I’m feeling a bit gutted tonight… pun intended but it’s accurate.

Let’s go back.

This morning I did my breath test. All went well, no symptoms during the test at all. Finished it up around lunchtime and mailed it to the lab. Drank my delicious drink (as the test was fasting so I hadn’t had anything for breakfast). One and a half more days… (still not counting lol)

An hour or two after that, I noticed that my stomach was bloated. Hmmmm

Later in the afternoon, not only was my stomach bloated but it was making those long, loud, grumbling and groaning noises that I remember only too well. Sigh. Feeling a bit devastated.

The breath test takes 3 hours. You drink the lactulose solution at the beginning of the 3 hours, so if the SIBO was still active, I’d have had some symptoms in the first 2 hours. So, I’m still confident that the elemental diet has been successful at eliminating the SIBO.

So, what does that mean? It most likely means that it’s the lactulose reacting in my large intestine. Now, when you think about it, doing an elemental diet not only starves out the bacteria from your small intestine, but it would logically also starve out the good bacteria from your large intestine. Essentially, my gut microflora has likely been obliterated.

Now, hopefully with the SIBO gone and some healing happening in the small intestine, I start the rebuilding of the microflora in the large intestine. At the same time, I have to be careful not to reactivate the SIBO and relapse. What a challenge!

I’m hoping that’s what it means anyway. I’d just become used to my delightful firm flat stomach again over the last week. And the silence from it!!

So now, biding my time until the test result comes in, then I’ll have an idea of which direction to take next. As I mentioned, last year I did the GAPS diet for most of the year. Maybe I’m back to that again, as it is specifically a gut healing diet designed to heal and seal a leaky gut and restore the microflora. Many thoughts to ponder….

Read day 16