What has this done to me?

 This has broken me and humbled me in ways I didn't know I needed humbling. I've began to realize how much I took for granted just being able to leave my house. I truly believe God allowed this to happen to me to get my attention. 

You see, I know God allows things to happen even to the best of people, which I'm far from best, to get their attention, teach them a lesson or humble them. I've gone through all of those. I realized in this experience, in this valley I'm in, I had taken advantage of my husband and my life. I was grateful mentally, but never expressed myself the way I should have. I let being busy come between my husband and me. But worse, I let distractions come between God and me. I had so many distractions that I was really enjoying. But only went to church once a week on Sunday and never really gave God any more of my attention. 

I don't know if I'm correct or not, but I think God allowed this to happen to me so I could be home so I could get my priorities together and really realized where my mind and heart were. I was pretty stubborn, it took me several months to catch on. Over the last few weeks, I'm reading my Bible. I have Bible studies I'm doing again, books I'm ready. Maybe even more important than that, I'm praying again. Not just snippet prayers while I'm going through my days, heavy, deep, meaningful prayers. Some times I can't even speak I'm crying so hard and loudly. I was getting very depressed and really worried I would never be healed again. I began to worry if I'd ever be able to leave my home again. My faith has grown. I'm trusting God more. I have no doubt he will see me through this and there will be another side to this that is more beautiful and amazing than I could even imagine. Right now, I can't imagine what it would be like to not be sick. But God already knows and had it planned out before I even got sick. I gave it all to God and just asked him what I needed to see, do or change to follow His plan. Oh boy, did he reveal things I needed to work on. I had a lot of repenting to do. Now I continue praying, doing my Bible studies and trusting God. I can't wait to share the other side of this and what God did. Is it always this clear, no. There are many days, when I'm having a really bad day, that I cry out, God, where are you? Then I remember how the enemy really wants to use this to destroy my health and my family. I have to work really hard to refocus on myself on His promise, His word and His faithfulness. He will come through, in his timing. The timing part is what I struggle with the most. I'm ready now. If He hasn't healed me, He isn't finished. I have to believe that. There are days I doubt Him, those are the days the enemy is attacking me. I am trying to be better about recognizing that and praying God will cast the enemy off of me. 

This is also testing my faith. I thought I believed before, but this is forcing to me to really believe like I've never believed in  my life. I have to, nothing else can fix this. God is my redeemer, He is my healer, He is my savior. He is the only one who can truly heal me, fully and completely. But it takes me working on my faith and reading every day to keep my mind focused. The enemy is good at trying to throw me off. 

Treatment plan?

 There is no such thing as a one size fits all approach. And every time I thought I found someone that understood, their technique did not work for me. I searched the internet for SIBO, I searched Facebook for SIBO. That are plenty of "remedies" out there that have worked for some. And their stories a lot of times matched some of mine. I would try them only to get worse or not have any movement. I found 3 or 4 groups on Facebook with thousands of people trying the same thing, get relief from SIBO. 

One of the issues I discovered along my way of reading and researching, so many mixed suggestions. One doctor says you need probiotics to help kill the bad guys. One doctor says, no probiotics because you already have too many. Then someone would recommend prebiotics. There are several herbal antibiotics available. That's not the issue. It's finding the one that works and my body responds to. Very few mention of biofilms. Then tack on, colon peristalsis. If your colon is moving to push the waste out, that's just harboring more bacteria to sit in the intestines and colon. 

I still don't have the answers to all of this. I'm still fighting this. 

What I have found that my body has responded well to is coconut oil. It has the ability to breakdown biofilm, it's a safe and effective antibacterial, antiviral, antimicrobial and antifungal. It's very light so there is no die-off. It's takes a while to work, but it has been good to me. It may not kill everything, but for now, it's helping me. I also found Oregano, Clove and Thyme oils. I put one drop of each in an empty capsule, fill the rest of the capsule with olive oil and take twice daily. These pack a powerful antibacterial, antimicrobial punch. Again, no die-off. They work slowly so they don't overwhelm my body. It took about 2-3 months to notice a change. For now, I'm going to stick with this combo until they no longer work. I also have Y-Formula and Berberine I can swap things out with later. 

As far as rebuilding the good guys and healing my gut lining. Trying to keep a pretty good variety of foods helps to build a nice variety of microbiome. For someone with SIBO and Candida, that's hard. I do the best I can without over loading my body with foods or ingredients my GI tract can't handle. I also heard of prebiotics being better for you than probiotics until things are less busy in my intestines. I drink anti-inflammatory teas everyday, I try to eat anti-inflammatory foods everyday. Again, coconut oil is great for helping to rebuild the lining of the intestines. Slipper Elm is good for that as well. Ginger root tea and Turmeric. There are all kinds of things for that. Thankfully, coconut oil has been helping me go to the bathroom as well, so no more enemas. When I need a little extra help, Senna tea works. It takes several hours but it works. 

And the pot thickens

 I absolutely love MRT and my herbalist. She is amazing, beautiful soul. She's a Christian and would pray for me. Unfortunately, we just couldn't find what would work. 

