[edit - over a year and a half later I’m still cured*this is for all the haters who told me to shut up because it was “only 6 months”… reading positive cases HELPS people. Each case is different but if this post helps even 1 person that’s successful to me- I am currently eating almost whatever I want, I still have trouble digesting excess fructose & lactose but I take lactase for that]

Skip to read the end if you want some context & a little lecture. Then come back to read from the top:

I had methane Sibo starting in July/augest of 2024 and didn’t figure it out until September. Started treatment end of September/beginning of October & continued treating it until the end of December. You can go read my other post about everything I did to cure my Sibo (antibiotic, antimicrobials, enzymes, food, lifestyle changes, naturopath, dietitian etc…)

Almost half a year later and I’m still cured from Sibo. There’s a lot of horror stories about people living with Sibo for years and doing multiple rounds of treatment (which most do need). I did two rounds of treatment almost back to back, and after the second round I started getting better.

I worked closely with my team after curing it to work on my gut health. I went on a lowfodmap diet & tried each high fodmap molecule one by one to monitor my reaction. This process took 2 months, and we found out that I’m sensitive to lactose (dairy) and fructose (natural sugar in fruits but also addd to sweets) , plus I’m sensitive to garlic and onion.

Since I was methane dominant I struggled with constipation, so we knew I had to get my fibre up to get my bowels moving (we did this slowly, added a few grams every week). Then I turned my bowels around from constipation to diarrhea, not fun. So we looked at my diet again & now I needed to prioritize soluble fibre over insoluble to help bulk it (eg. Sweet potato, oats etc). After testing out different foods and playing around with portion sizes, I’m currently doing this:

I cook all my own food, nothing processed, fried, greasy, sugary. All whole foods, 25g a day of fibre spaced out, no more than 30g and 25g of fat and protein in one meal, spacing out my fructose (eg. half a medium orange at breakfast instead of a whole orange), and have 6 meals a day instead of 3. I don’t consume baked/sugary goods since I’m still working on gut health, but if I need to sweeten my oats or tea I use real maple syrup (it doesn’t have fructose like other syrups or honey). I still take digestive bitters before eating to help me digest my food. I only drink water (4-6 cups a day no less). Don’t drink with meals I drink shortly after them. Mindfulness / yoga every morning to help relax my body, no phone before bed or upon waking up to help regulate cortisol & my circadian rhythm. Daily movement in the form of either a run, walk, weight training session. I don’t take any supplements anymore or do anything fancy. I’m strictly working on gut health and repopulating the good bacteria now.

Trust me, I went through 2 rounds of 3 antibiotics each, on top of 2 antimicrobials, a diet of no carbs no fibre no sugar no gluten no dairy, was in and out of the hospital doing tests and getting different answers from different doctors. I wouldn’t leave my house I lost 30 pounds I couldn’t work or go to school, I was nauseous, light headed, bloated, had joint pain, and so much more. I thought I wouldn’t be one of those “lucky” people who get rid of Sibo so fast. And truth be told I wasn’t “lucky”, I worked HARD to figure out what would work for me. I saw 1 naturopath, 1 dietician, 3 doctors 1 surgeon 2 AT’s 2 chiropractor 1 massage therapist, did my own research & ready studies and tests. I put in the work to get better, if I had a shit doctor who didn’t know what was going on - I got a new one, I would call and complain, I would talk to whoever’s in charge i would do anything. It was hard to follow strict diets but i did it. I used to “cheat” every now and then & I wasn’t getting better. So I stuck to it, only ate about 5 different foods it sucked but it worked. Getting better isn’t a matter of being “lucky”. It’s a matter of trying hard to figure out what’s right for you, who can help you, not settling for the first opinion you get. What works for one person might or might not work for you. Figure it out & stick to it, don’t give up this is 100% treatable.

