food poisoning that I had these antibodies and would be dealing with relapses in a few months until the antibodies cleared out after 6-7 more years.  Results are in and the test was NEGATIVE!   That was a huge relief.

I’m feeling really good these days even after a week long trip I took where I was dependent on someone else doing my cooking and several restaurants.  I ate a lot of salad and raw veggies which I usually don’t do but had no issues with theml.   I did carry along my cooler with some kraut, kombucha, Epic products, muffins and cookies to make sure I was going to be fine but really didn’t need it though ate it for extra calories.   Zero gut issues and no recurring constipation on the entire trip so I really think the SIBO is completely gone at this point.  I did drop 3 lbs but that was to be somewhat expected.   I’m still awaiting the Comprehensive Stool Test to see if I still have the blasto and if I have balanced my colon flora out a bit.    Should have that back in a few weeks and then I’ll meet with Dr. Bowen to discuss and decide whether or not to continue probiotics and to start tapering off the prokinetics.