I Cured My Own IBS With a 10-Day Water Fast

I'm not sure where I first heard of water-fasting to cure SIBO. If you google the two, you'll come across more than one blog about it. It certainly wasn't the first thing I tried to heal my permeable gut and the imbalance of methanogens revealed by a SIBO breath test at my gastro's office. I'd dismissed the antibiotic treatment that's so popular right now (40% cure rate and almost certain recurrence didn't sound like a fair exchange for wiping out all the good bacteria in my gut.) The first thing I did was start eliminating gut damaging foods: first gluten and seed oils, then eventually all grains. Then FODMAPs and nightshades and eventually AIP foods. (You can read about the diet I was following and my trial of Atrantil under Treatments.)

If you 've ever restricted your diet in this way, you'll know how it affects your entire life. When I thought about the many ways having IBS impacts my life, beyond all the foods I couldn't eat—how it sparked other disease in my body, like insomnia, the autoimmune condition that's attacking my joints, increasing A1C and fasting glucose levels. How I had to cook every single thing I eat myself and how just making a grocery list was fraught with tension. How traveling was no longer pleasurable. How bathroom habits made me late for work sometimes. How belly fat kept accumulating and a food belly was a permanent fixture... given all that, fasting seemed worth a try—and would be almost a relief from the stringent shopping and cooking.

So I did it. For 10 days I subsisted on only water, tea, and one cup of diluted coffee (more and more diluted each morning until I was having hot water). I stopped taking all of my vitamins and supplements, except for key electrolytes like calcium, magnesium, and sodium. After the first few days, hunger wasn't even an issue, though I did encounter some other challenges.

You can read the daily diary here:

Day 1 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 2 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 3 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 4 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 5 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 6 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 7 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO
Day 8 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

It really wasn't hard for me, because I was highly motivated. I had a good deal of certainty that it was going to not only heal my SIBO but also do a lot of other good things for my overall health as well—and that kept me going.

I did a lot of research on both the healing qualities of extended water fasting and the dangers of extended water fasting and I went into this with my eyes wide open. And I'm not suggesting that anyone else try it either. Do your own research. Start with the studies below. Check in with your doctor, especially if you are on medication of any kind.

I didn't have any of the conditions that would make fasting dangerous: I'm overall healthy with normal blood pressure and cholesterol and triglyceride levels, about 15 pounds overweight, and carrying the SIBO belly bloat you'd expect. I'm on no prescription medications. So I felt prepared to wing it. I promised myself that I would truly listen to my body. And if at any time I felt nauseous (that's one of the signs to stop), I would allow myself a 1/2 cup of homemade bone broth with salt to rebalance electrolytes and if that didn't help I would break the fast..

I didn't pick a day on the calendar, it picked me. I had been intermittent fasting (eating only in an 8 hour window from 2:00-8pm) and instead of beginning my first meal at 2:00 I just kept pushing it back and back and back until I was fasting.

I wasn't afraid. If anything, I was eager to start.

The research was very convincing. Especially this 2006 study in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, where 58 patients with IBS were divided into two groups. One was given prescription meds and psychotherapy to reduce IBS symptoms. The other group fasted for 10 days, drinking only water. After 10 days was up, the fasting group did better. Fasting was found to significantly improve 7 of 10 symptoms assessed, including abdominal pain-discomfort, abdominal distention (bloating), diarrhea, anorexia, nausea, anxiety, and interference with life. Among the group treated with drugs and psychotherapy only 3 symptoms improved: abdominal pain-discomfort, abdominal distention, and interference with life. (More studies below.)

Fasting is not a new concept:

It is estimated that fasting for the alleviation of human suffering has been practiced uninterruptedly for 10,000 years.—Dr. Herbert Shelton, MD

The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.—Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)

Instead of using medicine, rather, fast a day.—Plutarch (45 AD - 127 AD)

Fasting Cleans the Gut

We who have IBS and other digestive conditions spend a whole lot of time (and money) focused on what we eat. We are all of us restricting things—whether it's gluten, all grains, legumes, seed oils, sugar, FODMAPs, nightshade vegetables, inflammatory foods... the list goes on and on. But what if the answer doesn't lie in what happens when we're eating but in what happens when we're not eating.

When we're not eating, the body goes into supercharged house cleaning mode. The process is called autophagy (self-eating), and has been well documented in medical literature. After a few days of not eating, the body switches from burning incoming carbohydrates (glucose) to burning fat stores for fuel. This sets off hormonal responses that signal the body, telling it "we're in a time of scarcity, so let's get rid of everything non-essential that we're carrying around right now". (I like to picture my gut as the Starship Enterprise.) Non-essentials include the detritus of dead cells, mainly dead organelles, damaged proteins, oxidized particles, damaged DNA. In the gut specifically, the migrating motor complex (MMC), a wave of electrical activity, sweeps through the small intestine like a snake disgorging an egg, pushing undigested food particles and bacteria from the stomach and small intestine to the colon. This constant sweep toward the colon prevents our mucus layer from accumulating too much bacteria.

But the minute we eat, the migrating motor complex, no matter what phase of process it's in, halts in it's tracks. So, when we take the advice of so many dietitians to eat "lots of small meals a day" or if we're night owls, snacking before bed, or if we're insomniacs hoping a comforting bite will make us sleepy, we interrupt the MMC.

What happens when we do this day in and day out? Bad things. Our mucus layer gradually becomes loaded with bacteria—and this leads to leaky gut. Gut bacteria get crowded and push up to places they shouldn't be, like the small intestine—and this leads to SIBO. Endotoxins from dying-off gut bacteria build to such a toxic level that our livers can barely keep up, so the body stores these toxins in the only safe place in the body—our fat stores. Meanwhile, the protective mucus barrier in our gut  becomes so degraded, it starts letting toxins, viruses, bacteria and food particles pass through to the bloodstream. The immune system marks these particles as foreign invaders and creates a wave of inflammation to get rid of them. It also begins making antibodies against them. Some of these particles look very similar in composition to the body’s own cells. For example a protein in wheat looks much like a thyroid cell. The immune system gets confused and starts attacking human tissue. This is why gluten has been implicated in autoimmune thyroid and other autoimmune conditions. This process of mistaken identity is called molecular mimicry, and it may be happening more than we realize.

How many people do you know who've been recently diagnosed with an autoimmune condition? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 23.5 million Americans are now affected by autoimmune conditions. The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) estimates it's closer to 50 million. It was 9 million in 1979.

And after listening to two game-changing podcasts by two different doctors in two very different fields (neither of whom specializes in IBS)—Dr. Thomas Seyfried and Dr. Jason Fung—I expected this fasting might do more than just heal my gut; it could ultimately make me leaner and extend my longevity.

Dr. Seyfried's field is cancer research and Dr. Fung's clinical practice is involved in reversing type 2 diabetes in severely high risk patients. The thing the two have in common? Both utilize a 10,000 year old healing practice: therapeutic fasting, AKA water fasting.

Why Americans Are Fat, Sick, and Growing Sicker

If you've ever tried to lose weight—and who among us hasn't—you're probably familiar with these dieting platitudes: A calorie is a calorie; eat less, move more; and eat many small meals a day. But ask anyone who has struggled with obesity and they'll tell you these concepts haven't worked for them. What is it that we're getting so wrong?

