The hardest part about dealing with digestive issues is not knowing what’s actually causing them. Some days things feel manageable, and other days even eating normally feels like a gamble. It gets frustrating when you keep looking for answers but end up with even more things to worry about.

I've been looking into different ways to support gut health, including diet changes and personalized supplements. I came across nb1 during that search, but I'm still trying to figure out what makes sense and what's actually backed by evidence.

I don't want to keep throwing money at different products without understanding what my body needs first.

2 weeks ago I took Iron supplements for 4 days and stopped because it worsened my insomnia. SInce then I've had itchiness all over, nerve and joint pain. Some mild stomahc burning pain. I'm very confused why I didn't have this before and what should I do

Which I’m glad I took it out because I could not eat anything. But now it’s more like I can’t eat any sweet stuff causes issues. I’m middle of treatment for imo which is 36ppm.

Hi everyone!
I’ve been struggling with constant abdominal bloating for over two years, and I’m honestly exhausted.
My stomach is visibly bloated even first thing in the morning, before eating anything. Sometimes it gets worse throughout the day, regardless of what I eat.
I had a breath test in 2024 that showed methane-dominant SIBO (IMO). I also struggle with chronic constipation and slow bowel transit. Sometimes I go days without a bowel movement, while other days I can go twice, but my stomach still looks bloated.
I eat a relatively healthy diet, exercise regularly, and try to take good care of myself, but nothing seems to make a lasting difference.
I’ve started wondering whether coffee, gluten, dairy, or certain vegetables could be contributing, or whether there’s something else going on.
I’d really love to hear from anyone who’s experienced something similar:
What actually helped reduce your bloating?
Did eliminating certain foods make a difference?
Have you tried probiotics, herbal remedies, or other treatments?
Did you discover that your bloating was related to something other than SIBO, such as slow motility or pelvic floor dysfunction?
What tests or specialists helped you finally understand the cause?
I’m not looking to self-medicate, but I’d really appreciate hearing about your personal experiences while I work towards getting further medical advice.
Thank you so much to anyone willing to share their story! ❤️

I always assumed fasting is supposed to help with any overgrowth, but for me, it would aggravate my digestive symptoms.

Anyone experience something similar?

hello!
i havent been tested for SIBO yet, but i do have a colonscopy scheduled in a few weeks. i was prescribed linzess and i have also been taking ginger and artichoke extract and this all had helped me have very healthy bowel movements. however, i am still bloated. no matter what i eat, i am bloated. i wake up bloated. right now i am barely eating and only consuming low fodmap foods but i am still bloated. if this isnt SIBO, what else could this be? APD? i just am not sure why i am still so bloated (like 10 months pregnant) despite having decent healthy bowel movements each day. my stomach is inflated like a balloon and like hard.

Looking for people that have had similar experiences.

I'm someone with Ulcerative Colitis that's currently in remission, but both (yes, two) of my gastros are obsessed with blaming my current symptoms on my UC, despite symptoms not matching up with my usual UC symptoms. I never had bloating on UC. Was always hungry. Never had issues with stools being hard to pass. Always a "proper brown" colour.

I had a medical intervention related to my spine some months ago, and the pain was so intense I was practically drugged to the max on every day on different cocktails. Didn't have a stool for 10 days maybe. I was also on PPIs for 1-2 months. Gastritis was excluded because of the PPIs dose and duration.

Ever since I came back from the hospital (late august), I've been dealing with symptoms I haven't had before. Bloated 24/7. There's some mild urgency, and it's a light brown, which indicates transit that's too fast somewhere in the gut, but they're not dry or hard despite having to push pretty hard when I'm actually in the process of passing the stool. Bristol 5 I'd say. Even if it's a bristol 5, I have to go 3-4 times a day. Zero appetite because of said bloating.