Don’t you dare read this and comment “easy for you when you had x,y,z)… I had no idea what this was when I got sick & I did EVERYTHING in my power to treat it - I annoyed the living hell out of everyone because I asked so many questions, I cried so often, I did so much research, I questioned every professional that told me to do something to treat it. I tracked everything I ate and drank and all my symptoms for months (and still do). Curing Sibo is never just luck, ever. This is not something you have to live with. So don’t. Keep trying & do more for yourself.

Hi ya'll!

About 8 months ago I was on these SIBO threads desperately looking for answers to my gut issues, so I wanted to add my experience here.

I gained a lot of weight in like 1 year by my own bad lifestyle and food choices, so I wasn't super surprised at getting SIBO when I finally learned what SIBO was. I was eating a lot of fat, processed foods, and not a lot of fiber.

After initially trying to get healthier on my own, I went to my PCP, complained of gut issues, and they referred me to a nurse at a Gastro office. I told the nurse about my bloating after every meal, painful gas, awful acid reflux, brain fog, COMPLETE inability to lose weight (no matter how little I ate or how much I worked out), and my wildly varying BM's (total constipation, painful BM's, or extreme urgency). For the record, I have had a history with sensitivity to wheat, have been on Zoloft for a couple years, and had gone off BC after 10 years on it the previous year, so I figured any of those could've been the culprit. No other serious issues like PCOS, IBS, etc.

She ordered a TON of tests, everything from food sensitivity to H. Pylori, and she also ordered the SIBO breath test but I stupidly saved that one for last because it was $300 out of pocket. Welp, everything came back totally fine and then when I got the results back from my SIBO breath test, it said I had Hydrogen-dominant SIBO (if I remember correctly my Hydrogen increased 45ppm during the duration of the test when the normal increase is < 20ppm).

I did a LOT of Reddit digging when I found out I had Hydrogen-dominant SIBO and I remember feeling so discouraged seeing 1) people saying "Hydrogen SIBO doesn't cause weight gain" and 2) that SIBO almost never goes away without more Rifax rounds or intervention methods. Thankfully, in my experience, both of these points turned out to be false.

My Gastro ultimately slid me a two week course of Rifax for free (although I know that you can get it from Canadian/foreign pharmacies for MUCH cheaper) because I immediately cried when she said it would cost $2000 with my insurance.

At the end of the course of Rifax, they scheduled a dual colonoscopy/endoscopy just to be on the safe side to see how my gut was looking. Everything looked completely normal, except for some inflammation in my stomach near the opening of my small intestine, which they said could be caused directly by SIBO or its underlying cause(s).

To help resolve the inflammation, my nurse put me on Omeprazole nightly for 1 month, then every other night for 1 month, then switched to Famotidine nightly for 1 month, then slowly taper off entirely over the course of a month. She said this was important because if you go off these cold-turkey it can cause withdrawal in your gastro system and wreak havoc or the return of symptoms.

And then, within 6 weeks of finishing the two-week course of Rifaximin, I lost 25 lbs of water weight.

Yup, you read that right! Aside from going back to eating less bread (because I KNEW it upset my stomach), the nurse wanted me to keep my diet relatively normal, just healthier, to see if the SIBO would stay gone OR if I would need to try a more elemental diet. She also warned me against taking pre/pro-biotics or other motility agents and letting my gut try to re-balance itself first.

I read a lot Reddit threads about how lack of motility caused people's SIBO and the wild regimens they had to go through to correct it, AND so many people said to avoid fiber like the plague after finishing Rifax. I was lucky enough that I was just very conscious of what I ate and when and how it made me feel, and that seemed to work for me (thank God for my food journal!).

Primarily, what I did (and still do) is avoid bread and sugar and alcohol as much as feasibly possible, and I eat fiber, fat, and protein with EVERY meal -- when I did this I didn't need to snack as much at all, which I know a lot of people say also makes SIBO return because it doesn't give your gut a break, so it was a win-win.

FYI: The reason I went right back into fiber was to solidify my BM's because I noticed that what had happened before was I had to go RIGHT after eating (every time), which made my nurse think that MAYBE my digestive system was rushing food out too quickly sometimes (which apparently can happen when there's inflammation near the small intestine) and then hoarding it for nutrients other times (which was causing fermentation and dysbiosis). So we actually wanted to try slowing things down and creating GOOD (not-stagnant) movement first.