Dr. Jason Fung, MD, a Canadian nephrologist and world-leading expert on intermittent fasting for treating people with type 2 diabetes has a pretty good idea.



The body doesn't know from calories
"The body has no receptors for and doesn't measure calories... it has no way of measuring that.. it has no way of responding to that. The only reason we think that is because it has sort of been ingrained in us. If you put 100 calories of sugar in your mouth versus 100 calories of olive oil, the physiologic response is completely and utterly different... There's no insulin response to the oil, but to a brownie that's the same number of calories, insulin spikes way up. The body responds to hormones. Everything runs on hormones—thyroid, insulin... That's how the body knows what to do."

The body is like a thermostat that responds to hormonal signals
"The body works on a negative feedback loop...a thermostat is a perfect example. If it's winter and it's really cold, the temperature in the house drops to 69 degrees, the thermostat senses that, turns on the heat and brings it back up. That's a perfect example of homeostasis... We have a mechanism in our body that determines how fat we get. If you get too fat, you're not going to survive because you're not going to be able to catch food or somebody's going to eat you. If you get too skinny, you're also not going to survive. The body actually sets a certain set weight, which is defended very vigorously. If you try to lose weight, the body tries to make you gain that weight back. The body makes you hungry, and then it slows down your metabolism. You cut your calories further, the body makes you hungrier and it slows down your metabolic rate even more. It's not about calories; it's about this body set weight.

Eat many small meals a day" is terrible advice
"Every time you eat, you're going to stimulate insulin... you're stimulating it all the time. If you stimulate insulin all the time you get insulin resistant, your fat cells get big, it turns on leptin. If you turn on leptin all the time, you get leptin resistant. Obesity is not a lack of leptin, it's a lack of leptin response. Now your negative feedback loop is completely busted... that body thermostat is getting adjusted up and up and up. So how do you reset that?.. you need to keep your insulin low for a significant amount of time. The way the body works is, when you eat, the body wants to store food energy. If we're eating 10 times a day, we're telling our body to store fat, store fat, store fat. If you want to burn fat, then you have to tell it to start burning fat. Again, it's a hormonal signal, it's not a caloric signal. You've got to let that insulin fall and the body's going to stop burning glycogen and start burning fat.

So how do you lose weight? You stop eating
"It's not about what you eat, it's about the time that you're not eating. If you drop your insulin enough, you switch into burning fat. You're switching fuel sources, and there's no reason for your body to slow down. Say you go on a seven day fast: As your insulin falls you're going to switch from burning food to burning fat. As insulin falls, you get a counter regulatory hormone surge. The body increases sympathetic tone, adrenalin and noradrenalin, cortisol, and growth hormone. Adrenalin pumps up the metabolic rate, growth hormone rebuilds new protein."

Doctor Fung's practice has been successfully reversing type 2 diabetes. That's right, reversing it. His patients are weaned off insulin or medications like Metformin, undergo supervised fasting, and in the process all markers drop—and serious pounds are lost as well. His approach is successful in treating the related conditions fatty liver and metabolic syndrome (MS), as well.

Well, guess what?

IBS Is Linked to Metabolic Syndrome

According to a paper in PLoS One: "Irritable bowel syndrome status may affect the dietary pattern, food digestion, and nutrient absorption, which are important factors for the prevention and treatment of MS and/or its components. Therefore, it is speculated that IBS may be a potential risk factor for MS."

Cancer Is a Metabolic Disease

Dr. Thomas Seyfried of The Boston College posits that cancer is not a genetic disease but a metabolic one, and that therapeutic fasting can prevent it and help treat it. I caught his podcast at SmartDrugSmart:

"Years ago Otto Warburg said the underlying cause of all cancer is insufficient cell respiration, and therefore the cells must ferment. If the cells cannot respire like our normal cells can, in order for the cell to remain alive, it must have an alternative form of energy, which is a primitive form of fermentation—which is a process of energy formation that existed for organisms on the planet before oxygen came into the environment.

"So, our cells have this capacity, but it takes a while to transition from respiration to fermentation. And what happens in cancer is that many aspects of the environment damage the respiration of cells, gradually, not acutely. Or chronically. It gives some of those cells the opportunity to reconfigure fermentation. The cells become fermentative. And all cancer cells are fermentative in one form or another. So then you say what is the fuel for fermentation? And it turns out to be glucose and some amino acids. And [therapeutic fasts] target the glucose and these amino acids—starving out the cancer's natural energy supply.

"What the body does is start to cannibalize. ...It starts to look for cells that are not functioning at their maximum. And those cells are consumed by other cells, macrophages—they're kind of monitors and controllers of the body, and they eliminate inefficient sources of cells. And those cells are digested. Nutrients are then recirculated into the blood stream and these nutrients now go to other cells in the body that have efficient respiration. And in this way the ones that are left are at a higher metabolic rate of efficiency... less prone to become cancerous. Therapeutic fasting (water only) brings the body into that state—and that will prevent cancer.

The population has to come to understand and appreciate what our bodies are capable of doing. Our bodies can heal themselves in many ways, if they're given the opportunity to do that."

Conclusion

When cells can't respirate, they ferment. That word "ferment" has a special resonance for those of us with IBS and SIBO, doesn't it? We're constantly aware of the bacteria in our guts fermenting our undigested fiber. How can we not be? Our bellies blow up like balloons as they do their thing. Could SIBO sufferers be incubating cancer in our gut? That's was reason enough for me to give extended fasting a try. 

And guess what? It worked.

I tapped my body's own self-cleaning mechanism to heal my IBS, SIBO, and autoimmune joint issues using a 10,000 year old healing practice: water fasting. And I'm going to continue to do five-day fasts two or three times a year, letting autophagy do it's thing to naturally clean every cell of my body.

Studies:

Autophagy in the Pathogenesis of Disease
Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy
Autophagy: cellular and molecular mechanisms
A periodic diet that mimics fasting promotes multi-system regeneration, enhanced cognitive performance and healthspan
Fasting Cycles Retard Growth of Tumors and Sensitize a Range of Cancer Cell Types to Chemotherapy.”

More Resources:

https://hackyourgut.com/2017/03/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-fasting-for-gut-health/
https://www.amymyersmd.com/2017/10/leaky-gut-autoimmune-connection/
http://thechalkboardmag.com/what-is-autophagy-intermittent-fasting-process
https://smartdrugsmarts.com/episodes/ketosis-vs-cancer/
http://www.autoimmuneregistry.org/autoimmune-statistics/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4226513/

Day 8 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Monday, Day 8
Weight: 152.4
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: A bit better

I slept through the night—did not even get up to use the bathroom—and woke up at 5:30 feeling very refreshed. I drank down two glasses of warm water, then got ready for work. I drove to the office. Traffic was very good, as this is a week many people took for vacation, given July 4th falling on a wednesday.

I worked steadily through the morning, then took a break and walked at lunchtime in lieu of eating. Then came back and plowed through more editing. My mind is very alert, my body takes a more leisurely pace than I generally do.

My senses are alert as well. I’m noticing smells more—good and bad. I’m noticing the different flavors of water at different locales. For example, the water at the office is far more sweet than our filtered tap water at home.

I’m noticing painful points in my body where I’ve had injuries in the past—knee, foot, shoulder—ache and tingle. I read that the new stem cells being created by this process are focused on healing, and that makes me want to continue this fast longer.