Because I can't take a SIBO test atm (just trust me on this), my gastros said I could do a rifaximine course. 1550mg for 9 days done. Finished 2 days ago. No changes yet in bloating. Had some D on 2-6 while on the antibiotics, but now it's kinda how it was before the Rifaximine. Heard some feel better 1, 2, or even 3 weeks after being done with the course. Planning to start Itopride tomorrow to give it a spin per gastro rec.

_________

Now. For the love of all that is holy. Someone please tell me they went through something like this. At this point, I don't know what it could be, or if it's an issue related to motility somewhere in the upper tract. AFAIK, pressing around the bellybutton and feeling pain indicates inflammation in the small intestine.

The reason I'm asking for other people that might have gone through this, is because I don't know where else to go from here by process of elimination. Sluggish bile output? need to crank up acidity?

I'm already taking a pretty healthy dose of:

butyrate, b1+benfo, mag gly, b5, D, K2, calcium hydroapoxitate, fish oil, simethicone, bpc-157, hyaluronic acid, zinc picolinate, copper, pepperpmint oil, boron. React poorly to zinc carnosine, l-glutamine, glycine, CPD-choline (loose stools/D). Currently on carnivore diet, and have been for 3.5 years with no cheating.

Have on hand L reuteri, coagulans + subtilis + clausii (3 in 1), s boullardi - but i'm waiting on a few other things before I go back to probiotics because I'm not 100% sure if and when I can start them considering the situation I'm in.

-Disregulated Nervous System
-Fatigue , Diziness...
-Low stomach acid
-Gallblader issues
-24h Bloating
-Leaky gut
-Bad motility

I'm puzzeled and i don't know from where to start. I'm only 24 years old and it has been 2 years since i have digestive issues . From where should i start ? This weekend i will have a breath test. I see many approaches and yet the more i read the more confused i get . The only time i feel good when i take artichoke extract but it's too harsh for my gut and gives me reflux. I take ginger extract from time to time but not much of effect.

Sharing a few yoga exercises for gut health. I personally suffer from SIBO and haven't tried it myself but I'll be trying to treat SIBO holistically (along with low FODMAP diet) rather than treating the overgrowth itself with antibiotics (tried antibiotics and they didn't work. And there are anecdotes of SIBO recurrence so it points to another root cause)

Are you more sensitive to pure forms of saturated fat like ghee than pure forms of unsaturated fat like olive oil?

I eat the same 4 foods every day: zucchini, carrots, olive oil, and chicken breast. I just tried some ghee and got hit with the toxic feeling, depression, and a weird pain on my nose that I also consistently get after eating fish. It lingers for a day. It’s like you popped a pimple there, but you actually have no pimples. I’ve already been diagnosed empirically, but nobody can be entirely sure, not even doctors.

Does that point to hydrogen sulfide? Do you have a similar reaction to saturated fats or other unsafe foods for H2S overgrowth?

https://www.thesibodoctor.com/2020/06/29/methane-fungal-connection-farshid-sam-rahbar-part-1/

And then bonus...

https://www.thesibodoctor.com/2020/06/29/methane-fungal-connection-farshid-sam-rahbar-part-2/

Hey ich wollte euch mal erzählen wie meine sibo Behandlung so verlaufen ist. Ich hatte einen Wasserstoffwert von ca 58 ppm und Methan 10 ppm also gerade eben so positiv. Ich habe es allerdings vermutlich schon seit 8 Jahren und ein paar Wochen vor der Testung musste ich Antibiotikum nehmen, daher ist es möglich dass der Test normalerweise höher ausgefallen wäre.
Meine Symptome waren größtenteils:

Dauerhafter Blähbauch
Durchfälle
Zwicken oder Stechen im Darm
Darmkrämpfe bzw Bauchschmerzen
Unverträglichkeiten die sehr plötzlich auftraten
Blähungen
Etc

