Ep. 111: Your Gas Has A Pattern, Here's How To Read It

Gas is one of those symptoms people joke about publicly but privately can wreck your confidence, keep you anxious before meals, and make you dread situations that should feel normal.

The thing is, gas isn't random. The smell, the timing, and the pattern are all clues, and once you know how to read them, you can stop guessing and start actually supporting your digestion.

In this episode, Dr. Heather breaks down the most common gas patterns, what they're pointing to underneath, and why removing more foods is rarely the answer.

What we cover:

• Upper vs. lower gas and why the location matters
• Sulfur gas, dirty diaper gas, and chemical-smelling gas and what each pattern means
• What SIBO actually is and why hydrogen and methane patterns look completely different
• How your nervous system is affecting your digestion more than you realize
• Simple, practical things that move the needle without a strict protocol

Mentioned in this episode:

• Organic Olivia Bitters
• Episode 107: Burping, Gas, and Bloating: 5 Gut Clues You Can't Ignore

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Transcript

Dr. Heather Finley 0:03

Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain. I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I'm here to guide you. On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back. So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place. Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

0:56

A few years ago, we had a client who was a GI nurse, and she told me something that I will never forget. She said on our discovery call that her gas had gotten so bad and so embarrassing at work that she felt like she wanted to blame it on her patients. And yes, she worked in GI, so she could probably get away with it a little more than the average person at their job. But underneath that story was just something that made me so sad for her. She was so embarrassed. She had built an entire coping system around hiding a symptom that she really just felt so powerless over. And maybe you've been there, too. Here's the thing about gas. People joke about it publicly, but privately it can really wreck your confidence in ways that are so hard to explain. It can make you anxious in meetings. It can make you self-conscious at dinners. It can make you scared to travel, hypervigilant of your symptoms before eating. And a lot of women would describe this as low-grade, just constant background noise of, "What is my stomach going to do today?" So if this sounds familiar, then today's episode is for you. Because while some gas is completely normal, constant, painful, room-clearing, socially isolating gas is your body trying to communicate something. And today I want to help you actually understand what that communication might be. It's so easy to want to be angry at our body for symptoms or frustrated that we're having symptoms, and I get it because I have been there, too. But the second that you're able to switch that from frustration and working against your body to actually tuning into, "What clues is this actually giving me to what could be going on, and how do I work with my body?" that mindset shift matters so much and changes so much about how you can heal. And also, you start to learn how to work with your body instead of feeling like you're constantly fighting against it. So welcome back to the Love Your Gut podcast. I'm Dr. Heather Finley. And before we get into this, I just wanna say something upfront. I don't want you to listen to this episode and start panicking every time you burp or have gas. Some gas is genuinely normal. Passing gas somewhere around 5 to 15 times a day can be completely normal. Your gut bacteria ferment food, and that is just part of having a microbiome. So the goal here isn't to never pass gas again. The goal is less discomfort, less pressure, less bloating, less odor and overall- Just less digestion issues that are ruining your life. So you can think of your gut microbes like a composting system. When food breaks down, some fermentation is expected. That is the design. So when the fermentation is excessive or painful or producing gas that's genuinely disrupting your daily life, that's when we wanna zoom out and start asking why. And one of the most useful things that I wanna teach you today is actually how to read your gas, because the smell, the timing, and the pattern in which your body produces gas are the real clues about what's happening underneath. And you can really make a lot of changes by understanding the things that I mentioned. So before we get into specific smell patterns, I wanna just point out something that a lot of people miss, and that's where your gas is coming from in the digestive tract. That tells you something a little bit different. So burping right after a meal, like that upper gas, is usually pointing to something happening in the stomach or esophagus, like stomach acid issues, swallowed air. Maybe you gulped something through a straw, or you ate too fast and you were swallowing air, or just sluggish emptying from the stomach. If you're someone that just burps and belches after eating, that has a lot to do with probably your meal hygiene, how you're eating, your stress levels when you're eating, and how your body's breaking down food. Now, gas that shows up an hour or two after eating or later in the day is typically lower, and it's coming more from fermentation happening further down in the small intestine or the colon. So both of these matter. They're just pointing to different parts of the system. So that's step one, is what part of the system is it coming from? So if you're someone who mostly burps, that's honestly a little bit different of a conversation than someone who's primarily dealing with bloating and gas later on in the day as the day goes on. Or maybe you wake up with gas because you're really constipated and you haven't cleared your bowels from the day before So let's start first by talking about sulfur gas. So you know exactly what I'm talking about if you've ever had this before, that rotten egg, something died in here kind of smell that is so impossible to hide. When we see sulfur-smelling gas, we start to think about sulfur-producing bacteria, hydrogen sulfide patterns maybe even, and then sometimes certain SIBO presentations. There could be poor sulfur metabolism. Bile flow issues are a big one here, especially if you have gallbladder issues, a