I’m not sure yet where I’ll end it. I thought I’d let my body tell me. At first I was going to do a week, now I’m on week 2 and thought I’d do 10 days, now I’m leaning toward 14.

I notice I had no weight loss today, and that’s fine. Weight loss is a nice side effect, but I’m doing this to heal my intestinal mucosa (my leaky gut). There haven’t been a lot of grumblings from the gut. Some gas, which I find curious. If there’s no food, how is gas forming. I googled it and it turns out many people swallow air when sipping. I noticed that I do this. I’m trying to stop that.

I think about how I’ll end the fast. I’ve read up and many of the prescriptions are vegan and fruit-based. I don’t want to raise insulin. Remember, I was approaching prediabetic A1C and fasting glucose and that’s another health hazard I hope to reverse.

I’m going to have beef bone broth (no onions) that I prepared last night, some braised spinach, and an avocado with ACV and salt. I’m looking forward to this, but not craving it at all. It’s an interesting feeling.

I watched the videos of Dr. Jason Fung last night. I think hormones vs. calories is the most succinct. He says something that stays with me. He regularly sees the worst diabetes cases. His patients are often 350 pounds or more and taking max doses of insulin when they start. After they lose all that fat, he says there’s no need for the type of skin surgery that you see with bariatric operations. The body eats the fat proportionally. How wise the body! I’ve lost 10 pounds, most noticable in my face and collar bone I think, and there’s no sagging chin, which I’m pleased to see. I hope when we get to my stomach and thighs the same holds true. ;-)

Day 7 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Sunday, Day 7
Weight: 152.4
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: Yes

I slept quite well, despite my trouble getting to sleep, and woke around 4:30. I wanted to try to eke just a bit more sleep out, so I calmed my mind and did some deep breathing and it worked. I woke again at 6:00 and got up to make a cup of hot water. After drinking water the back pain returned. I read several articles on this topic and the theories are:

Toxins in the digestive tract: The body rids toxins through the liver generally, but when there is more than the liver can handle, it stores toxins in body fat. Water fasting causes the body to use these stores of fat and the toxins are still there. In addition, I didn’t do any kind of cleanse before starting this, so there could still have been toxins in my gut. Very likely, as I have IBS, leaky gut, and have had SIBO (and quite likely still do, hence the belly bloat.) Though I’ve lost 10 pounds so far on this fast, I still have the belly of a four months pregnant woman. Are there still bacteria surviving in there?

The pain grew so bad I started googling massage near me, but I wasn’t sure I could stand the walk in today’s 90 degree heat. DH said he’d happily give me a massage. I prepared a mix of coconut oil with a few drops of tea tree oil and that was our massage oil. The massage felt heavenly, especially on my lower back, and when he finished all of the pain was gone. Amazing!

As I was all oily, I decided to do a dry brush, which I had also read releases toxins. I didn’t actually have a brush but I used a rough washcloth and brushed my whole body until the oils had been absorbed. As I type this, I’m feeling rather well.

I would very much like to do at least 3 more days because the longer I do, the more likely my gut lining will have a rest, then I can reseed it with whole foods and good bacteria. However, I have to work tomorrow and I have an hours drive and I’m not sure I can make it.

This makes me terribly sad, as I’m at a point where I feel absolutely zero hunger. I feel I could go on quite a while and I read that these toxins causing the backache will disappear and I think that would be an important sign that I’m cleansing my gut lining. I’d hate to stop now and not cured my IBS.

If I’m going to break this fast, I have to do it tonight with foods I’ve already planned. Very light fare of bone broth, carrots, and spinach. That’s it. Tomorrow night I’ll have the same, plus some chicken. The next night I’ll have the same plus some blueberries and kefir. So, 24 hour fasts.

All three nights I’ll have some kimchi and probiotics at mealtime.

So, I need to weigh all this today and decide if tonight is the night. Another option is that I could take a sick day. If I had had to work yesterday or today I’d have definitely had to take sick days, what with the nausea, lightheadedness and back pain. This would get me to Tuesday, when I work in the city, a subway ride away. I think I can handle a subway ride. Wednesday we are off work for the July 4th holiday. That would be day 10. I’d like to break my fast on day 10, unless my body gives me the signal to break it sooner.

Day 6 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Saturday, Day 6
Weight: 153.6
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: Yes

Today was challenging. I woke up feeling well and padded into the kitchen to make a cup of diluted coffee. But somehow coffee just didn’t appeal to me. Too harsh. So had a cup of warm water instead and sat on our sofa and watched the sun rise. About an hour later I convinced myself that I should have just a tiny bit of coffee, to avoid the slight headache I had all day yesterday. Nothing terrible, just a heavy feeling in my head. We had a busy day ahead and I didn’t want to go through it with a headache.

We had to go to visit a family member in the hospital and it would be about an hour and a half each way in the car. I packed a bottle of water and my Kindle and a sweater - hospitals are always too cold. While waiting for DH to get a haircut I downed some mineral water while listening to podcasts about fasting. I started to get a terrible back ache, radiating from my lower back. I tried sitting, standing, stretching, and nothing helped. While doing all that activity, I started feeling lightheaded and nauteaous, so I strained a cup of broth and drank it. That helped balance the electrolytes and I felt fit to travel. But in the car, the backache felt much worse and I couldn’t find a comfortable position. I distracted myself by listening to podcasts. We visited with relatives and even sat in the hospital cafe. I had an herbal tea and wasn’t at all bothered by the people eating around me. On the way home my back was somewhat better and I thought it was because we had walked the grounds of the hospital quite a bit and also I had released some gas. Maybe the backache was gas? My mineral water has a great balance of magnesium, sodium, and phosphate, but it does have bubbles. I’m going to start opening all the bottles ahead of time so they’ll lose their bubbles.

At night I had trouble getting to sleep because of the backache. I tried a hot bath and it felt better while I was in the water, but the minute I got out of the water it came back. I tried an ice back and that helped a bit. I googled tips for back pain while fasting and someone mentioned ETD (tapping). This clears the meridians in the body. I didn’t want to wake DH so I did it silently and it did seem to help. I finally found a position on my side with the ice pack on my back and was able to fall asleep.

Day 5 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Friday, Day 5
Weight: 155.8
Sleep: No
BM: Yes
Belly bloat: Yes

I didn’t sleep through the night again. I seem to be on an every other day pattern. I woke around 2:00, took another bath, then read for an hour. I was able to fall asleep again this time and slept until the alarm went at 6:00, but I felt very shaky. Experienced toe cramps, which I sprayed with magnesium spray and they stopped. Also had that same strong cramping in my ileocecal valve that I experienced the other day. Was it a sign of another BM on its way? I knew that coffee would likely bring one on, but it did not appeal at all today so, listening to my body, I drank green tea instead. I felt a bit better after that, though very weak and lightheaded. Luckily I’m working at home today so I was able to rest until the start of my work day and didn’t have to deal with walking to the subway station. I started to feel nausea, which is not a good sign, so I unfroze some homemade soup that I have in the freezer and strained out the broth, added a tsp of Redmond salt, and drank it down, then sat down at my computer to work. About 20 minutes later I realized I was starting to feel much much better. The soup was fatty, so I decided to take some liquid vitamin D3 and threw in a dropper of B complex for good measure. An hour later I was feeling my old energy return. I was able to work steadily through the morning, editing quickly and with clarity as I continued to sip green tea.

