Managing A SIBO Setback

Oct 10, 2016
2 min read

Unfortunately, I've been warned through web threads, a friend, and my nutritionist, that setbacks will occur. What I thought was the low-carb flu ended up being a reaction to something I ate. This means that I have to go back to PHASE 1 Restricted diet for a couple days in order to get my gut back to some sort of 'normal'.

I knew something was wrong last night when I started experiencing intense heartburn & indigestion again. I thought I would wake up feeling 'normal', but instead I've been walking around the house with the most dizzy, nauseous, light-headed brain fog yet. Thinking it was PMS related, I took some menstrual pain relief, and things just got very worse. I experienced 1-2 hours of an unpleasant IBS attack coupled with extreme nausea.

So now what?

Experiencing a setback can be upsetting for various reasons. i.e:

1. I thought I was making progress; I've been meticulous with the dietary guidelines

2. I am eager to rejoin society and to be able to eat out with friends at restaurants

3. I am sick of feeling sick and needing to stay in bed

You need to remember:

1. A setback is temporary

2. Dietary guidelines for managing and treating SIBO are not a one-size-fits-all solution; everybody has different tolerances to good and bad types of food and during this treatment phase, you will have to test and tweak your diet; assuming some foods with ruffle your guts feathers.

Now think backwards:

1. What did you do different yesterday or today?

2. What new foods did you add to your diet?

3. Did something stressful happen in the past 24 hours?

4. Do you need to eliminate the SIBO dark horses?

Looking back to yesterday, I am fully aware of the new food that was added to my diet: quinoa

I assumed quinoa (which I had never eaten before) would sit perfectly well on my stomach because it was part of the accepted foods for Phase 1 Semi-Restricted and has many amazing health benefits.

HOWEVER:

Quinoa is also extremely difficult to digest and the protective coating around each quinoa seed, called saponins, can cause holes in the lining of our intestine, if not rinsed off properly. This then leads to systemic inflammation of the gut, resulting in your typical digestive upset of: bloating, gas & diarrhea.