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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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