There seems to be a pattern here with my sleep. I believe it’s motility that’s waking me nights, along with cramping in my ileocecal valve, which connects the small and large intestine and controls the flow. Perhaps the problems I’ve had for the past two years with sleep are due to this. If this fast repairs that, it could help reverse my IBS. This is very motivating and I feel a renewed determination to continue this fast.

Day 4 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Thursday, Day 4
Weight:157.6
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: No

I woke up feeling great. I had a cup of diluted black coffee and dressed for work. Today my work took me to our head office where I oversee the digital editorial team. I had to drive in pouring rain, but it didn't dampen my mood. I was feeling calm and clear and enjoyed listening to NPR.

I drank a high-mineral water (Gerolsteiner) throughout the day and had several cups of the various herbal teas available at the office, and appreciated the variety. It's amazing how in tune I am now to subtle tastes.

I had some challenging meetings but they all went well. I felt remarkably free of the anxiety I sometimes feel during meetings where there will be conflicting opinions. I worked through lunchtime and left at 6. I was hungry on the drive home, but kept sipping water.

When I got home I was feeling weak and hungry so I heated a cup of broth. This was a store-bought “bone broth,” as I’m out of homemade and need to batch cook tomorrow. (it was disgusting and I only drank a few sips, which is saying a lot for someone who is fasting.) I turned in early, but worked at my fast diary on tablet, finally turning out the lights after a hot bath around 11.

Day 3 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Wednesday, Day 3
Weight: 159.2
Sleep: Yes
BM: Yes
Belly bloat: Yes

They say day 3 is the worst, and mine wasn't a cake walk.

I woke up at 2:30 am and could not get back to sleep. I took a hot epsom bath and tried again. It was no use, I was up. I didn't want to disturb DH so I went into the livingroom to read for a while. Around 4:00 I made a cup of coffee and read a bit more, I had a sudden pain in my lower right abdomen, right above the hip bone. This is my ileocecal valve opening, I thought. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later I was heading for the bathroom. I hadn't expected to have BMs when I wasn't eating. I wish I could say that it was a totally normal BM and I was suddenly cured of IBS, but it was grape clusters if you know what I mean, with signs of poor fat digestion and a too-light color.

I read some more until it was time to get dressed for work. I felt like crap, and the dark circles under my eyes required major concealer work.

At the office work was steady. I was free at lunchtime and not eating so I took a yoga class. This time it was very challenging; my legs were visibly shaking during tree pose. I was hungry when I got back from lunch so I had a cup of bone broth and got to work. Worked steadily until 6:00, then headed home. I read in the bedroom with the door closed and the air purifier turned on, while DH cooked and ate dinner without me. I was so tired, I fell asleep before he even turned in. I slept straight through until morning.

Day 2 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Tuesday, Day 2
Weight: 161.7
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: Yes

I slept well and woke up feeling relatively refreshed. I drank a cup of diluted black coffee, and got dressed for work. My pants zipped a bit more easily already. I hopped on the scale and saw I was down two pounds. I like to think it was SIBO belly bloat shrinking, but no, the SIBO belly was still there. It’s just water weight.

I was a bit hungrier throughout this day, but I tamped it down with sips of water. It helped that work was crazy busy. When I got home I did the hot bath ritual, but this time it didn't soothe my hunger, so I defrosted a cup of beef bone broth that I keep in the freezer, and was it delicious!

It was just what I needed. I worked on the blog for a time at the computer, then headed for bed, where I read more about fasting and especially about how to end a fast in a gut-friendly way. DH was at the gym, so there were no cooking smells to make me hungry. I went to bed early, before he even got home, but I didn't sleep through the night.

Day 1 of Water Fasting to Cure My IBS + SIBO

Monday, Day 1
Weight: 163.4
Sleep: Yes
BM: No
Belly bloat: Yes

Most naturopaths recommend that you not work while fasting. The idea is that the body is in a healing process, and you want to give all your energy to that.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to this principle in my reading before I started day 1, and even if I had, I don't have several weeks vacation that I can use for this. I have no choice but to work. My work is more mentally demanding than physical, so I hope this will be alright.

I may have overdone it physically today. I still took yoga class, walked the long way to and from the subway station, and took the stairs for everything. The day went by quickly. I was very busy at work with not a lot of time to dwell on hunger. If I was hungry, I didn’t notice. I drank a lot of water and green tea, and I made it through the day with relative ease.

When I got home at night, I took a relaxing bath with Epsom salts, caught up on the phone with various friends and family members, and read a few chapters of a good book, relaxing in the bedroom with the door closed and the air purifier turned up, while DH cooked and ate dinner without me.

My 10-Day Water Fast to Cure IBS + SIBO

I'm about to embark on something many people will find controversial. For the next 10 days I'm going to subsist on only water. I'm going to eat nothing and drink only water, tea, and one cup of diluted coffee (more and more diluted each morning until I'm having hot water). I'll also stop taking all of my vitamins and supplements, except for key electrolytes like calcium, magnesium, and sodium.

I'm doing this because I believe it will heal my gut permeability. In a 2006 study in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 58 patients with IBS were divided into two groups. One was given prescription meds and psychotherapy to reduce IBS symptoms. The other group fasted for 10 days, drinking only water. After 10 days was up, the fasting group did better. Fasting was found to significantly improve 7 of 10 symptoms assessed, including abdominal pain-discomfort, abdominal distention (bloating), diarrhea, anorexia, nausea, anxiety, and interference with life. Among the group treated with drugs and psychotherapy only 3 symptoms improved: abdominal pain-discomfort, abdominal distention, and interference with life.

If giving up food for 10 days would restore your gut health, would you do it? When I think about the many ways having IBS impacts my life, beyond all the foods I can't eat—how it's sparked other disease in my body, like insomnia, the autoimmune condition that's attacking my joints, increasing A1C and fasting glucose levels. How I have to cook every single thing I eat myself and making a grocery list is fraught with tension. How traveling is no longer pleasurable. How bathroom habits make me late for work sometimes. How belly fat keeps accumulating and the food belly is a permanent fixture now... I think this is worth a try.

Fasting is not a new concept:

It is estimated that fasting for the alleviation of human suffering has been practiced uninterruptedly for 10,000 years.—Dr. Herbert Shelton, MD

The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick, is to feed your sickness.—Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)

Instead of using medicine, rather, fast a day.—Plutarch (45 AD - 127 AD)

Fasting Cleans the Gut

We who have IBS and other digestive conditions spend a whole lot of time (and money) focused on what we eat. We are all of us restricting things—whether it's gluten, all grains, legumes, seed oils, sugar, FODMAPs, nightshade vegetables, inflammatory foods... the list goes on and on. But what if the answer doesn't lie in what happens when we're eating but in what happens when we're not eating.

When we're not eating, the body goes into supercharged house cleaning mode. The process is called autophagy (self-eating), and has been well documented in medical literature. After a few days of not eating, the body switches from burning incoming carbohydrates (glucose) to burning fat stores for fuel. This sets off hormonal responses that signal the body, telling it "we're in a time of scarcity, so let's get rid of everything non-essential that we're carrying around right now". (I like to picture my gut as the Starship Enterprise.) Non-essentials include the detritus of dead cells, mainly dead organelles, damaged proteins, oxidized particles, damaged DNA. In the gut specifically, the migrating motor complex (MMC), a wave of electrical activity, sweeps through the small intestine like a snake disgorging an egg, pushing undigested food particles and bacteria from the stomach and small intestine to the colon. This constant sweep toward the colon prevents our mucus layer from accumulating too much bacteria.

