Can food poisoning help with dysbiosis ?

[xchocoholic]

That title probably wasn't a good way to go ... lol ... BUT ... I had food poisoning 2 weeks ago and noticed that the right side of my lower abdomen isn't hurting anymore. I was wondering if it was appendix pain ? It's been hurting for about a year and never progressed to a full blown infection.

I suspect the oysters I ate nailed me ...

TMI warning ... I lost everything in my gut within a matter of hours but had some residual "D" for 2 - 3 days and GERD with that familiar vomit taste for 10 days after this. I haven't had GERD in several years now.

When researching food poisoning I found info saying that the reason we have acid reflux is that our bodies are putting more acid into our digestive tract to try to kill the bug. I saw this related to h pylori. Seeing as how many of us have unwanted bugs in our guts, this might not be such a bad thing ... not that I'm recommending it but it's an interesting thought ...

I've been using safe probiotics since in order to restore wanted flora ... I appear to be allergic to yeast including S. Boulardi so I'm avoiding that and Kombucha for now.

Any ideas ? Thanks ... x

 

[Enid]

Very interesting info - seems to make sense - many thanks. Going to relook at supplement regime now.

 

[ukxmrv]

I have low stomach acid and take Betaine HCL with meals. When I had food poisoning a few years ago with long term chronic "D" I stopped the B HCL as no food was in my stomach long enough to digest. As the food poisoning is clearing up I am now taking the Betaine HCL again.

Just shows how different we all are I guess. Probiotics stopped working for me over 10 years ago and have no effect.

Just as an aside when I have the winter vomiting bug I get rid of so much fluid that my abdomen is actually flat for once. Needs to be vomiting to do that. This did help as the fluid must have been putting a lot of pressure on the organs in that area.

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi ... Interesting idea, huh ? Anyone want some oysters ? lol ...

I was thinking that taking Betaine wouldn't work as well. Don't we have various types of acid in our stomachs not just this one ? And betaine capsules will break down in the stomach wheras, when you vomit these "natural" acids come into contact with the whole upper digestive tract including the stomach, esophagus and mouth. We bypass the latter two when we take non liquid supplements ...

Not to mention that despite taking an assortment of good quality digestive enzymes, I'm still not breaking down proteins when I eat. Evidently what we can purchase isn't good enough in some cases.

I'm still new to medical info but from what I've learned in the last few years, I've seen that many substances that can't be replicated outside of the body .... o.forminges is a probiotic that those with kidney stones are missing but medical researchers can't get it stable enough to manufacture it for us. And some substances, like resveratrol, can't be taken from it's original source, red grapes, and packaged ..

Which brings us back to food poisoning ... this forces our guts to create necessary chemicals to deal with the offender. And our digestive tracts work hard to clear it out no matter where it may go in our bodies ... gut, liver, nerves, blood, etc etc ... I have no idea what we could take that would force our digestive tracts to clean us out any better.

just a thought ... x

ukxmrv,

I've found that I only benefit from certain probiotics. They have to be gluten and casein free ... I use MegaFlora and Country Life ... I do well with liquid probiotics too. Helios kefir even though it has dairy in it, calmed my digestive tract for a couple of years. That was before I knew where the dark marks around and under my eyes was coming from ... There are recipes on the web for making your own kefir ... tc ... x

 

[ukxmrv]

Been there done that. Xchocoholic. We should have a short cut or symbol for that (tried all the obvious things). I'm a long term patient so rarely anything new (sadly).

 

[xchocoholic]

Been there done that. Xchocoholic. We should have a short cut or symbol for that (tried all the obvious things). I'm a long term patient so rarely anything new (sadly).

Hi ukxmrv,

I'm sorry to hear that. I'm assuming that your name means that you're positive for XMRV. Hopefully they'll get moving on the treatments for that so you can feel better ... I'm not sure if I have it or not .. I started out in 1990 getting totally body slammed by a virus and never recovered.

I'm a long time, 21 years, CFS patient too. Only I just started trying to heal my body in 2005 and that was only because my digestive tract gave out on me and I couldn't keep any food in. I "think" that's when I became a celiac after a lifetime of gluten intolerance. I've learned since that I do best on the Paleo / low carb / low oxalate diet ...

