Hi
@tinacarroll27
From experimenting on myself I would say that for stopping SIBO the best thing seemed to be taking betaine HCL, ox bile and enzymes. These things simulate a properly working digestive system and make the small intestine less hospitable to fungal and bacterial infection.
The way I took betaine HCL, was that I ordered some (with pepsin an enzyme) and took one tablet with the first meal and two with the second and so on until I got sensation of heat shortly after eating and then dropped back one tablet.
Ox bile is a little complex because in a healthy person, at any rate, bile is mostly recycled with only a little making it through into the large intestine. It is bile that makes stools brown. The trick is to take a large dose at first (say 500mg per meal) and until you get bile diarrhoea and then use smaller doses and watch the colour of your stools. If they are too pale add more bile, if you get bile diarrhoea reduce your daily dose.
The deal with enzymes is a bit complex. I am lucky enough to get Creon porcine pancreatic enzymes on prescription that are pretty cheap. So I use Creon plus plant enzymes that contain the exopeptidases and maltases and invertases that healthy people have in there small intestines. I have done this with Klaire Labs Sibb zymes and Biocore enzymes from Swansons. I do not use enzymes that contain cellulases, chitinases and other enzymes that are not naturally produced by people.
I found that this combination was good at getting rid of SIBO and malabsorption diarrhoea.
When it comes to reactions to food in the large intestine I think that the idea is to reduce inflammation, to reduce permeability and probably to do something to get rid of pathogenic bacteria.
I found this video really useful in this
Some of the principles I took home from this and my reading around the literature where
1) to avoid acellular carbohydrates (in highly processed foods) as it seems that they break down the mucosal layer allowing the food and bacteria that are passing through your colon to make direct contact with the gut wall.
2) to avoid grains (or at least wheat, barley, oats and rye) and other things that increase gut permeability. The gut has to be permeable if allergens are to be presented to the immune system, so reduced permeability should mean fewer allergic reactions.
3) to take things that reduce permeability like quercetin, turmeric, and tea. see the table in the video at 8:38
4) to do my best to make sure that I am not low in zinc, vitamin A and vitamin D.
5) I have also at times taken selenium, NAC, glutamine, a lot of probiotics and Hip's anti anxiety mix of turmeric, flaxseed oil and N acetyl Glucosamine. the NAC is meant to help remove bacterial plaques, the NAG to improve the mucosa, I think Glutamine and selenium where both from Michael Maes.
I should say that I have not had SIBO since 2015 - when I got the betaine HCL, ox bile and enzymes working. At the beginning of this year I took two courses of antibiotics to get rid of b. hominis and suddenly could not tolerate most foods, or think clearly enough to remember all of the above. Comin back from this I found that the l casei group probiotics (l casei, l paracasei and l rhamnosus) seemed to do the most good I understand that the theory is that they are just commensal bacteria that displace bad stuff. I find that they reduce the severity of my PoTS.
I noticed on your profile that you take/took nystatin. I take it all the time, 2 or 3 per day. When I don't take it I end up with undigested bits of food in my stools, my doctor and I do not understand how this works. Nystatin is not just an antifungal but also an antibiotic, and other antifungals do not work - so I do not know why it works for me.
This year I found that I produce my own bile if I have liver or lots of hibiscus tea, so I no longer supplement with oxbile.
I hope this helps