But the minute we eat, the migrating motor complex, no matter what phase of process it's in, halts in it's tracks. So, when we take the advice of so many dietitians to eat "lots of small meals a day" or if we're night owls, snacking before bed, or if we're insomniacs hoping a comforting bite will make us sleepy, we interrupt the MMC.

What happens when we do this day in and day out? Bad things. Our mucus layer gradually becomes loaded with bacteria—and this leads to leaky gut. Gut bacteria get crowded and push up to places they shouldn't be, like the small intestine—and this leads to SIBO. Endotoxins from dying-off gut bacteria build to such a toxic level that our livers can barely keep up, so the body stores these toxins in the only safe place in the body—our fat stores. Meanwhile, the protective mucus barrier in our gut  becomes so degraded, it starts letting toxins, viruses, bacteria and food particles pass through to the bloodstream. The immune system marks these particles as foreign invaders and creates a wave of inflammation to get rid of them. It also begins making antibodies against them. Some of these particles look very similar in composition to the body’s own cells. For example a protein in wheat looks much like a thyroid cell. The immune system gets confused and starts attacking human tissue. This is why gluten has been implicated in autoimmune thyroid and other autoimmune conditions. This process of mistaken identity is called molecular mimicry, and it may be happening more than we realize.

How many people do you know who've been recently diagnosed with an autoimmune condition? The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that 23.5 million Americans are now affected by autoimmune conditions. The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) estimates it's closer to 50 million. It was 9 million in 1979.

I think fasting is going to be the answer I've been looking for, and I believe it's going to heal much more than just my gut, after having listened to two game-changing podcasts by two different doctors in two very different fields (neither of whom specializes in IBS): Dr. Thomas Seyfried and Dr. Jason Fung.

Dr. Seyfried's field is cancer research and Dr. Fung's clinical practice is involved in reversing type 2 diabetes in severely high risk patients. The thing the two have in common? Both utilize a 10,000 year old healing practice: therapeutic fasting, AKA water fasting.

Why Americans Are Fat, Sick, and Growing Sicker

If you've ever tried to lose weight—and who among us hasn't—you're probably familiar with these dieting platitudes: A calorie is a calorie; eat less, move more; and eat many small meals a day. But ask anyone who has struggled with obesity and they'll tell you these concepts haven't worked for them. What is it that we're getting so wrong?

Dr. Jason Fung, MD, a Canadian nephrologist and world-leading expert on intermittent fasting for treating people with type 2 diabetes has a pretty good idea.



The body doesn't know from calories
"The body has no receptors for and doesn't measure calories... it has no way of measuring that.. it has no way of responding to that. The only reason we think that is because it has sort of been ingrained in us. If you put 100 calories of sugar in your mouth versus 100 calories of olive oil, the physiologic response is completely and utterly different... There's no insulin response to the oil, but to a brownie that's the same number of calories, insulin spikes way up. The body responds to hormones. Everything runs on hormones—thyroid, insulin... That's how the body knows what to do."

The body is like a thermostat that responds to hormonal signals
"The body works on a negative feedback loop...a thermostat is a perfect example. If it's winter and it's really cold, the temperature in the house drops to 69 degrees, the thermostat senses that, turns on the heat and brings it back up. That's a perfect example of homeostasis... We have a mechanism in our body that determines how fat we get. If you get too fat, you're not going to survive because you're not going to be able to catch food or somebody's going to eat you. If you get too skinny, you're also not going to survive. The body actually sets a certain set weight, which is defended very vigorously. If you try to lose weight, the body tries to make you gain that weight back. The body makes you hungry, and then it slows down your metabolism. You cut your calories further, the body makes you hungrier and it slows down your metabolic rate even more. It's not about calories; it's about this body set weight.

Eat many small meals a day" is terrible advice
"Every time you eat, you're going to stimulate insulin... you're stimulating it all the time. If you stimulate insulin all the time you get insulin resistant, your fat cells get big, it turns on leptin. If you turn on leptin all the time, you get leptin resistant. Obesity is not a lack of leptin, it's a lack of leptin response. Now your negative feedback loop is completely busted... that body thermostat is getting adjusted up and up and up. So how do you reset that?.. you need to keep your insulin low for a significant amount of time. The way the body works is, when you eat, the body wants to store food energy. If we're eating 10 times a day, we're telling our body to store fat, store fat, store fat. If you want to burn fat, then you have to tell it to start burning fat. Again, it's a hormonal signal, it's not a caloric signal. You've got to let that insulin fall and the body's going to stop burning glycogen and start burning fat.

So how do you lose weight? You stop eating
"It's not about what you eat, it's about the time that you're not eating. If you drop your insulin enough, you switch into burning fat. You're switching fuel sources, and there's no reason for your body to slow down. Say you go on a seven day fast: As your insulin falls you're going to switch from burning food to burning fat. As insulin falls, you get a counter regulatory hormone surge. The body increases sympathetic tone, adrenalin and noradrenalin, cortisol, and growth hormone. Adrenalin pumps up the metabolic rate, growth hormone rebuilds new protein."

Doctor Fung's practice has been successfully reversing type 2 diabetes. That's right, reversing it. His patients are weaned off insulin or medications like Metformin, undergo supervised fasting, and in the process all markers drop—and serious pounds are lost as well. His approach is successful in treating the related conditions fatty liver and metabolic syndrome (MS), as well.

Well, guess what?

IBS Is Linked to Metabolic Syndrome

According to a paper in PLoS One: "Irritable bowel syndrome status may affect the dietary pattern, food digestion, and nutrient absorption, which are important factors for the prevention and treatment of MS and/or its components. Therefore, it is speculated that IBS may be a potential risk factor for MS."

Cancer Is a Metabolic Disease

Dr. Thomas Seyfried of The Boston College posits that cancer is not a genetic disease but a metabolic one, and that therapeutic fasting can prevent it and help treat it. I caught his podcast at SmartDrugSmart:

"Years ago Otto Warburg said the underlying cause of all cancer is insufficient cell respiration, and therefore the cells must ferment. If the cells cannot respire like our normal cells can, in order for the cell to remain alive, it must have an alternative form of energy, which is a primitive form of fermentation—which is a process of energy formation that existed for organisms on the planet before oxygen came into the environment.

"So, our cells have this capacity, but it takes a while to transition from respiration to fermentation. And what happens in cancer is that many aspects of the environment damage the respiration of cells, gradually, not acutely. Or chronically. It gives some of those cells the opportunity to reconfigure fermentation. The cells become fermentative. And all cancer cells are fermentative in one form or another. So then you say what is the fuel for fermentation? And it turns out to be glucose and some amino acids. And [therapeutic fasts] target the glucose and these amino acids—starving out the cancer's natural energy supply.