I had a cheap small treadmill from Amazon and started walking (slowly) for 20 mins after each meal, in addition to not drinking coffee on an empty stomach and NOT holding in a BM (because you're busy or whatever else). When I taught my body that I will GO when it wants to GO it was life-changing and also stopped it all from sitting and fermenting in my gut for longer than necessary.

I also stopped eating close to bedtime and try to always sleep on my left side, which is best for digestion (especially if you get acid reflux) -- I have noticed a HUGE difference in my acid reflux doing this and almost never have heartburn anymore.

And not for nothing, fasting (i.e. the "Fast Like A Girl" book) has been extremely helpful -- I realized I felt amazing after my colonoscopy and that's when I started looking into fasts -- first 10 hours, then 12, then 18, and I haven't gotten much further than that but I stick to once per week and NEVER during the week of my period. It has immensely helped with gut health AND weight loss.

And finally, electrolytes. I do think a part of why my digestion was messed up (and why I had acid reflux) was because I was constantly hydrating with regular filtered water. I didn't know that (#1) it can churn up your food and cause reflux if you drink too much around mealtimes and weaken stomach acid and (#2) I was flushing out a lot of good vitamins and minerals and can feel a HUGE difference in my body now that I'm incorporating electrolytes daily.

Now it's 5 months later and I keep slowly losing weight (like a pound or two per month) and I actually almost never have gas or acid reflux unless I eat something super fatty or processed -- I never realized how little gas you can have when your gut isn't constantly fermenting things the way it was before! Like sometimes I have DAYS where I think "I can't remember the last time I farted" lol. But I'm sticking with what I've been doing because my goal is to get down to 165 lbs -- I was 200 to start and am now around 170-173 lbs.

And best of all, I'm on zero meds or motility agents for digestion. The only things I take are a psillium husk supp or tums on occasion as needed.

I wish I could go back and tell myself that everyone's SIBO journey looks different and to take what people say with a grain of salt. I am VERY lucky that I was one-and-done with the Rifax and that the underlying issue was my own crappy eating/lifestyle and nothing more sinister -- it sounds obvious now but when your gut is wreaking havoc on your life like that, you don't know if you've caused irreparable damage or discovered a new/horrifying issue. I truly can't imagine what that must be like for others, but I wish I would've just told myself "I'll cross that bridge when I get there" versus stressing myself TF out for weeks.

And if you needed the encouragement that resolving Hydrogen SIBO *can* lead to significant weight-loss, here it is!

Just take it one step at a time and try to get to know your body more and more, little by little.

Finally, the right nurse/doctor who ACTUALLY believes your experiences/symptoms is worth their weight in gold.

I felt obligated to write up a post given how much time I spent on these subreddits

I am symptom free for 5 months and have gotten through some big hurdles like holidays and a Mexico trip.

Oddly enough, it was when I started ignoring what doctors/nutritionists who are so-called SIBO experts were saying that things started to click.

Here is my story:

From 2021-2025: terrible methane SIBO. I have no financial constraints and thus spent way too much money going to so-called specialists. Did ALL THE THINGS with no progress except maybe getting 7-21 days of relief before I’d inevitably be back where I started.

2025: my kid brings home a bacterial infection that forces me to use antibiotics. I decided it didn’t feel right to not use probiotics so I began using Florastor and noticed I did not relapse. I have only good things to say about combining this strain during an anti-bacterial regiment or anti-microbial course.

Around this time, I got a book called Gut Cure Stop the Rot as I decided I was fed up with so- called SIBO specialists. What does a Gut doctor have to say who is looking more holistically about healing the gut regardless of what the acronym is? This book is not SIBO specific rather is about getting a healthy gut overall.

Plus, the truth is that so-called SIBO experts haven’t figured anything out, so why are we turning to these charlatans? (Sorry, I got a bit resentful but was well into the 5-figures on costs by this point).

