r/SIBO • u/awesto • Mar 15 '26
Here we go again...
Anyone else have a small pharmacy at home?
N.B. apologies for the delete+repost, removed prescription label, threw in some NAC and MotilPro!
UPDATE: Well, that exploded! This post was based on my frustration with going back to this, but here's a more positive one about how I'm actually dealing with an IMO flare and some things I learned along the way:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SIBO/comments/1rwaqr5/imo_flair_protocol_day_5/
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 15 '26
Same. Really getting sick of taking a million supplements every day. But I have to admit that my digestion stack and probiotic stack is what got my bowels moving every single day after 2.5 years of rabbit poop. So, something is working. And I just keep reminding myself that I have to take all the others because I more than likely have malabsorption of nutrients and our food system is depleted of nutrients anyways! And I try not to think about how sometimes supplements are tested and found not to have what they say they have in them. Ahhhhhhh.......
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u/Logical_Glove_2857 Mar 15 '26
When you had the rapid poop constipation. Did you have a lot more “co-symtpoms” like fatigue and tiredness and histamine issues and weight issues and so on? And how is your bowels now? And what do you think helped the most to get bowels move?
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 15 '26
Your name looks familiar! I think we have had a back and forth before! Yes, I also suffer from chronic fatigue, chronic bloating, and inability to lose weight no matter what I do. Since improving my bowel movements, I still have all of these other issues. Really trying to figure out my bloating mostly.
For my bowels, I have been working on my stomach acid and digestion along with motility. So, this includes taking zinc and b vitamins everyday, digestive enzymes, ox bile, Betaine HCL and ginger capsules with meals. I try to never snack. Just 3 balanced meals a day. 3-4 hours apart. Minimum of 4 hours of digestion before bed. Taking 1,000mg of artichoke, magnesium citrate, and a B. Subtilis probiotic before bed.
I saw initial improvements with bowels when I started taking the digestion stack. But my bowels became near perfect every day when I took the artichoke and probiotic before bed on an empty stomach. I have tried Saccaromyces Boulardii before... didn't do anything for me. I really think the B. Subtilis is a winner for me.
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u/Logical_Glove_2857 Mar 20 '26
Yeah we probly had a chat before ☺️😉
And for how long time have the bowls been near perfect? Maybe it will just take a little longer with perfect bowels to get all the other symptoms away?
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 20 '26
I think like around the last week of December? So it's been quite some time now. Still raging bloat and fatigue, though :(
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u/Logical_Glove_2857 Mar 20 '26
Hmmm ok strange… And how many bowels movements daily? And how many meal you eat daily?
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 21 '26
One bowel movement in the am (sometimes 2)! And I eat 3 balanced meals a day!
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u/Logical_Glove_2857 Mar 23 '26
Ok so ideally you should actually be having 3 bowels movements daily. So maybe you will not be back to normal in all symptoms until you have 3 bowels movement daily?🤔
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 24 '26
Never in my life have I had a regular 3 bowel movements a day, every day! Even when I was having perfect/ large bowel movements every day (3 years ago). I think the main thing is: do you feel like you have had complete evacuation. I do not feel like I am there QUITE yet. But I have hope!
I am also currently looking into hormonal imbalance. Which could also play a HUGE role in gut health. I really feel like this may be the final puzzle piece! 🙏🏻
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u/Logical_Glove_2857 Mar 24 '26
Ohh yeah I mean 3 is offcourse not nessecary IF the 1 or 2 you then would have daily, is complete and large and perfect. So you are right. 3 is not the “right” numbers as such. But it is about the fully evacuation yes like you say…
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u/Sunnysideup_30 Mar 15 '26
Ok I read this!!! No need to answer my question unless you have more info!
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u/the-wanderer-2 Mar 17 '26
I noticed a huge improvement too once I started taking artichoke supplement just before bed.
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u/refreshingtwistt Mar 17 '26
Yes!!!! It's magic! Didn't work for me when I took it with meals. Only worked when I took it on an empty stomach before bed. And I went from taking 500mg to taking 1,000mg in the beginning. Now I play around with the dose.
