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.
Category Archives: SIBO
Small Intestine Bacterial Ovegrworth, or SIBO, is a chronic bacterial infection of the small intestine that I have been dealing with since the fall of 2013. These are not necessarily bad bacteria and are typically beneficial bacteria but they have moved up from the colon into the small intestine where they interfere with digestion and damage the lining of the intestine causing leaky gut syndrome and possibly auto-immune disorders. In my case I quickly developed a severe gluten and casein intolerance, peripheral neuropathy in my feet and malnutrition/vitamin deficiencies that contributed to a sharp drop in weight.
Symptoms of SIBO include abdominal bloating and pain, constipation or diarrhea, and a feeling that one is basically allergic to food, especially carbohydrates. Many other symptoms are also possible depending on the severity. With leaky gut one can have fatigue, food sensitivities, headaches, and “brain fog”, I had all of these at the beginning. With malabsorption syndrome one can have weight loss, I lost close to 35 pounds in a matter of a few months. If left unchecked SIBO can lead to many auto-immune disorders or fibromyalgia.
SIBO is found with a lactulose breath test which measures the levels of hydrogen and methane in your breath. These gases are not created by our human cells and can only be present if bacteria are producing them. The test, spaced at 20-minute intervals over a 3 hour period can pinpoint where the bacteria are located in the small intestine.
SIBO is typically treated with one or more rounds of antibiotics, usually Rifaxamin and, if you have methane producing bacteria, Neomycin or Flagyl. These antibiotics were too strong for me and I was in the unlucky 10% that experience severe side effects and I had to stop taking them before the full course was done. Instead I had to use multiple rounds of herbal antibiotics – AlliMed and Neem Plus – to start to drop the bacterial levels. I have also been using Metagenics CandiBactin-AR and -BR as well as FC-Cidal, Dysbiocide, ADP and Berberine HCL from Biotics Research. Diet is also important in controlling SIBO and one must stick to a low FODMAP version of the Paleo or Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The diet that worked best for me was developed by Dr. Allison Siebecker at the SIBO Center in Portland and it is SIBO Specific based on a low FODMAP version of SCD.
Some resources for those dealing with SIBO that I have found helpful include:
- SIBOInfo.com – site maintained by Dr. Allison Siebecker
- Natural Functional Medicine – site of Dr. Melanie Keller, also of the SIBO Center, who I see via Skype.
- SIBO: Often-Ignored cause of IBS – good overview article by Drs. Siebecker and Sandberg-Lewis of the SIBO Center.
- Sibo Support Group – We Cured It and So Can You on Facebook
- SIBO Discussion/Support Group on Facebook
- Western Washington SIBO Support Group – Facebook group for a local SIBO support group I am trying to put together. We are trying to meet once a month locally. If you want to join, send an invite from the page and I’ll add you assuming you live in the Puget Sound region.
SIBO App – I developed this iOS app in conjunction with Dr. Allison Siebecker of the SIBO Center. It includes an interactive version of her SIBO Specific Food Guide which can be searched, sorted and filtered. Free on the AppStore.
The following blog posts cover my ongoing journey with SIBO from the beginning.
No autoimmune SIBO for me
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.
Weight up again, new podcast
My weight had been stalling a bit but this morning is back on the upward trend. I just weighed in at 158.6, this is the most I’ve weighed since January 2014 when the big downslide in weight began. This is huge, it has taken me nearly two years to climb back up to this point. My interim goal of 160 seems to be getting within reach. Let’s see how this trip goes and if I can maintain weight while on it.
Weight and sleep update, ready to hit the road
It has been three weeks since I started pigging out in my attempt to gain weight and two weeks since I started to work on my sleep. How’s all this working? Well, my weight was steadily climbing and I thought for sure I would be at 160 around now but instead I’ve dropped back a bit once again. Today I weighed in at 157 and seem to be stuck around 156-157. This is better than being stuck at 151 and at least my BMI is now 20.5 which is in the range where I can live with it. The weight training is working, in the few weeks since I got serious I’ve increased 3 lbs. and have found my quads and biceps both grow by 0.5″ already. I’m trying to get in weight workouts at least 3 days a week and have really noticed an increase in strength. I could initially only leg press 180 and just barely and now I can do a set of 200, I think I can actually get to 210 or 220 next time. Quad and hamstrings were at 80, now I can do 100 with them. It is kind of amazing how fast the strength comes back when you get serious about it and my workouts only last about 15-20 minutes since I’m just pushing the hardest weight I can get off the stack until my muscles just fail.