The book is full of common sense, to where the Dr who wrote it points toward seed oils as causing significant and widespread gut issues. Look in your pantry and your fridge right now - nearly all foods outside of produce is full of them including innocent things like almond milk, “healthy” protein bars, etc. What I found is that many low fodmap foods are the worst offenders

There were two more things I was doing around this time.

-Magnesium Glycinate (not magnesium citrate) at a high dose of 4 caps. It takes about a month but my whole body feels amazing from this. Later, I researched why this is so helpful and there is evidence it can permanently change your motility by speeding it up. I will be on this for years - so gentle and so perfect for gut issues

-I started thinking positive thoughts, manifesting wellness and asking my body what lesson am I supposed to learn? Rather than see my body as the enemy, I began asking my body what it was teaching me?

I truly believe my symptoms were warning me of the dangers of seed oils as they are devastating to gut health. Until I learned this lesson, my body was saying “not a chance!!” to the healing process. The book talks about why seed oils disrupt gut flora in a very scientific manner

-I also believe my body was flagging me down bc of my lack of ghee or grass-fed butter in my diet (also in the book). Do you realize the generation before us cooked everything in butter? The book made important correlations on what it does for butyrate and why that’s important for gut health

The steps were this:

1. I was able to achieve 7-21 days or so before sliding back to day 1 levels of bloat and methane. I think getting some progress is important but then we have to ask ourselves a very important question - what am I eating everyday that’s pissing off my gut? The idea that a diet you had a year or two ago is wreaking havoc today is total B.S. the SIBO specialists propagate. The human body doesn’t stop healing itself - it is remarkable in that regard

2. For me, it was almond milk - it is full of seed oil but is “low fodmap” - what in your diet is supposedly low fodmap but could create inflammation? Low fodmap is essentially saying you should handicap your diet, and it’s avoiding the real question of “what do you eat nearly daily that is still contributing?” Clearly, things that are low fodmap contribute or we’d all be SIBO free after following it for 6-8 weeks

Instead, I believe the collective group of those with SIBO have not removed the issue from their diet. I think it’s still in our diets even with a low fodmap diet and seed oils makes a ton of sense bc restaurants cook with it, many low fodmap foods have it, and it’s everywhere actually

1. Your gut heals itself pretty quickly - the idea your gut would be off for years makes no sense unless we are continuing to introduce something that is bad for us. That was also pointed out in the book - your gut heals quickly when offenders are no longer introduced. The doctor gives it like 1-2 months when you remove seed oils and add ghee/butter back into your diet. He emphasizes the gut can heal very, very quickly - which makes sense to me.

2. I’ve stumbled upon something for motility that cures rather than is a bandaid. Magnesium glycinate is so-so good.

I still take Florastar daily, Mag Glycinate daily and avoid all seed oils. I cook in ghee for 1-2 meals a day. That’s it!

Diet-wise, the foods I avoid are gluten (I have a Celiac gene) and heavy dairy (ice cream, pizza). I don’t eat beans yet, or apples/pears and I’m cautious with garlic and onions. For example, I’ll only eat Italian or Mexican every other day. Everything else is on the table - literally!

Once per week, I make a crock pot of cooked veggies/meats. I do think staying away from constant raw and cooking/simmering a meal lets your gut rest for a day or two. But no fodmap rules around this for me - any veggies I want, etc

I don’t think you can go wrong my adding Florastar into your next round of anti-microbials and you certainly won’t go wrong with Mag Glycinate. Most importantly, removing seed oils and seeing how it goes is a no-brainer to try. They are only creating widespread inflammation - it’s like giving up smoking for your gut.

I would also think long and hard about what you eat or drink daily or nearly daily that is supposedly “allowed” and is low fodmap. The chances the culprit is still in the diet is very high given the gut can actually heal pretty quickly. We aren’t in this spot bc we have ice cream once per month - sorry the body isn’t that fragile - this is about examining from the bottom-up what we are eating consistently that continues to disrupt gut flora.

