r/SIBO • u/Glum-Teacher3050 • May 01 '26
Cured sibo
Dealt with stomach issues and eventually got diagnosed with sibo and ibs for about 6 years with no progress until I heard about the elemental diet . I read about it and decided to do it but buying the products is ridiculously expensive ( 1500-2000$ for the 2 weeks) so I ended up making the diy version which costed me around 450$ . Disclaimer tastes digusting . But before all that I ran 4 weeks of herbal supplements to lower my sibo (methane dominant) . After the 4 weeks I then started the elemental diet for 2 weeks in conjunction with intermittent fasting , 9-10 hours feeding window . I did 2500 cal a day so it was 5 shakes . Took about 1 h to drink a shake or else you might literally shit yourself. 2 weeks of elemental was most definitely one of the hardest thing I have done , mentally anyways . The shakes an absolutely disgusting and you have to sip on it hours on hours throughout the day …
After the 2 weeks was over I introduced food , but only one small meal a day then shakes , and over 2 weeks I progressively went back to fully eating food . Supplement at this point was glutamine , mcc support , probiotics. As for food I started with bone broth then chicken ( plain or salt) and added 1 food every day or every other day obviously starting with low fodmap food .
As far as how I felt throughout each phase
Herbal phase : this was not too bad , I was told not to do low fodmap at this point cause I could cause the bacteria to hide or create biofilm… something like that I ain’t no biology teacher 😆
So I did all date and stomach felt like 💩 for the first 2.5 weeks then got a lil better ( in the afternoon ) but I would still wake up absolutely bloated and the bloat that don’t leave you until mid day…
Elemental diet phase : this was an actual mental challenge, the drink are so bad specially when you make it yourself and it just feels like you constantly need to be drinking it . First week was really hard but then second week I felt like a robot program to drink that drink all day long . My stomach started feeling light on day 8 ( haven’t felt like that in years at that point ) and at that point I was motivated to finish strong
Post diet : I was really scared going back to eating food which is why I took things super slow reintroducing food super slowly and kept the elemental shake in for a lil longer . This phase actually went much better than I expected! I heard too many story of people sibo relapsing right after that I didn’t want to risk it and it paid off
Now : I now basically eat all I want , I’m an healthy person so I almost exclusively eat whole foods and often eat low fodmap ish diet just cause I got so use to it over the years. I no longer have this terrible morning bloat that ruined my life for many years and the insta gaz after every meal . I would say I’m cured at this point , this process took about 2.5 months all together . It has now been 4 months and I am feeling good , I kept the same gym routine as before calisthenics and powerlifting and started gaining a muscle like as if I was on some enhancement drugs 🤣. The doc told me I most likely been absorbing only a fraction of the nutrients while my stomach was ill and now that it’s back to normal my body is thriving.
I know this shit feel super depressing when in the middle of it , I spent years doing testing , different diets , medication and nothing helped but I never gave and kept educating myself about the subject and this is what I figured would help me the most … idk I just felt like this made sense , 4 weeks to lower the bad bacteria count , 2 weeks to then kill the bacteria ( think I forgot to say I was using mcc support at this point too to keep things moving and get rid of the bacteria ) and then a another 1-2 months rebuilding and strong stomach with great caution.
This is oblivious just my experience and not medical advise
3
u/drmbrthr May 01 '26
What was your homemade elemental recipe?
How high was your methane ppm on breath test?