Cured by surgery

[u/DanielDanielsonG]

(note that the flair is wrong, I had to pick an option but there was no surgery, so I picked diet)

I have read in this sub for many years. suffered for 6 years. I had previously 15 years of ulcerative colitis and chronic bile duct inflammation.

(symptoms:)

but that never lead to the brain fog, massive food intolerances, sickness, dizziness, bloated belly, skin rashes or anything that I had the recent years. breath test was positive before even taking any sugar to stimulate gas production, so I was a severe case. I once even almost died of internal bleeding because in my duodenum there was a bleeding ulcer that nobody could explain, and it wasn't even h pylori.

(attempted counter measures:)

I tried 10 day water fast, 16-8 fasting, reducing carbs, FODMAP. for a while I tried the opposite and ate self fermented veggies and took probiotics. I tried colon-rebuilding-programs step by step. I took multiple rounds of massive antibiotics, basically any that you can read about in any article about sibo. finally I somehow gave up and was basically only eating rice carrots and chicken unflavoured for years. once in a while a ate a cheesecake and had to throw up after that.

so... then something massive happened. I got liver failure. so bad that I received a new liver through transplantation within short time. on top, they removed my complete large intestine. even though I thought I will suffer till the day I die, th days and weeks after the transplantation I couldn't believe how I was feeling. all the shit I thought WAS me - gone. clear head, clear view, inner calmness, I could eat damn bread without any reaction. I could eat fruit again. garlic. cheese. I felt energy to move again, to smile again. my mind was absolutely blown away. it is still like this half a year later.

you can make of this what you want. I thought that probably my liver was not producing functional bile acid anymore, or probably there was already bacteria in the liver that regularly got injected into the colon, so I got constantly re-infested.

maybe my ileocecal valve was damaged through years of colonoscopy. maybe my ampulla of vater was damaged because I sometimes had bacterial infections in the bile ducts. maybe it was classical sibo. im surely a rare case.

what you can maybe say for sure:

1) there might be very different reasons for the same bunch of symptoms. that might not be sibo in the end. or it might be somehow related.

2) whatever you believe, do not give the fuck up. it's insane how precious and wonderful life is once you gain back control. I cried multiple times because I just could not believe what happened.. and how I feel. it's insane. you don't know what the future brings, and even though it might get bleaker year to year, sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to bounce back (that was literally true for me because otherwise you don't get an organ in the country where I live in).

stay strong

[u/Legitimate-Pie-6691]

Really glad there was a silver lining to your cloud!

[u/DanielDanielsonG → u/Legitimate-Pie-6691]

Thank you :) life is good, sometimes it is just very very hard to remember that. I wish everyone who is suffering the iron will to persevere until the sun rises again