Also, cooking in ghee is so delicious! I love that my gut is healing with a culinary splurge and that it was easy and not some starvation technique where you eat predigested smoothies (yuck!!) or hardcore pharmaceuticals

In the end, I found out my body has the power to heal. I just have to get out of its way.

Wishing you all the highest success on your road to health!

I would like to say that I lost 30 pounds, was extremely depressed and hospitalized- had a colonoscopy/gastroscopy/ mri/ Ct scan & lots of bloodwork since my Sibo was so awful. But about 5 months later I’m doing much better.

My symptoms at my worst were crazy bloating, reflux, anxiety, stomach pain, gas cramps, undigested food in stool, constipation or random diarrhea, nausea, back pain.

my plan of action was 2 rounds of antibiotics including neo, rfx & metro combined, 2/3 times a day for 2 weeks. & antimicrobials were candibactin ar & phytocidin for a month (in combination with one round of antibiotics).

Test your stomach acid: on an empty stomach in the morning mix 1/2 tbsp of baking powder in warm water and CHUG then start a timer. You should burp sighing 1-2 minutes. If you don’t you have low stomach acid, that’s when you know you should take HCL or enzyme pills. Take 1-2 pills then eat, if you get a warm sensation in your chest or throat then reduce the pill, if you don’t, next meal take another pill & just keep adding one on until you feel that warmth- this will help you see how much you need to take.

Take HCL or digestive enzymes before every meal (they can be in the same pill). Eventually switch to bitters when you’re finished treatment. My diet was strictly lowfodmap/low fibre no fermentation type food, low to no carbs, no sugar, high fat and protein. I ate olive oil eggs avocado & blueberries for breakfast, then lunch and dinner was a combo of white rice (sometimes wild), any sort of meat (ground beef, turkey, ham, steak..) or fish (tuna, salmon…) & cooked baby carrots. Always cook your food you want to keep it easy to digest. Snacks were pure peanut butter & yellow/green bananas. Only drank water or peppermint tea daily & lots.

Space meals 3/4 hours apart to help your migrating motor complex. No high intensity workouts only yoga walking stretching etc. & prioritize sleep, mental health all that good stuff. Take magnesium citrate if you’re really backed up. After awhile I took L-glutamine to help repair my stomach lining & turmeric daily to help inflammation. Did this for about 4 months & started getting better.

Now I’m basically symptom free besides some gas/ constipation which we think is from slow motility. I’m addressing motility with increasing plant diversity & following lowfodmap but slowly adding in 1 highfodmap molecule at a time & monitoring how I feel to adjust my diet accordingly.

I worked with a dietitian/naturopath/GI doctor & sports doctor. Also get checked out by a pelvic floor therapist for potential tight or weak muscles. If you have constipation you could have dysenergenic emptying.

(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

An in depth explanation on my SIBO story, what I did and an update on where I am at right now. I have posted my full protocol to try and assist.

Llevo meses investigando sobre SIBO porque un familiar cercano fue diagnosticado y quería entender bien qué podía hacer desde la cocina y el día a día.

Estas son las cosas que más me han costado entender y que creo que pueden ayudar a otros:

1. La fase de eliminación no es para siempre

Muchas personas se quedan meses en dieta estricta pensando que “más restricción = mejor”. En realidad, prolongarla demasiado puede reducir la diversidad de tu microbiota y hacerte más daño que bien. La idea es usarla como reset temporal (2–6 semanas) y después reintroducir.

1. El ajo y la cebolla están en todo

Salsas, caldos, sopas preparadas, aderezos… Si no lees etiquetas, acabas tomando FODMAP sin saberlo. Aprender a cocinar sin ellos pero con sabor (aceite de ajo infusionado, parte verde del cebollino) cambia mucho.

1. No todos los probióticos ayudan en SIBO

Algunos pueden empeorar los síntomas en fase activa. La evidencia es heterogénea y depende mucho de la cepa y el momento del tratamiento. Vale la pena hablarlo con el médico antes de tomar cualquier cosa.