Weight Update
It has been two weeks since I got serious about trying to get my weight back up with Operation Bradley Cooper and a little over a month since I cratered out at 151. What has happened in the this last month? I’ve managed to gain 5.8 lbs is what happened! I’m now at 156.8, the most I’ve weighed since February when my weight started declining again. It really seems that something in my system shifted in the last few weeks since I’m finally able to gain weight and keep a steady gain. Granted, I’m eating a lot more calories than I’m burning so maybe still not absorbing perfectly but at least I know that if I eat enough food that I can indeed keep the weight trending in the right direction.
The sleep plan – phase 1
As I mentioned in my last post, I have been dealing with some middle of the night (or sometimes early in the night) insomnia for the last month and decided to go to a sleep clinic to see what I could do. I had the appointment on Wednesday and, of course, on Monday and Tuesday nights slept like a baby for over 9 hours each night, I think I had hit the point of total exhaustion.
Sleep issues, if it isn’t one thing it’s another
For the last two weeks my sleep has been really rough while my SIBO has been minimal and my weight has been on an increase finally. I never sleep great but usually I can eek out 7.5-8 hours per night with a few wake ups in there but since coming back from Iowa early in the month I have been progressively sleeping less and less with many more interruptions in my sleep. For the last week, at least, my pattern is to fall asleep no problem, wake up 2 hours later and then fall back asleep after maybe a bit of reading. I then wake up again 1.5-2 hours after that feeling pretty wide awake, my body thinks it is 4:30 in the morning and it is 1:00. I then never really sleep great after that, I’ll doze off and wake up again every few minutes. Some mornings I crash again around 4:30 and finally crawl out of bed between 5:30-6:30.
Operation Bradley Cooper
Even though I feel about 99% better and much healthier than a year ago I’m still struggling with my weight. I was up to 159 in December and thought that I was on my way to 160 and done with all this weight loss that I’d been struggling with after dropping from 183 to 146 earlier in the year. Then early in the year I dropped down into the 156-157 range and stayed there for several months. In March I dropped down into the 153-154 range and ended up stuck there for months. Most of the early summer I fluctuated in this range and started trying to eat more to see if I could bump it up. Then in late July Catherine said I was looking gaunt again so I weighed myself and was at 151 which was the lowest I’d been in a year. Since then I have been struggling to stay above 150, mostly stuck right around 152 even eating around 3000 calories per day.
3 months of no treatment
I stopped taking antimicrobials at the beginning of May to get ready for my last SIBO test on May 15th when I was down in Portland. That test was still positive but very low and when I met with Dr. Keller on the 18th we decided to just quit chasing after those last few points for a while. Instead I decided to work on motility, trying to heal my gut lining, trying to get my good bacteria repopulated in my colon plus give my liver some time to recover from the assault it was under with that last 6 weeks of treatment.
It has now been three months, the longest I’ve gone without actively treating SIBO in the last two years and I feel really good. Overall I have no symptoms at all most days and even on the days I have some symptoms they are very mild and late in the day. My poops are back to normal and constipation is not an issue at all these days, I go very regularly several times a day. I’m eating a pretty full AIP diet these days with some eggs thrown in there too and a few seeds and selective nuts occasionally. I can now handle lots of sweet potatoes and plantains, things that would have killed me a year ago. Better yet, I can eat chocolate and homemade Paleo ice cream!
Dongshan’s Illness, Tim’s Illness
Catherine listens to a lot of podcasts and often recommends some to me. A few days ago she recommended one on How Illness Deepens Us by Michael Stone. I got through all the fluff yesterday and finally got to the meat of the talk today and could very much relate to one of the main koans used in the talk – Dongshan’s Illness. This is Case #98 in Dogen Zenji’s collection of 300 koans – The True Dharma Eye or Shobogenzo (not to be confused with The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye also called The Shobo Genzo. It is also found in several other koan collections and is Case #94 in The Book of Serenity.