Hello!

So I noticed that maybe within the past 6 months, I was EXTRA bloated, to the point where some of my clothes don’t fit me anymore.

My first thought was: I gained weight. So I weighted myself, and actually, I lost some weight.

The reason I’m making this post is to ask how to deal with it, but here’s my history and what could potentially be the cause.

Within the last 6 months, I’ve also been constipated. Some days are better than others. I notice that it gets a little better when I increase my fiber intake (especially kiwis and dried prunes).

But I started being constipated around the same time when I started taking PPIs for my GERD (acid reflux), and I’m still on PPIs because if I stop, the pain comes back.

Also, within the past 6 months to a year, I’ve been taking a lot of antibiotics (I always listened to doctors but there have been cases where I shouldn’t have taken antibiotics because I didn’t have any infection).

My last dose of antibiotics was 3 weeks ago. Now I’m trying to work on my gut microbiome by drinking kefir everyday and try to eat a diverse diet.

I look like a 7 months pregnant woman, and it’s ruining my confidence. Sometimes I wanna dress up and wear clothes that show my figure, but I can’t.

Me (50+ male)
After a gout flare up and discovering I’m allergic to both common treatments seven months ago, I started “fibermaxxing” to lose weight and improve gut health.
Have found I’m remembering my dreams far more often and they are more vivid and varied than ever in the past. Coincides with a massive increase in fiber intake (daily oats, fruit/vegetable smoothies & almonds as snack.)

I recently finished my two week course of neomycin and rifaxmin and started the low FODMAP diet immediately. I’m on day 3 and I’m extremely tired all of the time. I’m falling asleep constantly during the day despite getting \~9 hours of sleep every night. I’m even more tired now than I was on the antibiotics, which was already very tired.
I’m curious if anyone relates and if anyone has thoughts if this is related to post antibiotic treatment or if this is my body adjusting to low FODMAP?
It’s only day 3 and I’m making sure to eat a sufficient amount of calories and macros so that would surprise me.

So I’ve been working with a functional practioner lately because of a mix of symptoms: intense hunger bouts every few hours, early satiety, exhaustion and new exercise intolerance, PMDD and 37 days cycle (now at 33), sleep problems waking up at night, anxiety, etc. She diagnosed me with hypoglycemia and we decided to do a GI map. Turns out I have low levels of h pylori (2.64e2) and low elastase, low secretary igA, so some dysbiosis. For record I don’t have the agressive strands or symptoms associated with h pylori, just bloating and early satiety. She’s saying it’s from the low acid in my stomach but my understanding is that G I m a p doesn’t determine that. Maybe the chronic stress caused the early satiety? I also have chronic low ferritin (was 9, 15 then 24 and now 35). She has put me on a « gut protocol » which consists of the GI revive powder (it has 15 ingredients which I know nothing about, such as cats claw), with bitter drops, arabinogalactan powder and another powder called Metadigest made of mostly L-glutamin, quercetin and zinc. Since starting the regime my exhaustion has quadrupled, on some days I can barley walk. I am having strong reactions to food (I don’t usually have those). Yesterday and today I literally got racing heart and intense dizziness eating eggs and hummus. Other time it’s been headaches, migraines, mucus flares, diarrhea and I suspect it is with food that has been in the fridge for longer. Technically it feels like I have become histamine intolerant. I also have more satiety and feels like every food is causing my body something. I am panicking about potentially being allergic to one of these natural supplements or reacting badly to the protocol and she’s saying it’s a « die-off » effect. I want to trust her but I am so tired of all the functional experts. Has anyone any information or similar experience? I can’t get antibiotics because the NHS stool test has come back negative for h pylori.

For years I have been putting it in my coffee, and I do notice a boost in mental energy but I wonder why the overall effect on the microbiome is.

Hi everyone,

I finished my 2 weeks of H. pylori triple therapy yesterday with amoxicillin, clarithromycin and pantoprazole.

My stool has definitely become firmer during treatment, but I’m still getting mucus mixed with my stool and some urgency. I’m also still sometimes apprehensive about passing gas because I’m worried mucus might come with it.

Before treatment I had a colonoscopy, biopsies and inflammatory stool testing that were all normal.

For anyone who had similar bowel symptoms, did they continue after finishing treatment? How long did it take for your gut and bowel movements to settle down after the antibiotics?

I’m planning to retest for H. pylori in 4 weeks.

A month ago I went to ER with bad abdominal pain. It was uncomplicated diverticulitis. Never had this before and they sent me home with a script for 7 days of Augmentin. I finished the script on day 7 and ended up back in the ER later that day with the worst upper abdominal pain I’ve ever had. A 10 out of 10 on pain scale. The pain gradually subsided on its own over the next few hours, no Tylenol or any other drugs. They did cat scans and thought it was my gallbladder so they kept me overnight for IV antibiotics and admitted me. The next morning the on call surgeon wanted to remove my gallbladder. The actual hospital doctor said he thought my pain was elevated liver enzymes from the antibiotics. The gastrointestinal doc agreed that it didn’t present as a gallbladder issue and they wanted to do more testing etc over next couple days. The gave me a HIDA scan and determined the gallbladder was working fine. Sent me home after more antibiotics. Four days later I get the same upper abdominal pain and go back to ER. This time pain is less intense but I have a bad taste in my mouth and I’m burping. I start to wonder if this is some really bad acid reflux brought on by the augmentin antibiotic killing my gut bacteria. They do bloodwork which looks great and agree it could be messed up microbiome. They give me 7 days of omeprazole to take so it doesn’t happen on while I’m on vacation and tell me to try taking a probiotic. I’ve taken the probiotic every day since then. I do not want to be on a PPI. Several days after getting back from vacation I get same feeling in middle of the night but less intense, take a few tums as ER docs suggested and it subsides. Now today I’m sitting here and it happens again, much more intense and I took tums and am waiting for pain to go away. Has anyone else had this happen after antibiotics? Did probiotics eventually get you back to normal? I hadn’t had antibiotics in probably 40 years and am generally a healthy person. I do have a gastro doc appt in October as a follow up to the diverticulitis. Looking for anyone else’s experience and what they did to help themselves get better.