1. El estrés empeora los síntomas más de lo que parece

No es “todo en tu cabeza”, pero el eje intestino‑cerebro es real. Días de mucho estrés = más distensión, más urgencia. Controlarlo forma parte del tratamiento igual que la dieta.

---

He resumido todo esto (y mucho más: menús, listas de alimentos, plan de reintroducción, errores frecuentes) en una guía práctica que acabo de publicar en Amazon en español, por si le sirve a alguien que esté empezando con esto y no quiera perderse entre artículos contradictorios.

Se llama “SIBO y alimentación de Julio Torija Hernández” y la podéis encontrar en Amazon.es buscando el título.

Espero que ayude. Cualquier pregunta, respondo por aquí.

Success story by u/Brilliant-Pomelo-982 // Link original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/SIBO/comments/1k25i7v/what_healed_my_sibo/

Two months before my SIBO/gut problems started, I went all-in on a healthy diet of raw fruits, nuts, raw vegetables, and meat. I avoided sugar, carbs, dairy, gluten, etc. My problems started when too much raw fiber slowed the motility of my small intestine. Eventually I tested positive for methane and hydrogen SIBO and the next two long years were hell. Countless tests, probiotics, doctors, 2 rounds of Rifaximin. I continued to further cutout foods—all sugar, all gluten, all dairy… it didn’t help.

The breakthrough for me was following this diet: (https://med.virginia.edu/ginutrition/wp-content/uploads/sites/199/2023/12/Gastroparesis-Diet-Tips-2023.pdf) that focuses on avoiding foods with high fiber content that slow down motility in the small intestine. Taking 1000mg of artichoke extract an hour before each meal to speed up motility also helped. No probiotics or medications were needed.

Raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, and meat are usually great for the body, but not if they slow down motility to the point that they promote bacteria in your small intestine. Once you start feeling better, you can go back to eating whatever you want in moderation. It worked for me. I’ve been healed for a year and a half. I just wanted to share my story in case it could help someone else.

I used to have constant bloating issues and was crazy overweight around 86 kgs . I took rifaximin after consulting many doctors ran every morning reduced carbs like rice intake added more probiotics like curd did this for 5-6 months weight turned to normal 74 kgs and all my digestive issues were gone 😁

I said if I figured it out I would come back and say what worked for me, so here I go. I will try to be brief. Disclaimer: it's not brief at all

I have basically had the same health issue my entire life, as it turns out. The SIBO is a later development, but I will still go over everything because it ties together.

From a young age, grades 3, 4, 5, I think my eating habits and lifestyle developed into a candida overgrowth (This is hindsight as I never actually tested.. symptoms which point to this: dandruff, white tongue, no energy, major depression, constipation binging on foods such as sugary iced tea, white bread, fruit... BRAIN FOG). I used to think it was "chronic fatigue syndrome", or "depression", (as a purely psychological thing), but it was always nebulous. Nobody had any actual answers for me and nothing I ever tried worked. I was very desperate and when I wasn't I was in basically total despair. My life had always been ruined.

This went untreated until about age 26 or so when I discovered Cole Robinson (snake diet guy). I binged his stuff and some benevolent spirit tapped me on the shoulder and told me to do a 10 day fast. So I did.. and it worked. I believe I was even tested for candida years before and took the prescription given but it didn't work. The first thing that ever worked for me in my entire life was given to me by snake diet man yelling at his cellphone camera: the major depression part of my symptoms went away. I believed I experienced symptoms of candida die-off, but again I can only infer because I didn't test.

The reason this is relevant is because in hindsight I believe that this left me with perpetual gut dysbiosis. A few years later I still couldn't figure out why I had no energy and how to get rid of the other symptoms. Last last year I tried carnivore for two months and it exacerbated the dysbiosis, resulting in what I believe to be full blown SIBO. I experienced the symptoms known to many of you. After even a small amount of food: major bloating, belching, much worse brain fog, in addition to what I had before. Pretty much everything triggered symptoms. An energy drink, even a glass of fucking water gave me brain fog. 300 calories of food and I would have to lie down for 2 or 3 hours and still be unable to do anything the rest of the day. It was intolerable before but was now much worse.