"What the body does is start to cannibalize. ...It starts to look for cells that are not functioning at their maximum. And those cells are consumed by other cells, macrophages—they're kind of monitors and controllers of the body, and they eliminate inefficient sources of cells. And those cells are digested. Nutrients are then recirculated into the blood stream and these nutrients now go to other cells in the body that have efficient respiration. And in this way the ones that are left are at a higher metabolic rate of efficiency... less prone to become cancerous. Therapeutic fasting (water only) brings the body into that state—and that will prevent cancer.

The population has to come to understand and appreciate what our bodies are capable of doing. Our bodies can heal themselves in many ways, if they're given the opportunity to do that."

Conclusion

When cells can't respirate, they ferment. That word "ferment" has a special resonance for those of us with IBS and SIBO, doesn't it? We're constantly aware of the bacteria in our guts fermenting our undigested fiber. How can we not be? Our bellies blow up like balloons as they do their thing. Could we be incubating cancer in our gut? It's to nip this in the bud.

I'm going to tap my body's own self-cleaning mechanism to heal my IBS, SIBO, and autoimmune joint issues using a 10,000 year old healing practice: water fasting.

Studies:

Autophagy in the Pathogenesis of Disease
Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy
Autophagy: cellular and molecular mechanisms
A periodic diet that mimics fasting promotes multi-system regeneration, enhanced cognitive performance and healthspan
Fasting Cycles Retard Growth of Tumors and Sensitize a Range of Cancer Cell Types to Chemotherapy.”

More Resources:

https://hackyourgut.com/2017/03/06/the-ultimate-guide-to-fasting-for-gut-health/
https://www.amymyersmd.com/2017/10/leaky-gut-autoimmune-connection/
http://thechalkboardmag.com/what-is-autophagy-intermittent-fasting-process
https://smartdrugsmarts.com/episodes/ketosis-vs-cancer/
http://www.autoimmuneregistry.org/autoimmune-statistics/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4226513/

Auto Immune Conditions

It's been over a year since I started blogging about my gut condition. Have I cured my case of SIBO-C, you may be wondering? For those of you with IBS-C, the "constipation" form of IBS, would you consider a daily bowel movement a victory?

Then maybe I've accomplished something worth sharing. Will the details of what helped me help you? I don't know. I'll leave that for you to decide. My own personal health journey has made me a believer in epigenetics. That health conditions — and their cures — are personalized right down to a person's DNA, gene activation, birth condition, diet, gut bugs, lifestyle, age, gender, and a hundred other somethings. But I'll lay it out, my triumphs and failures, here — in case there's something in my story that will help any one of you with your own struggle.

To reverse constipation I added: diet, herbals, and supplements. It helped, but it didn't produce daily BM. So I added some lifestyle changes. They helped a great deal, but BMs were still not consistent. Knowing how important it is for me to eliminate toxins, I started taking a few swigs of liquid magnesium citrate any day that I didn't have a bowel movement. This worked like a charm. So, eventually I switched to one 250 mg supplement pill, taken twice a day. (A dose my doctor says would give an ordinary person diarrhea.) It wasn't until I cured my sleep problem, though, that everything fell into step. Now I'm down to 250 mg magnesium daily (a normal dose).

How did I cure my sleep problem? At first, I did all the things. I ate clean, stopped eating after 8pm, tried melatonin, got early morning sunlight and did daily walking, limited blue light at night by wearing the weird yellow glasses, left my phone in the other room, bought new pillows and layered the bedding for cool comfort, adjusted the temperature in the room, bought an IQair filter. All of this was good, but I still had interrupted sleep.

I didn't turn the curve completely until I balanced dietary fats. Was it this alone? Or was it this in combination with all the other things? I have since let some of the other things slip — daily walking, yellow glasses, yet I'm still sleeping well most nights. Something about the omega-3s has staying power.

Though I follow a Paleo-ish grain-free diet and cook with ghee, olive oil, and coconut oil, my balance of omega-3s wasn't optimal. My DH doesn't eat red meat, so we eat a lot of pastured chicken, especially in homemade soups from chicken bone broth that I make every weekend and freeze. I do get some grassfed beef. Once every few weeks I make a beef bone broth and freeze it to dole out for myself, for variety. And I try to eat a 1/4 lb of beef liverwurst a week from U.S. Wellness Meats, made with grassfed beef and without sugar, chemicals, and preservatives.

So, what changed? I added an apple a day to my lunch. I added a salad a day to my dinner. I added four servings of salmon a week on the recommendation of a rheumatologist whom I saw for my weird joint issue (more on that shortly). I also added a teaspoon of cod liver oil first thing in the morning. And fish oil capsules with meals. The idea was to quickly bring into balance my omega-3s vs. omega 6s—and all this did the trick.

I've had excellent cholesterol my entire adult life (after reading Jaminet, I think it's on the suspiciously low side, always below 200 and even hovering around 150 at times). I have stellar triglycerides and blood pressure as well. My docs regularly congratulate me on these things, especially my lipids and BP, though none of this means a damned thing to me — because I am deeply troubled by the nodules growing on my hands and feet.

My primary says it's Dupuytren's contracture. They call Dups the Viking Curse, meaning all us with Scandinavian, Celtic Isle, Eastern European heritage supposedly got this gene from maurauding.... whatever. Dupuytren's contracture, a condition so insignificant to the drug companies who fund all the studies that it's not likely to see any new research any time soon is a so-called "benign" condition, and so slow growing that we're all likely to die of natural causes before there's a cure.

But I'll tell you this. For all the literature that calls it "benign," it's painful and it's disfiguring, and it is a daily reminder that my body is out of whack.

What causes it?

Much like my other diagnoses — IBS and Fibromyalgia — when it comes to the cause of Dupuytren's, they don't know.  All they have to offer is that it's "associated" with alcohol consumption and with diabetes.

Do you drink too much? they ask. I used to enjoy my wine. I'd have two glasses of wine with dinner most nights and when socializing on weekends. So I cut that way back to a treat on the weekends, and finally now I've cut it out altogether. But the nodules are still growing. The one on the underside of my pinkie finger is new this year. It feels like a tight little tumor that hardens and softens with seemingly no reason. The rheumatologist believes this one is in response to injury. This finger is particularly stressed by computer work, using a mouse—which I can't avoid in my job. Overactive fibroblasts zoom in, encouraging deranged collagen growth. My primary doc has little to offer, other than a referral to a physical therapist to learn hand massage techniques to keep the hands supple. The rheumy added the omega-3s to my diet. What else do the docs have to say?

Dups is also associated with metabolic syndrome and diabetes, says my primary. Do I have either in my family? Could I be a candidate?

Well, I wasn't when I first came to you, Doc, but despite six years on a grain-free whole foods diet without sugar or chemicals, my A1C and fasting glucose are rising every year, as we can see from my annual blood work ups. I'm now hovering on the boarder of "pre" and pretty soon I'll be in the neighborhood of numbers that might require actual prescription intervention. I can already see in my minds eye all my docs convening with the meds. Another victim of "diabesity."

Anyhow, getting back to SIBO. Did I cure it? I don't know. The bloating belly is still there and my weight has not returned to normal, but constipation has been reversed and I have daily BMs. My docs are calling this a success. Let's take stock:

I do feel much better, though I chalk that up to the fact that I'm sleeping again.

My career is back on track — fatigue has been beaten back to the degree that I'm able to work a full-time office job in my chosen field of work. Bueno!