lack of gallbladder, and also protein being broken down incorrectly could fit into this category as well. So something that I want you to hold onto is that sulfur foods themselves, so things like eggs, garlic, onions, cruciferous vegetables, protein-rich foods, all of these naturally contain sulfur compounds, and that is normal. But if your gut environment is already struggling, those foods can act a little bit like pouring lighter fluid into a fire. So they're gonna make the symptoms worse, not because those foods are bad, but just because your system from a sulfur metabolism standpoint is already overwhelmed. So people will often notice that temporarily reducing sulfur-heavy foods can make a difference, and that can just be a useful clue. There's something that you can use. You can get it over the counter, Pepto-Bismol. Some people have... You've probably used this before. That can be just a quick at-home indicator for hydrogen sulfide gas patterns. If you respond well to Pepto-Bismol, then that is a clue that perhaps this is a sulfur issue. Now, of course, consult your medical provider. Don't just go taking stuff. But one way that you could just kinda at home test and see is it sulfur would be Pepto-Bismol. So the bismuth in Pepto-Bismol is very helpful when it comes to sulfur metabolism Because bismuth binds to hydrogen sulfide. So if your symptoms improve noticeably, that is really meaningful. But again, the goal is not just lifelong restriction or daily Pepto-Bismol. That's just a little experiment that you can do. The goal ultimately is to understand why your body is struggling in the first place. I wanna talk about SIBO because I mentioned SIBO, and specifically hydrogen sulfide SIBO, but I wanna pause here for a second because it's a term a lot of people have heard but don't necessarily really understand unless you've been diagnosed with it. So SIBO stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Your large intestine is supposed to house the bulk of your gut bacteria. That's where the composting, the food composting, is meant to happen. Your small intestine, by design, has relatively few bacteria because primarily your small intestine is actually for absorption. So when bacteria migrate upward and start colonizing in the small intestine in large numbers, you get that fermentation happening in a place that fermentation is not supposed to happen. That's right where your nutrients are being absorbed, so that's when gas becomes excessive. Bloating becomes significant. Symptoms tend to be more immediate after eating rather than hours later. So maybe this is like one to two hours after. So SIBO is not just one thing. There are different types of gas involved with SIBO. There's three different types of gases. Hydrogen, methane, those are the two most commonly discussed, and then hydrogen sulfide, which I mentioned earlier, being that third gas that we're understanding better now. So they all present differently. Hydrogen-dominant SIBO tends to show up with faster motility, more diarrhea-predominant symptoms, and gas that is more immediate. Methane-dominant SIBO, which is technically actually caused by archaea, a different topic for another day so archaea, not bacteria, tends to look like significant constipation, slower motility, that more pronounced bloating, and then gas that feels really trapped. Like, you feel like your stomach is hard or like you could deflate like a balloon. Methane actually slows your gut transit down, which is why people with methane-dominant patterns often describe that six-months-pregnant feeling that they just can't get rid of. So this is why two people could both be told they have SIBO and look and feel completely different, have completely different symptoms. One is maybe running to the bathroom. The other hasn't had a bowel movement in weeks. Um, so same diagnosis, very, very different picture So SIBO is also why a lot of people will do low FODMAP and feel significantly better in the short term because FODMAPs are fermentable carbohydrates and produce gas. So if bacteria in your small intestine are feeding on them, reducing them might reduce your symptoms. But low FODMAP doesn't actually fix SIBO. It just manages the symptoms. So that underlying overgrowth and, more importantly, the reason that it developed in the first place is what still needs to be addressed. So now let's move on to another type of gas, which is more that, like, dirty diaper, just kind of gross-smelling gas. So this is a smell that I have a name for with my clients, that, like, stale, kind of rotting, trapped gas feeling. If you've experienced this, you know what I mean. This pattern often points to constipation, slow motility, and just stool sitting in the colon for too long or incomplete emptying. And this is why there are so many women that get confused 'cause they'll say, "But I poop every day." Okay, sure, but are you actually fully emptying your bowels? You can poop daily and still be functionally constipated. So when stool is lingering in the colon, bacteria keep fermenting it, and the longer that it sits, the worse that it smells. So it's like leaving trash in the kitchen for too long. Things just get worse. So this is also the pattern where women will describe waking up feeling okay and then mid-afternoon looking six months pregnant. That just progressive bloating. Things just aren't moving the way that they should be. One thing worth knowing is if you're actively working on motility or constipation and you start noticing more gas temporarily, that's actually not a bad sign. Because the gas is trapped, when trapped gas has been sitting there and it finally starts moving, it has to go somewhere. So people sometimes think like, "Oh, the magnesium made things worse," or, "This protocol is making things worse," when actually it's just, like, waking the system back up and getting things out that need to get out. There's, two ways out, either at the end or at the beginning of the digestive tract. Now, a different pattern that I wanna talk about is more that chemical, kind of sour, toxic-smelling gas. This often points us toward malabsorption or poor digestion upstream, maybe food breakdown issues. Could be dysbiosis as well. So the simplest way that I can explain this is if you're not fully breaking down your food, your bacteria are gonna finish the job, or try to finish the job for you. So when bacteria are doing too much of the digestive work, you're gonna get more fermentation