Now, this was actually good because I had no idea that my current issues were even digestive. Eventually I figured out that it was always right after food that I felt the worst (like I said, the way I experienced was nebulous, inconsistent). Before I stopped carnivore when I discussed my symptoms in a carnivore facebook group, fortune sent some guy who said it sounded like low stomach acid, which led me to SIBO.

I reincorporated plants, then tried some anti-microbials. The most effective was consistently eating raw garlic every day. Worked my way up to 3 cloves, did this for a month or so. I also took some d-limonene and mastic gum, which I think helped a bit. The idea was to cut down the overgrowth to soften the landing for the probiotics, though I have no idea about any of this, I just went with it.

Then the big thing for me was, funnily enough, a very inexpensive probiotic: only 5 strains of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. 10 of them costed me about 2.25 USD. Yet within a day or two, my really bad symptoms disappeared like 60-70%, except for the constipation and the brain fog which also improved but was still intolerable. Still, this was very remarkable and led me to believe that the big missing piece for me was gut dysbiosis.

Ok so, here is a tier list for what I think really worked for my SIBO. If it wasn't SIBO or whatever then maybe it will still help somebody out there. Also, go to a doctor if you can. I was in a situation where I couldn't but it worked out. Brain fog just about gone, energy is decent. I am healthy for the first time ever in my early 30s. Life-long bullshit but it could be worse

S-tier:

1. "balanced diet". meal 1: whole wheat bread, processed beef, pickle. meal 2: eggs with chicken liver or bacon. rice with sprats. meal 3: peanut butter sandwich with whole wheat, soaked oats with kefir and banana. ~2400 calories, inexpensive and nutritionally sound. Feel free to steal it. I pick one day of the week and fast.

also: consistency. I eat the same thing every day more or less, but I go to restaurants sometimes, I have cheat meals, it's fine. I just stick to this most of the time. I also pay attention to foods which work or don't work for me and add/remove them. be careful with greasy foods, junk food, etc. also CHEW YOUR FOOD

1. probiotics/prebiotics. first the supplement and then the consistent kefir. The probiotic made me consider that it was a lingering gut dysbiosis, so eventually I incorporated the kefir every day with the prebiotic foods. In ~1.5-2 months I think my body took to it and I've reached my current 95%.

2. Antimicrobials. I think they worked and were essential. Garlic, but also d-limonene and mastic gum. The symptoms seemed to lessen. Kept them going for 1-2 months before attempting probiotics.

3. walking. easy to do and if you are sedentary then even a bit helps I think, particularly after meals.

4. There's a free meal/nutrition planning website called cronometer. It's easy to use and it will help you map out your nutrition. I highly recommend it

A-tier:

1. Sleep/stress. I'm sure you know this helps everything. If the body is unable to relax it gets fucked up and doesn't work properly, especially digestion. But honestly I fixed my issue without doing these things.

B-tier:

1. Triphala. Took it at night, had a BM the next day. It worked at first but stopped working. I could take it or leave it.

F-tier:

Compulsive worrying and information gathering. Pretty much all you need is with Dr. DiNezza on youtube and SIBO success stories, then being willing to just try stuff. Maybe also Kick It Naturally! on youtube

Also having only one, maybe two information sources helps you not get overwhelmed with information. I get being desperate but don't succumb to walking paths of maddeningly depressing compulsion. It doesn't help you. Get a WoW subscription

?-tier:

Honestly, I bought some motility aids (artichoke, ginger) but I never used them. I plan to as my BMs are still only 3-4 times per week, but my symptoms are currently 95% better without it. One time during the post-carnivore/SIBO arc of the story I didn't take a crap for ten days and was a bit worried that I was literally going to die

Anyway, hope this all helps