Pain is way diminished. The fibromyalgia appears to be in some sort of a remission. I wake up with a few aches and pains, but nothing like I used to. I take the train to work with my laptop in my backpack, walk 20 blocks to the subway station and back, and I climb the stairs in the station instead of taking escalators. I'm able to keep up in my yoga classes. This all feels like a kind of victory.

My B12 levels are up, almost at peak and D3 is steadily climbing. This has mitigated the neuropathy — tingling and numbness in hands and feet.

But am I cured of IBS-C just because I have a daily BM? I see food particles in my stool that tell me I'm not digesting properly. I see signs of poor fat digestion. I see mucus. I feel certain I'll never be healthy until I close the tight junctures in my leaky gut, and I certainly won't be happy with my body again until I get rid of this spare tire and stop these nodules from crippling me.

Are the nodules related to my gradually rising A1C, fasting blood sugars, body weight? Could deranged hormonal activity be the root cause of my gut motility issues, gut lining permeability? Could lowering A1C, blood sugars, body weight halt the overactive fibroblast activity of Dupuyten's? Could it reverse nodule growth?

I'm about to find out. In a few days I'm going to be trying something radical—a water fast. Check back soon and I'll let you know how it's going.

To Reverse SIBO-C, Tackle Constipation and Insomnia

It's been some time since my last post. I've been synthesizing a lot of new-to-me areas of research and theory, hoping to figure out what caused my SIBO-C. Lately, I'm immersed in biotoxin, mycotoxin, and mycoplasma research. This may be where some of you will part ways; I understand. At first glance, I dismissed mold as just too "out there." Others of you will recognize similarities with your own illness and have an ah-ha moment. I'm convinced now that SIBO is not a diagnosis, but a symptom of a larger systemic condition, and the root cause of it is not the same for all of us.

My own condition involves connective tissue dysfunction, including multiple soft-tissue injuries and fibrosis as a hyperactive (perhaps auto-immune) response to these injuries, all of which I'll detail in an upcoming post. And, it's seeming likely, mycoplasma infection. I'll know more about the latter in a few months, after I see an expensive specialist whose protocol will likely not be covered by insurance. Sound familiar? Despite all this, I remain optimistic, because this ship has finally started to turn around for me, and I'm feeling much better after managing to reverse constipation and insomnia.

Let's take stock. I'm feeling good — far better than I was at my worst, which was around 2012-2013. I have vivid memories of shuffling around the house painfully from the time I got out of bed in the morning until I dropped back into bed at the first available opportunity each day. I count myself fortunate that during those worst days my profession (writer and editor) allowed me to work from home. If I'd had a more physical job and not had the support of my spouse, I'd have been on disability. My heart goes out to the many who find themselves in that situation, with financial worry compounding daily pain and fatigue and the frustration of doctors who just have no answers.

It's a year next month that I'm back working in an office job, and feeling almost pain-free. I voluntarily take the stairs at the train station during my morning commute, to linger on the daily reminder of my progress. Not that I count myself cured by any means, and I'll get to that. But gone are:

• Morning stiffness
• Painful joints
• Aching muscles
• Insomnia
• Constipation
• Depression
• Anxiety

To what do I owe the turnaround? 

Following The Perfect Health Diet (Jaminet) helped restore nutritional deficiencies. Eating clean, organic, grass-fed, pastured, and wild meats, eggs, and fish; sugar-free, grain-free (except some rice), dairy-free, legume-free, seed-oil free, additive-free has set the stage for healing. Between this and fixing circadian disruption (sleep, glorious sleep), I'm starting to feel my old energy return in fits and starts. 

It's difficult to say what came first or helped most, as it all feels very interconnected, but here's what I believe is happening: 

• Clean eating, daily bone broth, and an 8-hour eating window (intermittent fasting) are improving gut permeability and absorption. Vitamin B12 and D3 deficiencies have been corrected, per test results a week ago, and that stopped the symptoms of neuropathy, characterized by numbness and tingling in hands and feet.
• Supplements of Vitamin K and Iodine are supporting natural immunity.
• Daily Magnesium supplementation, double doses when necessary, were the first tool in the arsenal to take control of constipation and ensure a daily BM — important, because we have to rid our body of nerve damaging endotoxins given off by the bacteria that are colonizing our gut.
• Clearing up dental biofilms: After reading about how infections lurk in biofilms, I started using a dental irrigator (Waterpik) and cleaning my teeth and mouth with baking soda with a few drops of hydrogen peroxide in the water. I also increased professional teeth cleanings to every three months. The improvements in sleep were almost immediate! 
• The addition of a morning dose of cod liver oil, servings of wild Alaskan salmon four times a week, a nightly probiotic, improved joint pain and started to help constipation so that double doses of magnesium were no longer need to ensure a BM, even if it was still a 2 or 3 on the Bristol chart. 
• It was the twice daily Berberine supplements that took BMs to a new level, now almost too soft at a 5 or 6 on the Bristol chart. (I'm not complaining.)
• The turnaround in constipation and insomnia lifted happened simultaneously. I'm sleeping through the night most nights, and this is what's brought back my old energy, at least in the mornings. (I still tire early, after dinner. And there may be a blood sugar component there, which I'm exploring.)

What continues to plague me:

• Nodules growing (fast) in my hands and feet
• Foot cramps at night
• Brain fog
• Poor word recall (not good for someone who makes a living writing and editing!)
• Ringing in the ears
• Song lyrics stuck in my head, sometimes for days
• Weight gain, despite eating only twice a day on a restricted diet
• Soft tissue injuries (a second case of frozen shoulder, now the other side)
• Intermittent fatigue
• High fasting blood sugar

The first has been diagnosed as Dupuytren's contracture, but I'm not convinced that's not just another know-nothing diagnosis. Dr. Ricky Shoemaker, foremost specialist on mold illnesses, reports 60% of his patients with biotoxin illness have "claw hands" and feet. Patients who've been on his protocol describe the lumps in hands and feet shrinking after they eliminate mycotoxins from recirculating bile with binders and cleanse the liver. I never hear about anything shrinking fibromas in the Dupuytren's forums.

The neurologic effects might also be symptoms of mold illness — and in fact I failed the visual contrast sensitivity screening test that is a first-line diagnostic screen.

What's up next for me? I have an appointment with a doctor in the NYC area who is an MD who also practices eastern medicine and for mold patients, follows the Shoemaker protocol.

Mold illness is a deep and complex topic. If you've ever lived in a water damaged building (as I have) and would like to hear more about how mold organisms infect the body and wreak havoc on the endocrine system and disrupt metabolites, stay tuned for future posts.

What I'm reading now:

• What Is Biotoxin Illness
• Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome - Surviving Mold
• Biofilms, Herxheimer Reactions, and Tissue Remodeling
• More on the Relationship Between Inflammation, Pain, and Fibrosis

Could Low Stomach Acid Be the Cause of Your SIBO?

It's taken me a long time to arrive at low stomach acid as a potential problem for me, because I've never had the classic complaints — heartburn or acid reflux. However, there are other symptoms that are not as readily discussed and these include bloating, slow digestive transit time, occasional belching, light-colored stools, and undigested food in stool.

I'm happy to pounce on this latest aspect of the digestive process that can go wrong, yet it irks me to learn that this may be the cause all along of my SIBO, but no doctor has ever even discussed it as a possible cause, even though it is so very common and so easily (and inexpensively) remedied.