Jedenfalls habe ich eine erste Runde Kräuter gestartet ca 6 Wochen Oreganoöl, Berberin und Allicin. In der Zeit habe ich langsam aber stetig immer ein wenig Bauchumfang verloren aber trotzdem blieb der Blähbauch bestehen (wenn auch etwas weniger stark). Danach hatte ich zwei Wochen Pause mit der Low fodmap Diät sowie Einnahme von Zink Carnosin. Mein Stuhl hat sich in der Zeit verbessert und wurde geformter und härter. Dafür konnte bzw musste ich manchmal aber 2-3 gar nicht aufs Klo. Mein Stuhl kam nach meinem Gefühl auch nicht im ganzen raus sondern verhältnismäßig wenig.
Ich nehme auch motility assist ein, was mir hilft. Wenn ich es mal vergesse, muss ich meistens direkt erstmal nicht aufs Klo.

Nach den 2 Wochen Pause begann ich eine zweite Runde Kräuter (da in einer Runde ja nur um die 25-30 ppm weggehen). In der zweiten Runde nehme ich Atrantil, Neem, Olivenblattextrakt sowie Caprylsäure. Die zweite Runde war für 4 Wochen angesetzt und ist jetzt fast fertig.
Ich kann festhalten, dass mein Stuhlgang auf jeden Fall irgendwie besser aber nicht perfekt ist. Ich habe kaum bis keine Durchfälle mehr dafür aber weiterhin eher härteren Stuhl und teils unregelmäßig oder wie so kleinere Hasenköttel. Die low fodmap Diät wollte ich eigentlich bis zum Ende der zweiten Runde durchziehen, allerdings hatte ich viel Alltagsstress und die Diät ist leider etwas eingebrochen, was ich auch gemerkt habe. Allerdings ist die Diät ja sowieso nur Symptom Behandlung und keine Heilung, daher ist das ok für mich.
In der ersten Runde habe ich auch Bauchmassagen gemacht und Zwerchfell sowie Bauchatmung. Ich lasse auch 4-5 Stunden Pause zwischen den Mahlzeiten. Das klappt ganz gut aber nicht immer perfekt.

Wenn die Runde vorbei ist, werde ich meinen Darm aufbauen. Ich werde Zink Carnosin nehmen und L Glutamin und meine Ernährung ausweiten.

Ich denke mein MMC muss sich noch eine ganze Weile erholen. Wie sind eure Erfahrungen? Ich frage mich wirklich ob und wann mein Blähbauch verschwindet. Auch wenn ich froh bin dass vieles wie auch Blähungen an sich sich schon verbessert haben, macht mir der Blähbauch psychisch echt zu schaffen.

hi! thanks for the help on my last post. i want to start incorporating prokinetics. can i do this while on xifaxan? or should i wait until i’m finished my course? thank you!

Please detail your prucalopride experiences

Long time lurker, first time poster!

tl'dr: 38 yo woman, lived with IBS for about 20, bloating and gas became worse this year for no reason, got referred to a gastroenterologist who ordered a bunch of tests and we found out I have methane-dominant SIBO (negative test for H Pylori, Crohn's, Celiac, etc)

He put me on a 20 days (twenty :cry:) round of Spiraxina (Rifaximin), 3x a day + Neomycin (2x a day for 10 days) and of course, low fodmap diet, which is the way I already mostly ate anyway.

I'm on day 9 of this marathon, and I'm feeling WORSE than ever. The bloating is insane, like I look 6 months pregnant even upon waking up (when I had my symptoms pre-diagnosis, I'd wake up with a flat stomach and bloating would develop during the day and after eating). Gas and burping all day long. I don't even eat much anymore, because with all these symptoms and seeing how I feel, I completely lost my appetite. Yet I look like a balloon, and stepped on the scale today and I put on weight since day 1 of the antibiotics? None of it makes any sense.

I'm seeing the doctor again in 2 weeks. I will stay calm and go with the assumption that the medication is making me feel this way, and I saw a couple of old threads on this sub mentioning bloating worsen with Rifaximin, and then got better. Would love any reassuring words of people who went through similar treatments recently, and how they felt afterwards!

