I’ve about had it with this SIBO stuff. After my initial testing in January showed that I had SIBO my test in March showed that maybe I didn’t have it any longer but the jury was out in my mind. As of June 30th the SIBO is back and at about the same level as in January, this is not the summer sequel I was wishing for. I had been feeling quite a bit better so expected the numbers to be down instead of back up. I’m not symptom free and still unable to gain weight even with eating massive amount of fat so I expected to still have SIBO but at much lower levels than this test showed and figured I would need one more month of herbals to knock it down, now it is looking like multiple months still to come of treatment.
A different kind of cocktail hour
A few months ago my SIBO induced malabsorption issues were starting to cause vitamin deficiencies that were severe enough that I was getting symptoms. I did some B12 injections but that wasn’t making a difference so my ND suggested I go in for a Meyer’s Cocktail. I’d never heard of this before so did some searching on the internet. Definitely not a mix of vodka and Meyer’s lemons, instead it is an IV injection of a mixture of vitamins and minerals, in my case heavy on the Bs, C, Magnesium and some other good stuff.
Fat tea is so freaking good
Matcha/Ginger Butter Tea
In an attempt to stop the SIBO caused weight loss I’ve been experiencing I had to add more fat to my diet since I can’t really add in carbs that give me extra calories and one can only eat so much protein per day. I was adding ghee to all the vegetables I was eating plus cooking with it and coconut oil but it still wasn’t doing the trick. Enter my new secret weapon that I hope is going to work – the centuries old butter tea.
This is not quite the traditional Tibetan Yak Butter tea but is kind of close. The recipe started out as Bulletproof Coffee and I was introduced to it by a friend last week. I’ve been off coffee now for 5 months (I know it is a crime) and wasn’t ready to go back so I decided to just try it with the ginger tea I’ve been doing lately. A few days ago I added some green tea to the mix and this morning made it with matcha, pretty amazing. I now don’t think I’ll ever be able to drink plain old tea again, it will just taste like flavored water. Plus, I get about 165-200 calories of good quality fat per cup of tea. I drink about 3 of these a day (minus the actual tea later in the day) which gives me an extra 500-600 calories per day without having to try and eat any more food in. So far I’ve only had one weigh in but got back above 150 so I’m hoping it is doing the trick for me.
Here’s the recipe:
1/4-1/3 c. ginger concentrate, made by blending ginger & some bit of water into juice 1-1.5 t. matcha tea powder 1 T. coconut oil 1-2 t. ghee or butter (I use Ancient Organics grass fed ghee) Boiling water
Put the ginger in a measuring cup, add in matcha, coconut oil and ghee. Pour boiling water over top. Mix in a blender or with an immersion blender which is what I use. Strain into a mug to get rid of the ginger fiber and enjoy.
Six months into the SIBO adventure
SIBO comic book by Dr. Sandberg-Lewis from the SIBO Center. The guy also plays a mean guitar singing about the digestive system.
It has been a little over six months since my gut totally exploded after Christmas and started this whole adventure into the world of SIBO. I guess it has really been about 9 months but the first three months or so were manageable, it didn’t become really nasty until the end of December when I went back to my normal rice & bean diet after the candida cleanse we did when I thought this was only candida. It has been six months of ups and downs and still trying to unravel this mess in my gut.
After taking Doxycycline last fall and having gastric distress I went through a whole month of hell and rapid weight loss in January trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with me. When I found I didn’t have cancer but instead something called SIBO I was pretty happy, SIBO seemed like something that could be cleared up in a few weeks. Boy was I wrong. At least with colon cancer you can cut something out if caught early enough, with SIBO you just somehow have to sterilize your small intestine while not destroying your large intestine in the process and then fix any underlying motility issues that allow the bacteria to migrate upstream in the first place. It is a bitch to get rid of as I’ve since found out and while it is there complications abound.
Eating Locally in the Snoqualmie Valley
Dog Mountain Farm to Table Store sign
One thing I hadn’t expected when moving out to Fall City was how much it would impact my food choices. After coming down with SIBO and having to drastically switch my diet I felt I was doing pretty well shopping at Whole Foods for most of my food. After the move Whole Foods became a fairly serious trip into “town” so I started looking closer to home for my food. PCC in Issaquah is now the real grocery we shop at and they carry way more local produce and meats than Whole Foods did. I mainly buy my few packaged foods and bulk foods there as well as some local pork until my pig is ready for slaughter this fall.
Hypnotherapy and Herbal Antibiotics
I finally started coming out of my relapse last Saturday and have felt fairly decent since Monday morning. My gut has remained pretty calm most of the time, even after dinner with just a small level of symptoms. My feet are still numb and bothering me some but I’ll see the neurologist next Friday to start looking into that issue. Also doing another vitamin cocktail push into my veins that day. I have an endoscopy scheduled for Monday the 23rd though the bad pressure in my upper GI has let up a lot since my SIBO symptoms have been clearing out.
Dealing with the three month relapse
During my early May appointment my doctor asked if I’d had a flare-up of symptoms recently. At the time I was doing pretty well and had been in the longest streak of good days I’d had since the SIBO got really bad in December. She warned of a typical two to three month flare-up that is experienced by a lot of people on SCD. I finally went back and re-read Chapter 9 of Breaking the Vicious Cycle and found this little paragraph I’d obviously just overlooked the first time through:
Most cases begin to improve within three weeks after the dietary regime has been started and improvement usually continues. At about the second or third month, there is sometimes a relapse even when the diet has been carefully followed. This can occur if the person develops a respiratory infection or for no reason at all. Do not allow this to discourage you! Once the individual gets over this, improvement is usually steady with minor setbacks occurring occasionally during the first year.
Blood on my mala
Y
ears ago I took the Buddhist precepts with the Kwan Um School of Zen and the first precept was pretty clear –
I vow to abstain from taking life.
The commentary on this precept states that:
Killing roots out our seeds of love and mercy. To kill another is to feast on one’s friends and relatives. Some day we shall be in one of the three painful realms in payment for our killing, for it is by bestowing life that we receive human life in return.
Adventures in acupuncture and real food
It has been two months since I started seeing Dr. Bowen at Bothell Natural Health and got serious about the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, SCD. I was on pretty much a ground meat and baby food diet for over a month but finally in the last few weeks have graduated to somewhere between Phase 2 and 3 of SCD and am eating quite a bit more food and actual real meals. Is it all SCD or is it also acupuncture?
How running long distance has helped me cope with illness
Hard to believe that only a few years ago I was running trail marathons in sandals and even ran a 50k ultra marathon. Last year I was out of running much of the year due to a hamstring tear and just when that began healing and I was able to start ramping up mileage again I came down with SIBO and hit a downward spiral of health issues stemming from my gut problems. Now I’m totally sidelined from running, or much activity at all, since I’ve lost over 20 lbs and am still dealing with malabsorption issues.