I was then referred to a chiropractor who also uses MRT. He has a very different, more in depth approach and method. I was super intrigued and really excited. My friend told me how he helped her with issues no one else could. 

I made an appointment and went to see him. By now, I'm uncomfortable and having a difficult time keeping my sugar level balance. I'm noticing some malnutrition, weight loss and weakness. Although I was excited to get some answers from him, I was nervous and dreading the drive and the time away from home. 

She was right, he was very thorough. He found I have SIBO, SIFO, candida and a Lyme co-infection. Well... that explained a LOT. No wonder why I wasn't getting any results. I was also focused on SIBO. This made a ton of since. He put me on several herbals, again. Unfortunately, this time, no results at all. I had no movement in my symptoms. I was taking these for 3 months. At this point, I was home bound and just about bedridden. I had no energy to do anything. I was having trouble going to the bathroom, my stomach was not just bloated but cramped. Everything would get stuck. I was doing coffee enemas every couple of days, some times 2 days back to back, just to get things moving. I was so disappointed in what he had prescribed not working at all. I didn't go back to see him. I don't have any problems with him in general. I got to the point where I couldn't get out again. 

So now I find out I not only have an overgrowth of bacteria in my small intestines, which you're not even supposed to have but maybe a few, but also an overgrowth of fungus in my small and large intestines. Plus I have a Lyme co-infection in my large intestines and pancreas. This makes since as to why I'm so sick. And this also explains why I'm having such a hard time with my sugar level. 

I looked up symptoms for each and each symptom completely fit me. Okay, so now I'm relieved that I know the deeper issue, but now what? I've got to find someone that can direct me into the path of what to do with all of this. 

Bacteria love to hide and morph

 The one thing I have heard more than anything else is SIBO is very hard to kill and takes a long time to fully get rid of them. Once you've gotten a good handle on exterminating them, then you have to rebuild the good bacteria and heal your gut lining. Actually, it's best if you can heal the gut lining while exterminating the bad guys. 

So why are bacteria and parasites so hard to kill? They love to hide and morph into other bacteria and parasites can morph into other pathogens tricking what is coming after them. They will burrow themselves into the lining of the intestinal wall and form a biofilm around them, like a slimy shell. This prevents most antibiotics from getting to them because they can not infiltrate or breakdown the biofilm. If that's not bad enough, the longer you have SIBO the thicker their biofilm becomes. They will come out of hiding to eat and then will burrow themselves back. 

You absolutely have to be taking something that can break that biofilm down while also taking something to kill the bacteria. But wait, there's more. Some times you have to rotate through different strains of antibacterial because, you are always dealing with multiple strains of bacteria. Some times you can stay on one medication for a few weeks or even a couple of months. But eventually you may have to switch things up. But you always should be taking something to attack the biofilm. 

Now what? I need help.

 My symptoms are beginning to affect my life in a way that I can no longer do things I want to do. I can't attend church any more because mornings are hard on me. I wake up every morning bloated. Part of what SIBO does it, shuts down the signals from your brain to your colon to flex. You begin to lose colon peristalsis. The colon is a muscle. When waste coming up to the colon to be removed, it will flex to push the waste out so you can poop. Due to the over growth of bacteria, that gets slowed down, which means, I was having a hard time with everything getting stuck. The worse was mornings. Everything I had eaten for dinner and my body's natural detoxing was stuck in my colon. More on this part in a later post.

So now what? Obviously I need help. Do I go back to the original provider I saw who actually found the SIBO? Maybe but he's expensive and a long drive away. I was already having issues getting out period, let alone an hour drive one way. Plus, I was a little worried that he might not really understand SIBO? The symptoms, yes, he caught the symptoms. However, when my results came in, I didn't get a good understand or importance from him of how serious it was to follow up with him for additional testing to make sure if the SIBO was gone or just decreased. Maybe that was partially my fault for not following up with him when I was done with my first round. Regardless, the expense and the drive was a lot. 

I remembered I had a local herbalist that I had gone to several years previous. She uses muscle testing for results and tests your body based on what those results are. For instance, if my body said it had a specific bacteria and wanted X herbal remedy, she would then test my body on exactly what one and how much for how long. It's fascinating science. I made an appointment. I was so intrigued by this visit that I started learning about MRT (muscle response testing or Kinesiology) My chiropractor using this technique, although in a different form, while he is adjusting me to find out exactly where my body is out. I was thrilled to learn something new again. 

She confirms I have multiple bacteria in my GI tract and other issues. She prescribes several herbals again. This time, I go back and get retested. This is when I found out what die-off is. UGH. I wish at that point some one has mentioned the word "die-off" to me. I think I would go see her thinking something else was wrong only to find out, my symptoms were likely die-off. Neither of us mentioned that. Just more bacteria. I kept coming back to her, round and round we went with no change. I was so disappointed and really getting frustrated.

As I learn more about MRT, you can get "false positive" readings. When the terrain in the body changes, as mine kept doing, due to fighting off invaders, the body can send mixed signals. She kept picking up a different bacteria every other week. Well, that's probably, not for certain, but possibly because the bacteria kept morphing trying to escape the herbals that were out to kill them. Don't get me wrong, I still fully believe in the science behind MRT. I actually use it myself now that I know how. 