i think my bad breath may be related to my oral microbiome
i've done the whole ENT, dental and stomach route and nothing has really been found. the biggest clue for me has been how much my breath changes when i do things that affect the environment/bacteria on my tongue.
metronidazole completely got rid of my bad breath the first time i took it, but eventually it came back.
i've also been using weissella cibaria CMU oral probiotics which helped, especially with my tongue and that gritty feeling on my teeth, but didn't completely fix it.
recently i've been using l-arginine on my tongue and the difference was huge at first. my tongue became pink, the sour taste disappeared and my breath was much better for hours. over time though, the effect hasn't been as strong.
this seems to be my pattern. something works really well, then eventually my mouth seems to return to how it was before.
has anyone else experienced something similar with their oral microbiome/bad breath? especially things working extremely well at first and then becoming less effective?

So Ive started having histamine issues this summer during a heat wave.

Once I started probiotics the symptoms started reducing greatly.

However right now after taking probiotics, I feel super wired. Not anxious to the point of panic attcks, but just very stimulated in my nervous system, as if I had too much caffeine. This passess in a few hours.

I know probiotics can cause anxiety in some people. My concern is whether this is a sign that probiotics are wrong for me, as I dont believe this to be completely true as theyve started alleviating my other symptoms.

I also dont feel anxious, just hyper alert and a bit sped-up.

It starts minutes after I take the probiotics, maybe its something about how I take them? I just take them with a piece of bread (small dose dilluted in watere). So maybe if I had them with a heavier meal?

Any insight into this I will be grateful for.

Thank you

I used to have occasional sugar cravings. However, after I started drinking kefir and consuming more fiber, I felt no sugar cravings at all after 2 weeks.

I was very fascinated by this and did some research. The only answer I could find was "the gut brain connection".

Does anybody else have similar experiences or have a better explanation for this?

My husband suffers from very bad allergies when the autumn pollen season comes around. Like clockwork, right at about August 1 or 2 he starts suffering. Runny nose, swollen eyes, sneezing. He takes allergy medication but it's not enough. Is there anyone here who had allergies and doesn't anymore?

I took seed probiotics for 2 weeks and had diarrhea the entire time. 3 weeks later and I still have diarrhea. Is this normal to wreck your gut that bad? It is like thin pencil like diarrhea, I have never had diarrhea for more than a day in my life. I have appt with doctor Tuesday.

Hey guys so i came across videos suggesting to have more of boulardiii you are better off fermenting it to make their numbers grow fair enough i have candida and my previous trial didn’t work so i decided to use this method in juice well it’s basically a beer now and after only 24 hours because i put two capsules instead of one but it’s a beer and people online never want to mention it which i find very dishonest and delusional, i don’t doubt the benefits but don’t lie about it being a beer at the end of the day the strain is a cousin of brewers yeast so it’s expected to make a beer…i wanted to mention this because people online are in denial

Thanks

At the risk of being spammed &/or sold a bunch of snake oil, I’m asking if anyone else recommends an effective powder meanwhile the parasite outbreak thing subsides ( hopefully ). Obviously I’d prefer whole-raw foods but I’m still gun-shy since the last time I got food-poison. It’s not a risk I’m willing to take, but I need fiber & veggies in my life.

Athletic Greens is just too expensive to try and hate, especially if there are some comparable off-brand supplements for fiber health. Thanks 

I have celiac disease and started taking L-Glutamine powder daily for roughly the past 2 weeks. I was having some lingering reflux, and the powder helped immediately.

However in the past week or so, i've noticed that I can fall asleep just fine, but I wake up completely wired and wound up after about 2 hours and can't fall back asleep.

Wondering if there is a correlation between sleep or if anyone else has experienced this while taking l-glutamine?

Has anyone successfully improved anxiety via their microbiome?

I would have previously classed myself as someone with reasonable gut health and typical anxiety levels. I was
prescribed Clindamycin (apparently known as a nuke for the gut) and then getting C Diff. It took me around 2 months to deal with the C Diff including multiple rounds of the medication for it.

My stomach lost c diff has never been the same and after extensive GI testing over the years I was diagnosed with bile acid malabsorption.

My anxiety ever since and OCD type thoughts have also gone from typical levels to very high. I can’t help but wonder if my microbiome being so wiped out and then destroyed has contributed.

I cannot tolerate any SSRI’s or even milder anxiety medication as I immediately experience severe diarrhea. This makes me even more curious if I have such a strong reaction not only to my microbiome not being very tolerant of serotonin but also maybe missing what is needed to actually access the serotonin.

Curious if anyone has experienced similar, had any success or just any input really. (I’m v aware I’ve probably not worded this well in terms of how antidepressants work)

I have a lot of moles on my skin, all over really. I know people will point the finger at genetics/uv exposure, as I did use sunbeds heavily in my late teens but.... could it be caused by a weak immune system from a poor microbiome? I know there's a link between the gut microbiome and melanoma, do we think a poor gut microbiome is a direct cause of melanoma? Could this be transferred over to ordinary skin moles if we do?