It has now been 60 days since I took any antimicrobial herbs and I must say, I’m feeling pretty darn good. Is the SIBO gone? No, I don’t think so since I still get some symptoms if I eat a bit too crazy on the FODMAP scale but overall I’m doing well and out enjoying life every single day. I had a few days where I considered starting herbals again but that passed and I blame it on a restaurant meal that just didn’t sit right with me. My liver enzymes went back to normal after 30 days off the herbals, AST at 25 and ALT at 20 which was a big relief. Everything is testing in a good range at this point. I’m going to review my Organix test next week and expect that will just be adding in some vitamins and maybe a few supplements. My weight is still on the low side but still I’m holding steady with a hunter-gatherer BMI with typical up and down fluctuations based on what I eat or how active I am.
Category Archives: Health
SIBO Symposium recap
What a weekend. I got back last night from several days attending the SIBO Symposium in Portland and crashed hard all night after a few nights of too little sleep, too much sitting, a ton of information and a lot of good food and fun times with friends. I’m going to try and summarize what I learned and how it applies to my case in particular.
On Friday my local ND Christine Bowen, my friend and fellow blogger Shari (sibobreakup.blogspot.com) and I did the drive down to Portland to start the adventure. There we met a few friends from Facebook who were also attending the symposium. We all stayed at the very funky Jupiter Hotel, the only hotel I’ve been in so far that gives you a free condom on your bedside table.
“No evidence of demyelinating lesions”
Good words to wake up to in email this morning. I had my MRI on Thursday and the results are already in, no sign of MS. It looks like all this weird arm/shoulder stuff could be cervical cord compression which makes sense given the state of my neck. I’ll know more on Friday when I go in and discuss this but was just very glad to find out that I definitively do NOT have MS. Huge relief.
More tests back, some good news
While my recent still positive SIBO test would have been considered negative until this last year it was still pretty good news that my levels were at the lowest they’d been in the whole time I’ve been dealing with this. Today I got back my Diagnos-Tech panel and my blood work and it was actually all pretty good news from it too.
Stopping anti-microbials, focusing on motility
After my test on last Friday which showed I had dropped to the lowest levels yet in my SIBO journey I met with Dr. Keller yesterday morning to discuss what to do next. We started out reviewing my results and asking about my symptoms. In general, most days my symptoms are way down. Compared to last year at this time I’m 95% better, able to eat more, and have very few symptoms. I had even eaten a bunch of semi-illegal food over the weekend in Portland, probably even getting glutened by accident on Sunday night, and felt fine. In fact, I walked all over creation, ate restaurant food and managed to gain weight! Hearing this she thought maybe it was time to lay off the anti-microbial herbs instead of beating this thing to death over the last few points on the graph.
Still have it after 20 months
My high numbers on all 8SIBO tests for the last 16 months
I had my 8th SIBO test yesterday at the SIBO Center in Portland while we are down here for a long weekend. The good news – my numbers are down even lower than the test in February, in fact the lowest they have been during this whole strange trip I’ve been on. The bad news – I’m still positive for SIBO. I only have 7 points to go on methane to get to a true negative test at this point. The frustrating thing is that I just did a protocol for 8 weeks that was shown to clear SIBO in 85% of cases and all it did for me was take a few points off each of my methane and hydrogen levels.
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3…
I took my last handful of herbal antimicrobials last night and am getting ready to do the prep diet tomorrow for re-testing on Friday morning at the SIBO Center in Portland. A few weeks ago I would have said that I thought I had this thing licked but then I started having some evening symptoms again so now I’m not sure what to expect from this test. I’ve used up all the protocols I know of so if I’m still positive I’m going to have to figure out what the heck to do next. I will be reviewing the results with Dr. Keller on Monday morning so will have a chance to sort this out.
Autoimmune results back
This was kind of a tough week. On Monday I went in to see Dr. Bowen and we went over my autoimmune panel results. Not too surprising something showed up, I knew something had or she would have e-mailed me the results. I was in the equivocal range for Myelin Basic Protein antibodies, not necessarily high but in the top portion of the normal range. I knew what that meant right away, back to the specter of MS hanging over my head. She suggested I get back in to see Dr. Srivatsal, my neurologist, and get an MRI so we can rule this out or deal with it. Everything else was fine which was really good news.
Starting the (hopefully) last round
I finish up my second break week this week in the Mullen Protocol and am ready to start my last round of it in the morning, I organized my pills this morning. I really debated whether or not to even do this last few weeks since I’ve been feeling so much better but I decided that it wouldn’t hurt just to get in a last 10-12 days and see if I can knock this stuff out all the way. This break week went well, I only did one of the S.boulardii caps a day instead of two and had no bad reaction to that. I have had pretty much no SIBO symptoms all week long, just a bit of deeper stuff very occasionally late in the evening and even that is nothing.
Done with round 2 but why is my weight down?
Today I’m finishing up round two of the three round Mullen Protocol and get to take a break next week again. This time around I’m only doing one single S.boulardii capsule a day instead of two in case that caused my reaction last break week. Only one more round to go on this treatment protocol and then I retest in 3 weeks. Overall my gut has been pretty stable this past week and I’m eating somewhat high on the FODMAP chart. The only things I’m really avoiding at the moment are onions and garlic, I’m eating most other non-nightshade veggies and quite a bit of fruits even trying some apple which seemed OK in small amounts.