So what is biofilm? Next post 

Finding help.

 I knew I didn't want to go to a conventional doctor. I had been misdiagnosed so many times, I've lost trust in the medical community. Not only that, but after the research and books I had read, I began to learn something very alarming. Most doctors, some even GI specialists, either mis SIBO and call it IBS or have never even heard of SIBO. IF you can find a specialist that actually knows the depths of SIBO and really what is happening with it, what it does to the body, they want to do all these tests to confirm you have it and how bad or what type of bacteria. 

Tests, yeah, okay, I'm good with that. You can only get answers with tests right?? WRONG!! As I began to learn more about SIBO and testing, I find out, a colonoscopy won't show it because the bacteria is in the small intestines. Colonoscopies don't go that far up. Okay, so have an endoscopy. Still, they don't go back the lower part of the stomach into the small intestines. It doesn't who up in lab work and you can't see it on a CT, MRI or X-Ray. So how in the world do you test for it? Breath test. And that's what I did 3 years ago that I blew off not really taking it seriously. Great. 

That's fine, I can either request a breath test from a GI doctor or I can show them my test results from the one I already did. Sure, however, most doctors want their own testing done. Okay, so I do another one. No harm in that. Except for, as I continued to learn, what is the only treatment doctors give for SIBO? You guessed it, antibiotic. Well, it is a bacteria overgrowth, so that makes since right? It would except, when you read about what this specific, and really all antibiotics do, they kill everything. They don't know the difference between good and bad bacteria. If you are other wise healthy, I can see taking an antibiotic short-term with no major issues. However, with SIBO, this is a much bigger deal. I'm not the average person. SIBO patients have bigger issues than a healthy person with just a minor bacteria overgrowth. More on this part in a later post. 

Rifaximin is the most prescribed antibiotic remedy on the market for SIBO. It's doctor's first go to. One big issues though is, it's very expensive. I was curious so I looked up the price. I saw $3,000.00. That was using an app, GoodRx. Will insurance help, maybe, but I'm not even going there. 

Why not use Rifaximin if it's the #1 prescribed antibiotic? I'm not a doctor or any type of professional, this is just from my own personal research. I am NOT suggested anyone use it or not use it. This is just my story. You do what is best for you. It is like an atomic bomb going off. It kills everything. EXCEPT, the ability to breakdown the bad bacteria's biofilm (their protective barrier). Bacteria also has the ability to hide and morph when threatened. Rifaximin does not have the ability to seek bacteria out in hiding and will flat out miss it if it morphed. Which means, you are some times losing good bacteria, you desperately need, and some times not able to kill much of the bad bacteria at all, due to them hiding and morphing. 

My choice was, not taking the chance. The worse part of what I had read from those that had used it, although great results, almost every single person (unless their SIBO was caught early) had a repeat round several months alter. Again, because of the biofilm and ability to morph. Rifaximin killed the bacteria floating around their intestines which gave them some relief. But the ones hiding came out of hiding once the threat was gone. Hence the relapse. So what do these patients do when they have symptoms again? They take it again. I've read some that have taken 4 rounds. 

Nope, I'm out. But now what? 

What do I do now?

 After the month of herbal antibiotics and other herbal remedies, I felt better. I thought I was good to go. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. 

Several months later, my symptoms returned. 

At this point, I was frustrated but still not for sure what was going on. I began to do my own research and boy, did that scare me and open my eyes to what I actually am dealing with. This is not good. More on that in another post. 

One day at baseball practice, I overheard a mom talking to another mom about homeopathic remedies. Again, something new in the holistic world. I was very intrigued. I began to ask questions, without giving a lot of context to what I was dealing with. After practice, we had a phone call where I gave her more information about my symptoms and she explained more about what homeopathic remedies are and how they work. I was very interested at that point. She told me she would put a plan together and she would send me what she recommended. In the meantime, I began to do my own research to learn more about them. The deeper I got into the world of homeopathy, the more I wanted to know and the deeper I wanted to go. This was even before I tested them out myself. 

We spoke again a few days later. I started on her recommendations. And just like with the herbal remedies, I could feel a difference. Except, this time, it was much quicker. I was shocked they worked so quickly but also super excited that something else was working. But now that I understood more about SIBO, I stayed with it. With the herbals my previous provider prescribed for me, I didn't know I needed to keep using them for a while and then get rechecked. More on why in a later post. 

I was so excited I decided I wanted to learn even more about them. I began taking courses. I was certain this was the route that was going to heal me of my symptoms and then I could help others. I wanted to be a Homeopathic Consultant. Now, this was over several month period of time, not like days or weeks. 

Then, it happened again, my symptoms returned and the homeopathic stopped working. Not because they don't work, I still use them today on other issues. This will get explained in a later post. 

I was devastated. This was the 2nd holistic remedy I had tried that worked for a while, then stopped. I thought well, maybe because the first round I didn't do correctly. But this time, I did was I was supposed to do. Now what? I need help. I think it's time to find some professional help.