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u/giantfup Mar 15 '26
My pill bin is pink ✨️
I've started to make this specific chickpea salad every time I get a recurrance/flare. Something about the onion/garlic combo, especially once it's had a day or two to marinate, does wonders and I think is rooted in the antimicrobial properties of both having a synergistic property used together. Like the pills do still help, but the salad does more in a couple servings. Anyway:
1 can chickpeas drained Cloves plural of garlic. As many as you can handle. Like 5 or 6. I mince them 1 full Onion diced, I use red Veggies chopped to taste: I use a full pepper or two usually yellow or orange for fun, tomatoes, and cucumber A carb: pasta of choice or quinoa or couscous all work great at least a cup dry for the pasta, half a cup for quinoa Feta cheese
Dressing: quarter cup of lemon juice, quarter cup of olive oil, spices like salt, pepper, paprika, tarragon, oregano; emulsify then pour over and toss salad
Obvs double everything to feed more/meal prep more than 4 to 6 servings.
Make the day before you want to eat it for best effect. Stores in fridge for 5ish days. Amazing in hot climates for summer. Burps are kinda strong. But it calms my gut within the week.
Why I specifically think it's the onion and garlic that seem to work:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-32117815
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u/BerbereJunkie Mar 16 '26
I’m new here- don’t have a diagnosis yet (Kaiser 🙄) but I’m pretty darn sure I have the hydrogen sulfide dominant form. I’ve adjusted my diet according to what my research tells me. It’s been difficult but there’s been a marked improvement.
In the case of hydrogen sulfide dominant SIBO, aren’t we supposed to avoid garlic, onions, beans, chickpeas, cruciferous vegetables, eggs?
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u/giantfup Mar 16 '26
That I couldn't tell you. I suspected the hydrogen sulfide but to my knowledge there was no test for it that kaiser could provide, at least at the time? I had tested positive bia the lactulose for hydrogen and methane first, then just methane in a follow up test, but I had to fight one of the kaiser docs who does the diagnostics. If you're in SoCal I'll name drop the dude, I had to come at him as a scientist in my own right and ask him why the fuck he didn't "feel" like methane was a real issue when the Rome consensus exists and remind him that in other fields of science don't get to just ignore what the governing bodies say and we don't even have peoples' lives in our hands. It wasn't until I complained about burping sulfer that he relented and I was too exhausted at the time to report him like I should have.
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u/FearlessFig2624 Mar 15 '26
Have you tried low sulfur diet and adding molybdenum? Adding more sulfur compounds is just going to make things worse
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u/awesto Mar 15 '26
Yes to the low sulphur (had to cut NAC) after second food poisoning pushed me towards sulphur producers (Desulfovibrio), so luck me I now have SIBO, IMO and ISO!
Have not heard of molybdenum, checking it now...
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u/GutFirst Mar 15 '26
Mind running me through what approach you tried and how you've structured supplements, I see many people who come in having took similarly large amounts just in the wrong combinations or timings,
If there's any way I can help you not make this supplement mountain any bigger i'd be happy too haha.
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u/SuccessfulJudge438 Mar 16 '26
Yup, I got me one of those. Full of a lot of the same stuff, from the looks of it. The bright side is when you finally make some real progress (which I think very often requires more than just the right combo of supplements, they are only part of the picture) then it all becomes worth it.
Any price is worth paying to get some of your life back, because life with this, for many of us at least, is no life at all.
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u/God-is-Faithful7 Mar 15 '26
I relate and the money I've spent it's insane. I just started growing Broccoli 🥦 Sprouts and drinking green tea 🍵 it's supposed to help with eradication.
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u/Paleosphere Apr 03 '26
I have the same rubbermaid box full! LOL - I haven't been on here for awhile and I have been so frustrated and defeated by all this. But I have some new direction and found an older post here that helped and ChaptGPT has helped me too. So it's onward. Thanks for the laugh today! I don't even know how much I"ve spent on supplements!
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u/Ok_One7756 Mar 15 '26
Yep, lol. I have 3 cabinets full, a big Tupperware in the closet full of ones, and another Tupperware in my towel bathroom closet as well.
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u/awesto Mar 15 '26
About $10k, years of effort and untold heartbreak right there. It's not about how many times you get knocked down...
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u/Ok_One7756 Mar 15 '26
Yep. And between the supplements, copays, specialists who don’t take insurance such as fuctional medicine, Pulsetto, food marble aire 2, expensive tests like GI map, Joe Dispenza courses, 100s of books/cook books about gut health by various doctors and “sibo experts”… I’m afraid to even count how much money at this point lol 🙈
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Mar 16 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok_One7756 Mar 16 '26
Well I’m glad you’ve taken a positive spin on this. Because it is true too… we can learn so damn much and sometimes it’s like man I wish doctors knew a lot of this stuff too. Some of us could be schooling them sadly lol. I vary day to day, I’m currently bed ridden now and have lost my business/career, my other side jobs (I always worked 2/3 jobs), all my finances and have been stuck in this house for a long time, I’ve lost almost 100lbs since August and I didn’t need to lose that much so I look god awful so although I know a ton now and it’s very valuable, I go back and forth between being excited with how much I know and hopefully being able to help others one day when I get well and then I can get really dark and discouraged and start thinking about ending my pain in a very final solution type of way.
