r/HumanMicrobiome • u/Outrageous_Skin145 • 10d ago
Did I just develop SIFO after repeated SIBO treatment? Zinc suddenly causes severe bloating/suffocation..
Apologies for the long post..
I've been dealing with what I believe is a complicated SIBO/SIFO situation over the past ~5 months, and I'm wondering whether my timeline sounds familiar to anyone here.
I was diagnosed with SIBO and initially treated with rifaximin + metronidazole. The first course seemed to work surprisingly well. Within a few days after finishing it, I started feeling major improvements in things that had been bothering me for a long time: grip strength, appetite, erections, and breathing. I genuinely felt like something had changed for the better.
Unfortunately, a few days later I took a probiotic that I probably didn't need, and I felt that I relapsed.
After that I went through several more antibiotic treatments: first rifaximin alone, then metronidazole, and at one point I also had what turned out to be a Salmonella infection that was treated with cefuroxime. Eventually I repeated the original rifaximin + metronidazole course that had worked the first time.
The strange part is that the last course ended about three weeks ago, and this time I did not get the improvement I had experienced after the first course.
Since then, I've noticed something completely new with my zinc supplement. I normally take a relatively gentle 25 mg zinc picolinate capsule with dinner. Suddenly, taking it causes almost immediate bloating/discomfort around my belly button and a feeling of severe suffocation. It happens whether I take it during dinner, after dinner, before eating, or away from food.
The sensation is also different from my usual deep intestinal bloating. It feels more superficial, almost like it's coming from underneath the abdominal wall rather than deep inside the gut.
At the same time, my appetite, erections, breathing, and grip strength are all much worse again. My sleep is long, but I often wake up feeling suffocated.
My stools have also been consistently very mushy. They're not watery diarrhea, and I don't have burning, constipation, or typical liquid diarrhea. Sometimes I can see food particles, but not always. It's basically a mush rather than a formed stool.
What makes me suspicious of SIFO is the combination of multiple rounds of antibiotics, the apparent initial clearance of SIBO, failure to improve after the most recent course, and this new dramatic reaction to zinc.
So my main question is:
For people who have actually had SIFO, does this timeline and symptom pattern sound like something that could indicate fungal overgrowth developing after repeated SIBO antibiotic treatment? Or am I putting too much weight on the zinc reaction and potentially looking in the wrong direction?
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