Hi,
after more than 15 years of horrible bloating I finally got diagnosed with both SIBO and IMO.
I have been on low FODMAP diet ever since and it helps. I will take Rifaximin when I am off work the end of November.
I wonder if anybody else feels as if their ADHS became worse with SIBO/IMO or as if their meds don’t work anymore?
I begin to wonder how much the baceteria poisons my thinking so to speak.

So I tested positive twice for methane sibo.

Did rifaximine? Once then the combination of that and another antibiotic.

Felt goodish for about a week then everything came back.

I also have debilitating acid reflux and mild slow stomach emptying. My doctors are going to have me do a pyloroplasty And a toupet fundoplication.

Do you think a decade of ppi and slow emptying caused this?

If surgery is successful. Do you think more normal emptying will help this go away?

I'm bloated after anything I eat.

And acid reflux literally makes my heart go into afib at times.

Thoughts are appreciated

Good day reddit community

My son (12)was diagnosed with EoE in June after a scope and placed on ppi's for 8 weeks as a first line of treatment.

His initial symptoms were dizziness, headache and chronic nausea. With the scope a high oesinophil count was noted. After the treatment his oesinophil count was normal with the follow up scope so the ppi's worked. But he still has chronic nausea, dizziness and itchy skin at night. The dr expects it could be sibo and wants to put him on a 2 week antibiotic course of flagyl

I am very unfamiliar with sibo and not too sure if those would be symptoms? It sometimes feels like drs just throw antibiotics at you without further investigation.

So my question is, has anyone experienced these symptoms and it has been connected to sibo?

So…I got covid around 6 months ago and since that day I started with stomach issues.

let’s clarify that I suffer from gases way before covid and I controlled it with simethicone but it would come and go but never stomach issues like this.

I had abdominal pain, reflux, mild constipation and tenesmus or feeling of incomplete evacuation, and gases all the time with pain like a pressure on my lower back or hips or middle abdomen. I had some tests done but doctors diagnosed me with IBS-C.

i have been eating healthy, I have somehow controlled my constipation and the pain is most of the time not there and the reflux either. However, what has remained is gases, pain due to gases, and tenesmus but it has also fluctuated, and recently i started feeling like if i had a knot on the left side of my anus that comes and goes but there is no lump outside of anything and a nurse did a rectal exam and she said she didn’t feel anything in that area.

I will go see a gastro but i could only get an appointment for November 19th. I was actually lucky because this doctor is apparently good so i was surprised he had availability. I have to wait three more weeks.

Covid generated this 100%, now the thing is i don’t know if this could be SIBO or pelvic floor dysfunction or a bit of both. what do you think? I am almost never bloated and recently I evacuate in the morning two times in like 1 hour. my gas seems to get better some days and then other days it just crashes out.

Let me know if you had any similar symptoms!

I am also not taking any medicine besides simethicone, the rest is just diet and exercise. Sometimes for the pain I take medicine but it’s not often.

I don’t know how it has to do with psoas as the muscle is well under the belly button on the sides. I have been on motegrity post xifaxin (several scripts) and I have been seeing the relevance with motility and tight muscles in the entire core/pelvic region.

Again, I am not a doctor nor do I know the science. Yes this is painful but it completely restored my motility after a 2 days doing this three times a day and I am even eating onions and garlic in both raw and cooked forms again:

https://youtube.com/shorts/2K9q1burBAw?is=UiH8z770IV8vnW3h

I don’t really care about any risks or medical nuances, I feel like I’m in my early 20s again at almost 40 dealing with sibo since its discovery. This just worked.

