u/Nat_Banana

Went through a lot of trial and error. Here's what I wish I'd known earlier.

• I'd use doctors only to rule out serious stuff. Once they say "IBS" and shrug, I'd move on. They're not really equipped for this.
• I'd see a nutritionist who specializes in gut health. Better yet, a few of them. They'll contradict each other, which sounds frustrating but actually gives you a more complete picture.
• I'd test aggressively. Breath test, stool, minerals, hormones, the works. Not all tests are perfectly reliable but they still give you something to work with.
• I'd write out all possible root causes and rank them by likelihood. Then test the most probable ones first. Treat it like an experiment.
• I’d use getnoorish.com or similar from the start - to keep history at one place, consolidate info, rank hypothesis and get next steps
• I'd track everything in one place. I lost so much info in endless ChatGPT conversations. Memory is not reliable when symptoms shift constantly.
• change one thing at a time.
• I wouldn't fixate too much on symptoms. They're often just downstream of the real problem. Slow motility, APD, pelvic floor, acid or bile issues, hormones - all worth exploring.

Took me way too long to figure some of this out.

Did not help

• Herbal antimicrobials (berberine + allicin)
• Antibiotics (rifaximin + neomycin)
• ginger and artichoke
• laxatives
• Nerva (gut-directed hypnosis)
• Minerals and vitamins
• Trimebutine
• Walks after meals
• Digestive enzymes
• Exercise (abs work and intensive cardio make it worse)
• L reuteri
• Guar gum

Helped to some extent

• 0 stress, like 0 (almost impossible in real life)
• Low FODMAP - but only if very consistent for several days
• Pendulum breathing (check APD routines)
• Chewing, thoroughly

Still will try

• Stronger prokinetics
• Improving gut lining (l glutamine, zinc carnosine)
• More consistent APD routine
• Vagus nerve stimulation
• Other probiotic strains
• Elemental diet

• Canceling plans with friends
• No more restaurants
• Spending 80% of your time figuring it all out with chatGPT
• $$$ on supplements (I stopped counting)
• $$$$$ on nutritionists
• No dating
• Can’t look in the mirror
• Had to change all my pants and skirts, old ones don’t fit
• Reduced fiber / protein in my diet

What hit you most?

Took me a while to understand that methane SIBO is a motility problem, not just bacteria in one spot. And the slow-down can start from basically anywhere:

• Colon (microbiome, pelvic floor)
• Duodenum (inflammation, lining, bile, acid)
• stomach (lining, acid)
• Even in diaphragm (APD)
• what else?

And on top of that, hormones may play a role (thyroid, cycle etc.)

After a lot of trial and error, mine seems to come from chronic inflammation in the duodenum (been tracking on getnoorish.com where I first noticed the pattern)

Still piecing things together. But it's the first time things actually make sense.

• Methane - two rounds of antimicrobials but my third SIBO test came back higher than the very first one I took.
• Acid / enzymes - nope
• Probiotics - nope
• Motility - ginger doesn’t help but otherwise it’s so vague!
• APD - tried and nope
• Stress - well I reduced it to 0 now, still no..
• Hormones - chicken and egg problem

And chatGPT that goes “you need to find the root cause”…

And let alone doctors, nutritionists, nerva, getnoorish (the only thing that helped actually).

Grrrrr

Just sharing my frustrations. Tell me someone else is in this loop.

I thought zinc carnosine was supposed to help with gut lining. Took one capsule three days ago and I'm still feeling the effects.

• Slow stomach emptying
• Crying with no reason about 2 hours after each meal, like it's the end of the world
• Stool changed from hard to soft
• Non-acidic reflux but I feel like I'm turning into a dragon

Has anyone experienced something like this? Is this a typical reaction or did it just not agree with me at all?

How do you even isolate what's working? I'm trying Guar gum, and at the same time something changed in my diet, my stress is up, I'm mid-cycle, and I ate too many raw vegetables. Is the Guar gum actually doing anything, or is it just that I had less stress on Thursday?

Started tracking more carefully with getnoorish.com to find patterns, but the overlap is so dense. Does anyone else feel like you're running 10 experiments at once?