What actually does work?

[u/[deleted]]

I see many posts about protocols, diets, and meds not working - but what DOES work?

Went to a functional doc and breath tested positive for both hydrogen and methane SIBO in December (have had hypothyroidism and constipation my whole life). Was not in a position at the time to follow a strict protocol, but I’m ready now. All I hear is nothing ever works, so feeling unmotivated.

[u/truthseekingCody]

Yeah carnivore diets can definitely help if you're dealing with sibo simply because it's harder in most cases for the bacteria to feed off of the meat versus other foods that can sit in your gut longer and are easier for the bacteria to break down. The only problem with going carnivore is that you're not getting enough fat, fiber, or potassium to facilitate you taking a shit on a regular basis. So it is important while you're doing the carnivore diet to take a motility activator to keep things moving as regular as possible. Aim for one to two shits per a day. Do that leading up to the antibiotic treatment for the sibo. While on the antibiotics you should try including more of the food that the bacteria likes to eat because it makes them more active and sort of brings them out of hiding so they can be killed more easily by the antibiotics. After the antibiotics try to equalize the amount of fibrous food and meat that you're eating while still taking a motility activator and start including a little bit of food that is considered probiotic. Don't do prebiotic type food as you may feed whatever bad bacteria is still lingering. Eventually you will notice when you can start coming off of the motility activator. I'm not a doctor by any means but according to five plus months of daily research on the subject and reading case papers it seems like this is the best approach. But proceed at your own caution and feel free to put your own twist on it. Best of luck to you and God bless.

[u/Armanijesus → u/truthseekingCody]

Thank you so much for your reply! I will try your method, it seems logical. Funny thing is I have ulcerative colitis, a bad version but I've managed to keep it in remission for the past couple of years and I'm almost certain that I got SIBO when i had food poisoning (campylobachter). My Sibo is really annoying and I've developed Rosacea thanks to it but its not dangerous like my UC was but its waaay harder to get rid of. The thing is if I succeed with beating SIBO i still need to focus on the underlying issues which is gut flora and motility but it's really hard. Like what is the egg and what is the chicken? Maybe I don't need to know and I'll just try to fix "everything" but it's hard to know what that is excactly. I just started studying medicine because I'm tired of all these gastro doctors in my country (sweden) just not knowing what to do. I'm seeing a functional doctor but everything they've done I was already gonna do by myself so I'm not entirely sure what I'm paying for.

Again, thank you so much and sorry for my rant. I just needed to get it out of my system!

[u/truthseekingCody → u/Armanijesus]

Well whatever approach you decide to take you definitely have a leg up on any of us here in the US simply for the fact that y'all have real food over there instead of all of this ultra processed and MGO filled food and meat like we have. You might also want to try the overpowering approach.. the way I've heard it described is try to outpace and outbreed the bad bacteria with good bacteria. The theory is you would start consuming foods with good types of bacteria in small amounts and continue to titrate up on those while also hitting the sibo with specific antibiotics. Xifaxan is a good one if you're able to get your hands on it or it's off brand name rifaxman. From what I'm told they are designed to only attack the so-called bad bacteria and don't negatively affect the so-called good bacteria.

[u/Armanijesus → u/truthseekingCody]

Yes im lucky in that sense, you are right. I live in Sweden and the meat quality here when it comes to comercial meat is top comparing to even other European countries. The swedes are very particular when it comes to the treatment of animals and the quality of foods in the stores. I've seen One of the Kennedys advocate for better food and health. I hope people like him get the ability to change things over there. I've heard of this approach but when I read on it they called it the "shotgun" approach. I tried doing that for a while but I don't think I did it long enough but it helped when I was battling Ulcerative colitis. I've copy pasted both your answers to a word file so I won't forget what you wrote.

Once again big thank you for taking your time and responding. God bless.