I have been looking for anyone with my particular experience for any information they might be willing to share. My symptoms are bloating after eating and constipation. Both of which sort of just crept up on me over time about 4-5 years ago. But one of the weird ones I have is positional pain. I could eat an entire plate of whatever I want, and all I would be is bloated. I wouldn't feel any cramping or pain. But when I go to lie down to take a nap or sleep for the night, I get this intense stabbing pain in the upper middle abdomen that slowly creeps in and wakes me up. The pain can be really bad, but if I stand up, the pain is almost completely gone within 2-5 minutes. It doesn't feel like acid reflux for a few reasons. And even my GI didn't think it was acid reflux.

I took the lactulose breath test and had high hydrogen and borderline methane. Which was confusing to me because I thought high hydrogen meant I would have diarrhea and not constipation. My doctor only prescribed me 2 weeks of rifaximin, which did absolutely nothing at all. Afterward, he offered to do an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy. The findings were really only 2 things. Esophageal Candida was observed and biopsied. And duodenitis was also found. He put me on 2 weeks of fluconazole for the Candida, which I observed had no positive or negative effect on my symptoms. After that, he gave me the option to try an antidepressant to see if that would help, but I declined.

As of right now, I am just managing my symptoms through a restrictive diet along with taking a motility activator at night and MiraLAX daily with black tea. This combination has proven to keep me on my feet pretty well. But a few months ago I had blood work done, and they found I had low white blood cell count. My primary wanted to rule out some of the big causes right away which were all negative. He then sent me to hematology, who asked about my diet, and they had my copper levels checked. I was deficient in copper, so they had me do one month of oral copper supplementation. I didn't notice it at first, but over time I could tell that the oral copper was actually causing me slight pain/irritation in a very similar location to my usual pain location. After I finished the month of supplementation I got retested and my copper was actually LOWER than before I started the supplementation. Hematology recommended doing infusions, then retesting my copper and white blood cell count to see if any change happens. I did that, and they found that my copper levels did improve greatly from the infusion, along with only a very slight increase in certain white blood cells. That was enough for my hematologist to create a plan for me to get copper infusions done every 45 days and continue to tracking improvements to my white blood cells.

Would love to hear any similar experiences, feedback, etc.

I'm on 20mg a day of isotretionin and experiencing gut issues like constipation (my bowel habits are all over the place, though thankfully I don't go more than 3 days without one), really loud and foul-smelling gas, and some stomach pain.

I drink a cup of coffee and immediately get stomach cramps and loud gurgling.

I eat an apple and instantly bloat up with gas.

It feels like I can never catch a break.

My gastroenterologist prescribed two antibiotics: rifaximin (2x per day 550mg) and neomycin (2x per day 500mg) for 14 days. He mentioned that I have SIBO and dysbiosis, both of which are being exacerbated by Accutane.

Does anyone have experience with this? I already tried probiotics and they made things worse. I'm anxious about taking these antibiotics because of side effects and several posts I've read on Reddit about potential die-off.

First I time ever I got sibo was 2 years ago in August where my doctor gave medication for hpylorie and after that bloating extreme pain started to happening. After treating with herbal with new GI was good. 2 years passed I was good but I had occasional throwing up and not able to digest food specially things that were heavy and fatty. I got suspicious that was my gallbladder as time was going on I was really bad and I couldn’t eat anything chicken and rice and I was having a lot gallbladder classic symptoms. But then I did Hida scan which came 97% ejection which basically was dumping to much bile acid and during surgery I had scar tissues on my gallbladder with polyps as well on ultrasound. After surgery which was in May I was good after I could eat everything and was back to normal. I had some infection that required me to take antibiotics in June and my bloating and stomach pain started in July. I did one round of Candibactin ar and br with allimaxpro didn’t help much. I dony have bloating but I did have constipation. Been on betain hcl pan plex phase 2 which has helped me and also on ginger arthoke. But I’m confused what my root cause is? Was it my gallbladder from the beginning or was it antibiotics. My functional doctors believes it’s antibotic since I had very bad dysboysis recently when I did GI map she believed imo just took over. Anyone got any advice please help

Prucaloprid makes me depressed

Artichocke makes me way worse

Ginger not working

Please help me!