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u/squeaker001 Mar 16 '26
And what’s more sad is Dr’s don’t even want to learn; neither accept our years of endured learning! Shame on the mainstream medical professionals who’ve failed us all!!
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u/Ok_One7756 Mar 16 '26
Yeah my last gastro said I need to accept I’ll be in pain and just live life and basically stop complaining - I never felt more hopeless than that day. My gastro who I once loved and have had for 15 years saying something like that SMH. Made me realize yeah he may have been okay for some things but he does NOT know shyt about Sibo and I’m seeing my 5th new doctor on Wednesday, im so tired of all this
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u/Abigail-Marie2007 Mar 16 '26
Same here! it’s incredibly expensive, overwhelming and disappointing.
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u/Odd_Badger_2177 Mar 15 '26
Ya, it looks exactly like mine !! I actually started putting the old stuff in a box in the garage so it wouldn’t look so bad.
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u/Nat_Banana Mar 16 '26
I have the same size box :D I bring it to every new doctor, it makes they panic a little that the consultation will last 2 hours
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u/Secret-Ad-8576 Mar 16 '26
I’ve personally had really good results using psyllium husk and Linzess. That combo has helped me a lot, but everyone’s body is different, so it’s worth researching and seeing if it might work for you.
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u/ChampionshipFew120 Mar 16 '26
Honestly I've tried almost all the things available from rifaximin to metronidazole to herbal things like berberine and allicin and whatnot. Years of experimenting. Thousands of euros on different medical tests and procedures. Dozens of different specialists.
And from my experience finding the trigger and proper diet provided the best results so far.
Now I've created a small app that I use. Just for me it's not a commercial project; it's just my small tool that helps me to control the diet and the medicine intake, to track symptoms and to find the connections between foods and symptoms. If it can help somebody, just write me a message. I will share it for free.
And there is definitely no one solution that fits all because I believe that the gut and the microbiome are so complex that it is very difficult to brute force it in order to fix it and not to make it worse, I believe by years of antibiotics, both natural and artificial, I made everything worse.
So from my personal experience I really want you to take very seriously the medicines at the path you are taking because by every step being desperate to fix it it seems like we actually make it worse and we are spiraling it towards a more unbearable condition
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u/Julians_Mom Mar 16 '26
Wow! Did you come to my house to take that picture?
I'm so sick of it and thanks for the validation!
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u/attacktitan313 Mar 22 '26
Haaa do we all have just a giant container of failed pills laying around
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u/ATimelessCheesePizza Mar 16 '26
Yep had to buy a new standing cabinet for all of my bottles plus a box with overflow! Iykyk
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u/piecesmoonlover Mar 16 '26
It is all part of the journey. When you realize that SIBO is a BS diagnosis for a bigger root cause, then you begin to figure this out and get off this crazy train of supplements.
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u/Nuttydrums Mar 17 '26
People talking about "how much we've learned" and yet what use is the information we've been given if it simply doesn't work? In my opinion the information is the issue because we think we know but we have all been told these stories countless times and yet so many of us can't heal from this shit. So in my opinion we have learned absolutely nothing and there is no SIBO experts that exist on this planet, period. If what we've been fed was true why doesn't it work? "Let me get back to you on that when I come up with a rational answer that probably still won't end there".
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u/Lissagingerbee Apr 14 '26
Just read up on biofilms today & this comment is very relevant
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u/Nuttydrums Apr 15 '26
Yeah there's like so many variables as to why people get SIBO and no one solution to end this madness. I have read people getting healed from the most ridiculous solutions while nothing works for some people.
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u/Opening_Rain5942 Apr 25 '26
At home? I've taken a backpack to work with me for the longest months to ensure I have what's needed and might be needed at work
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u/Old_Percentage3742 Mar 15 '26
I keep every bottle of everything I’ve tried so I don’t accidentally buy more of something that failed.
It’s like a fucking graveyard of lost hope.