u/AcanthaceaeProof5058

Is there something about CP/EPI that causes dehydration aside from diarrhea?

I'm doing pretty well since starting Creon and treating sibo but I feel like crap every single morning upon waking. It's not from hangovers, haven't touched alcohol for a few months. I think I'm just really dehydrated, although taking a few sips of water overnight doesn't relieve the morning blahs (nausea, headache, general malaise). When I get up and have breakfast (2 eggs, arepa, sometimes fruit) and coffee (with milk but no sugar) I feel better.

I don't have diabetes but my A1C from a few months ago was just shy of prediabetic territory for the first time.

The other thing is that I'm struggling with sweet and/or fatty snacks after dinner/before sleeping. I don't usually take Creon with them. For instance, peanuts, cookies, chocolates. These don't cause CP/EPI symptoms except for one or two times when I really overindulged and it caused watery diarrhea the following few days. Other than that my stools have typically been pretty good, similar to my manageable"normal" IBS/D that I've had for decades without pain.

Anybody else notice that "AI mode" in Google search is currently performing better than Gemini?

Around the same time I started having pain on the left side a year ago, I also started to smell cigarette smoke that wasn't there (phantosmia). Lately it's become near constant.

This can happen from zinc deficiency. My zinc levels were normal when tested about 6 weeks ago, but that particular test can be unreliable. It can also be related to nerve disturbances triggered from B12 deficiency, which I did have last summer but it was normal for a January test.

Has anyone else noticed anything similar?

I finished a two week course of rifaximin about five weeks ago. Within a day or two of beginning the medicine, I my SIBO symptoms began to recede-- less constipation, cramping, diarrhea, pain. After completing the course, I tried to reintroduce healthy gut bacteria with Kefir which was a big mistake, my guts rebelled in dramatic fashion. In the last few days small amounts of kefir are digested without any problem. And overall, save for a couple of watery diarrhea episodes, I'm feeling 90 percent better.

In addition to SIBO I've got Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI) and am hopeful that recovery from SIBO will improve my enzyme levels (EPI and SIBO create a kind of doom loop in your gut, each condition making the other worse). My unique EPI symptoms (pain on left side) have also improved since taking the rifaximin. (EPI and SIBO have similar gut symptoms, but the enzymes supplementation wasn't working for what I now believe was the SIBO given the antibiotic has provided substantial relief).

I've also had IBS/D for decades, with no symptoms other than loose stools. When I say things are better, I mean back to my old, easily manageable IBS baseline.