When a person isn't producing sufficient stomach acids, a cascade of bad events is set off:

1. Food lies longer in the stomach, while the body waits to achieve proper pH level, which it never does. Without proper breakdown of food, nutrients cannot be extracted. The resulting malnutrition causes a host of symptoms that mimic serious health conditions. For example, lack of vitamin b12 alone can cause severe joint pain, numbness and burning in your hands and feet. Severe B12 deficiency can lead to depression, anxiety, paranoia, delusions, memory loss, loss of taste and smell, and more.

2. At the same time, low stomach acid creates the perfect environment for the overgrowth of bad microorganisms, which feed off the undigested carbohydrates that are fermenting. As part of their own digestive process, these bad bugs give off gas (this is what's being measured and detected in the SIBO breath test) plus they spew endotoxins into your bloodstream, eventually causing inflammation that can lead to various types of disease. Very commonly, the liver working overtime to remove the toxins becomes damaged over time leading to a condition known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which destroys the metabolism and the balance of insulin and other hormones and throws your body into fat-storage mode.

Pressure builds (there's that all-too familiar bloating) and two important valves of the digestive system malfunction.

3. The lower esophageal sphincter (LES) at the top of the stomach has only one option and that is to open the wrong way, releasing up into the esophagus and causing symptoms of heartburn and acid reflux. The tissues lining the esophagus can't handle this burn of stomach acid. Frequent opening of the LES in this way will eventually weaken the valve. So, while removing known food allergens is a good idea, the underlying valve dysfunction must be reversed or it will lead to additional food sensitivities and allergies.

4. Meanwhile, another valve at the bottom of the stomach called the pyloric sphincter is waiting, waiting, waiting for the proper PH to build up. Due to low stomach acid, it never does. After a while, pressure forces the stomach to move partially digested food (chyme) through the pyloric sphincter into the small intestine, but because it's not at the proper pH, the chyme doesn't trigger the release of sodium bicarbonate or pancreatic enzymes. The small intestine is unable to break down the chyme and large, undigested particles irritate the lining of the small intestine, eventually causing it to become permeable, allowing undigested food particles to enter the bloodstream. The body’s immune response system sees large proteins, such as casein and gluten, as foreign invaders and triggers an immune response. Thus begins the vicious circle of food sensitivities, inflammation, and autoimmune response known as leaky gut syndrome.

How Do You Know If You Have Low Stomach Acid

According to SCD Lifestyle, there is an easy test you can try at home by taking an inexpensive supplement called Betaine HCL with Pepsin. I tried one by Thorne, because it's free of food additives that I'm sensitive to, but any will work.

Three Simple Steps:

1. Eat a meal that includes at least 15-20 grams of protein (about 4-6 ounces of meat) 

2. Take 1 capsule partway through the meal, then continue eating until you're satisfied

3. Pay close attention to your body's response. Either you won’t notice anything, in which case you probably DO have low stomach acid. Or you'll start to feel symptoms like burning, heat, or heaviness, which are signs that you DON'T have low stomach acid.

If you do have low stomach acid, continue to take 1 capsule at every protein meal the next day or two. If you don’t notice any burning, heat, or other GI distress by the 3rd day, increase your intake to 2 capsules. Stay there for another day, then try 3 pills. Keep increasing the dose until you notice some GI discomfort. When you finally detect some distress, go back down a pill and you'll be at your ideal Betaine HCL dosage.

I started the Betaine HCL with Pepsin test a few weeks ago and I'm up to 5 capsules with every protein meal. (You can go as high as 10, according to SCD Lifestyle.) The first thing I've noticed is that I'm sleeping better at night and I'm taking this as a sign that my gut is starting to produce the proper serotonin precursors (I hope!). My bowel movements also improved a bit, so that I've been able to reduce the amount of daily magnesium I take by half, and stools are softer and darker. Best of all, there are no negative side effects so far.

Resources

Tests for Low Stomach Acid
How to Supplement with Betaine HCL for Low Stomach Acid
Low Stomach Acid: The Epidemic and Lifelong Implications
How Low Stomach Acid Can Jeopardize Your Health
Low Stomach Acid and Weight Gain
Vitamin B12 Deficiency Can Be Sneaky and Harmful to Your Health

Causes of SIBO-C (Methane)

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is a gut dysbiosis. This means there's an imbalance of good-to-bad bacteria. When gut flora is unbalanced, there's always a reason, and the most common is years of eating a standard American diet that's heavy on chemical additives and processed grains and sugars and low in whole-food nutrients. Food toxins damage the intestine and make it "leaky" to gut bacteria and bacterial proteins. Malnutrition impairs the immune response and slows the healing of intestinal injuries. Add some type of "insult" to the gut, like food poisoning or a slew of antibiotic treatments that wipe out all the "good" bacteria, and you've got a perfect storm rising for SIBO to develop.

In SIBO, bacteria that are naturally occurring in the body but generally in the large intestine have migrated up to the small intestine, where they have less competition from "good bacteria" and are able to quickly over-colonize. Now that they're in the small intestine, they encounter our nutrients earlier in the digestive process and they're able to snap up essential nutrients like fats, iron and vitamin B-12. That's why people who have SIBO are almost always vitamin deficient.

The nutrient deficiencies caused by SIBO lead to leaky gut, so now the absorption of large protein molecules is possible, and this can cause an array of problems with the immune system and contribute to allergies, asthma and all types of autoimmune disorders, plus a general overall decline in health.

If you suspect you have SIBO, you'll be referred to a gastroenterologist. The gastro will want to run tests that usually include a colonoscopy, endoscopy and SIBO breath test. The colonoscopy and endoscopy, sometimes called an upper- and lower-GI, are to look for blockages and to take biopsies to rule out cancer and other infections. The breath test will measure the type and amount of gases your gut is producing. If you're a hydrogen producer, you have SIBO-D, the type of SIBO that causes diarrhea. If methane gas is found, you have SIBO-C, the constipation version.

Getting a SIBO diagnosis is one thing; tracking down the actual cause of your SIBO is even more complex.

Besides food toxins, other causes of leaky gut and SIBO can include use of prescription painkillers or other opiate drugs, birth control hormones or alcohol abuse.

Further causes that I seldom see discussed are:

• Parasympathetic nervous system disruption, which can be induced by stress
• Vagus nerve dysfunction, possibly from an injury to the head or spine
• A disruption in the Migrating Motor Complex, which cleans the gut during sleep, possibly from insomnia or other sleep dysfunction
• Nerve damage to the interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC)

If you're interested in learning the actual CAUSE of your SIBO, you'll need to find a functional medicine doctor, a type of doc who looks at disease systemically. The Institute for Functional Medicine has a doctor lookup by city.

My condition was likely the result of years of eating a low-carb diet, which leads to severe mucin-2 deficiency in the gut lining and finally to gastrointestinal disease. I also experienced several instances of food poisoning in the past ten years and that might have been a contributing factor.

In the book The Perfect Health Diet, author Paul Jaminet describes how low-carb diets lead to mucus deficiency and how that causes gastrointestinal diseases.

References:

SIBO: Methane or Hydrogen Dominant, What Is The Difference?

Physiology, injury and recovery of interstitial cells of Cajal: basic and clinical science

How Gut Disease Begins

33 Hidden Scientific Causes of IBS That Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About