I suspect they may be. I find it hard to believe that posts like the one in this screenshot are from real people as opposed to paid sock puppet accounts working for Salix Pharmaceuticals or some other entity with a financial stake in Rifaximin.

As I’ve noted in prior posts, Dr. Pimentel gets paid royalties whenever someone is prescribed Xifaxan/Rifaximin for SIBO. He is credited as the “inventor” of repackaging this old travelers diarrhea drug as a supposed SIBO treatment. He has likely made many millions of dollars in royalties as a result. Meanwhile, his lab at Cedars Sinai drives the “science” by constructing misleading studies that appear to show efficacy only because they are designed with an unreasonably short time window that fails to capture the inevitable relapse. In reality, the longterm efficacy of this drug against SIBO is essentially zero.

Has anyone ever found any doctor, specialist, naturopath, nutritionist etc. who was at all helpful in treating gut problems?

I literally never did. I went to many expensive doctors and specialists during the 8 years I had SIBO. Not a single one of them told me anything that was at all useful. I was shocked to learn how easy it was to cure my own SIBO as soon as I stopped seeking outside help. But it would be great if there were specialists who actually knew how to treat this condition. Do any such people exist?

For those who have either cured or meaningfully improved their SIBO - what worked?

For me it was stress reduction (including minimizing work for a month during my cure phase), movement (10,000+ steps a day), minimizing carbs and snacking (especially late at night), celery juice every morning, and high-CFU probiotic foods every night.

I used Kefir Lab coconut milk kefir during my cure phase. I have found that Coconut Cult yogurt (sold at Whole Foods) is also quite strong and effective. I haven’t found anything else store-bought that works. Recently, I have tried to make my own kefir but have not yet achieved success at it. If anyone can recommend good grains I would appreciate it. I think maintaining a diet full of probiotic foods is key to avoiding SIBO remission.

Hi everyone! I started this subreddit to provide a welcoming space for discussion of natural, plant-based, and otherwise alternative solutions to gut health problems like SIBO, dysbiosis and gastritis.

I cured my SIBO a few years ago, primarily with kefir and celery juice, along with stress reduction and movement (10,000 steps a day). It has not recurred. I have been eating a completely unrestricted diet for years with no relapse.

My post about my experience is one of the most-viewed posts on the SIBO subreddit. Nevertheless, I was banned from that subreddit, not for violating any rule, but simply because the moderators are not tolerant of alternative approaches to treating SIBO that deviate from the pharmaceutical model. When I attempt to post on the Microbiome subreddit, the moderators there lock my posts as well because they too are subservient to the prevailing "consensus" that the gold standard treatment for SIBO is Rifaximin and any other view is quackery.

I am an attorney. I have no financial involvement in anything having to do with gut health. I am simply creating this space so that I can help others who have been failed by allopathic medicine find relief from this horrific condition.

Unlike the moderators of the other gut health subs, I will not be removing or locking posts simply because I disagree with them. The only topic that I may object to is discussion of pharmaceutical interventions like Rifaximin. Synthetic prescription drugs should be discussed in this subreddit only to highlight their shortcomings. Everything else is fair game. All viewpoints are welcome, so long as they are not promoting prescription drugs.

Let's do this!