I understand that the diet I'm on can only do so much for our CFS symptoms but have you tried this ? Or are you seeing an integrative doc ? I'm not trying to be pushy here especially since I'm still one of the sickest people here ... It's just that I feel sooo much better now and can't imagine not trying to help others ... sorry if this sounds pushy ... tc ... x

 

[ukxmrv]

Thanks xchocoholic, appreciate your kind and thoughtful replies on this and others threads, You are not pushy! Wouldn't want to hi-jack yours and I hope others can chip in with better and more insightful comments.

 

[xchocoholic]

Thanks xchocoholic, appreciate your kind and thoughtful replies on this and others threads, You are not pushy! Wouldn't want to hi-jack yours and I hope others can chip in with better and more insightful comments.

Sorry I didn't get back to this sooner. It's been a crazy crazy week here ...

Thanks ukxmrv, that's good to know ... I'm not sure if anyone will know what to make of this idea myself. Not that I'm recommending food poisoning to anyone but clearing out the gut in a "natural" way from top to bottom and engaging the immune system to kill off pathogens seems like a good idea to me. We've been hearing that the more bacteria that are introduced at one time the better ... this would take care of a good deal of the bad stuff ... tc ... x

 

[busybee]

Not that I'm recommending food poisoning to anyone but clearing out the gut in a "natural" way from top to bottom and engaging the immune system to kill off pathogens seems like a good idea to me. We've been hearing that the more bacteria that are introduced at one time the better ... this would take care of a good deal of the bad stuff ... tc ... x

My body is doing this approx every 4 weeks (not linked to mensas). I am recovering, very very slowly.

 

[xchocoholic]

My body is doing this approx every 4 weeks (not linked to mensas). I am recovering, very very slowly.

Hi Busybee,

Thanks for replying ... Can you give us the details here ? Are you being followed by a medical person ? I wasn't thinking about doing this every month. I really don't think my body could deal with losing everything that often. I was hoping that doing this once would be enough ...

Not to mention, it's bad for your esophagus to have that acid in it. Our bodies only do that to eliminate immediate threats.

I don't know enough about the immune system to know what all happens when our bodies are faced with an intruder like this. The only other time I've had a similar reaction was with a kidney stone that got stuck in my urethra. Actually, I had "D", vomitting and I simply couldn't stop urinating.

All I was thinking here is that our bodies are designed to eliminate toxins and apparently do it really well. So is there a way to harness this immune system response in our favor ? I have no idea how we'd do that though ...

tc ... x

 

[busybee]

Sorry for the late reply xchocaholic.

No I'm not being followed by anyone. I can bring it forward by doing more and set it back maybe a week if I'm really steady but the nausea would be there for longer.

No idea why it happens, it feels as if something builds up over the month then I have to eliminate everything and start again.

 

[xchocoholic]

Hi busybee,

sorry I didn't get back with you sooner ... I forgot ... I'm not trying to be pushy, but if I were you, I'd get this checked out. There are just too many possibilities here ... IMHO, an integrative or a functional doctor who's up on dysbiosis would be your best bet.

Having said that, I'd take a look at your diet to see if you can trace this. For the first 15 years of this illness, every few months, I'd get to the point where I couldn't eat ANYTHING except Ensure and some plain bread for several days or weeks. Some how my digestive tract would recover and I could eat whatever I wanted again ... But all that turned out to be from eating a ton of foods that I was intolerant of. Once I got those foods out of my diet that stopped .. kow ...

Have you tried just drinking Ensure or Boost and eating some bread when you first notice this ? I'd go for gluten free bread if I had to do this over again ... Not that Ensure or Boost are ideal but you get the idea ...

Hope you feel better soon ... x

 

[busybee]

No problem xchocoholic

I'm back on a strict low carb, high protein & plenty of veg. I'll see if this helps first, but thanks for the other ideas.

 

[xchocoholic]

No problem xchocoholic

I'm back on a strict low carb, high protein & plenty of veg. I'll see if this helps first, but thanks for the other ideas.

Good to know ... I remember how sick I was and hate the thought of others going through this. Not to be a pain, but hopefully, you're getting some healthy fats too.

BTW ... On the low carb ... for some reason, When I first went low carb, I was ok with this for a few weeks. But then all of the sudden, my blood glucose levels wouldn't come up past 67 no matter how much I ate. Granted that's not very low but I was pale and couldn't speak clearly. Since then I've HAD to HAVE small amounts of sugar or fruit to clear my head. I have a life long history of petite mals though so I'm sure this plays a roll here ...

tc ... x