and more gas as a byproduct. So people in this pattern will often describe burping right after meals, feeling full really quick, food sitting like a brick Which I have an episode on that, that was last week's episode. Or their stomach just feeling really heavy, uncomfortable. So when I hear those things, we wanna look at digestion upstream and break it all down. So this would include stomach acid, enzyme output, bile flow, and then honestly, a big one is nervous system state during eating. The thing that people never wanna work on, right? The hardest thing to address is your stress state. So digestion does not start in your intestines, and if you have listened to really any episode, you know that I talk about that a lot. Digestion starts earlier than most people realize with smelling your food, chewing your food, saliva, stomach acid, enzymes. And your nervous system has to be settled enough to actually activate that process. I tell clients all the time, your digestive system is... It has to be a blender, and you can't send large chunks of food poorly broken down the assembly line. Everything has to be really mushy and broken down, otherwise everything has to work harder. Food is sitting longer. It's fermenting more. So let's talk about some foods that are maybe commonly harder to digest. A few things worth noting here, because I know there's a lot of noise about this online. Raw vegetables. Raw vegetables take significant work to break down. I know there's a lot of wellness accounts, they're, eating giant raw kale salads, and that's, you know, how to be the pinnacle of health. But for someone with compromised digestion, that salad can genuinely be really hard to break down. So cooking your vegetables, especially when you're symptomatic, is so helpful because you're m- you're breaking down that food, making it easier to digest, hopefully reducing some of the symptoms, but still getting the benefit of the fiber, the nutrients, et cetera. Smoothies are another one. People are throwing, like, tons of raw spinach and protein powder and berries and chia and flax and nut butter into one smoothie and wondering why they feel so bad afterwards. N- uh, the variety is great. Like, love all the things that you can pack into a smoothie. But if that... If your gut is not used to that, even though it's blenderized and broken down, if you are getting thirty grams of fiber in one smoothie, of course you're gonna be gassy. So going slow slowly adding in chia and flax and other types of fiber into those things. High protein intake is another big one, especially protein bars protein powders, very high protein diets. I feel like protein is just in everything now. Protein requires really strong stomach acid and really solid digestive capacity to break down well. So if your digestion is weak, protein will ferment and cause gas. I'm sure you have maybe experienced this or known people that have experienced this before, but when someone eats high protein, they typically have gas that doesn't smell very good. Beans are another common trigger, but preparation can make a huge difference. So soaking, sprouting, pressure cooking, adding kombu is another strategy. These aren't just old folk remedies. Adding things like kombu bay leaves, et cetera, they actually reduce the fermentable compounds that drive gas. You can also use certain enzymes. There are specific enzymes that help break down specific types of foods. So one that you might be familiar with is Beano. You can get that over the counter. Beano is really great for helping you digest beans. They have alpha-galactosidase in them. Fodzyme or FODMAP, those are helpful for breaking down FODMAPs if FODMAPs are a trigger for you. And then there's tons of products. Like Hilma has the Bloat Support, Silver Fern has Bloat and Gas Relief, even things like enteric-coated peppermint pills. Digestive bitters are one of my favorite tools for supporting gas. I will put the link to my favorite digestive bitters. It's the Organic Olivia Bitters. I will put the link in the show notes to those. But for gas relief, digestive bitters are such a great tool, and you can actually use digestive bitters for symptom relief in between meals. You don't even have to just use them before meals. So while you're working on the root issue, that can be a great tool. Another thing that really helps is walking after meals. It's one of the most underrated things that you can do. I'm sure you've seen all across the internet people talking about fart walks. Honestly, these are great. They work. Movement stimulates motility. It helps to move trapped gas. It supports that mechanical side of digestion, and even just 10 minutes makes such a big difference. We also love recommending the I Love You massage. This is something we use a lot with clients that are dealing with trapped gas and constipation. Ginger, peppermint, fennel tea, all of these things can be really helpful. Of course, like I mentioned, slowing down, chewing more, not standing over the sink. I'm guilty of this with three kids and I notice it. When I am standing up eating a meal and not relaxed, I notice it. Avoiding straws can also be a great tool if you tend to be more bloated and gassy. Cutting back on sparkling water not gulping food while you're stressed can also really make a big difference. And then the last thing that I can't not talk about is gas and digestion related to your nervous system. So your digestive system is run by your autonomic nervous system. When you're in a parasympathetic state, so you're calm, you're safe, you're settled, digestion is prioritized. Your stomach acid is working, your enzymes are released, motility is moving in the right direction. When you are in a sympathetic state, you're stressed, you're rushed, you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, digestion is deprioritized. So your body is focused on managing the perceived threat, not breaking down the sandwich you're eating. So what this means practically is that you could eat the exact same meal on two different days and have a completely different GI response, not because of the food, but because of your nervous system state. A lot of women don't even realize that this is happening because their stress just feels normal. It's just like their chronic low-grade stress that they function with. It keeps their nervous system just in this state of kind of constantly being on high alert. So eating while distracted, eating quickly, eating while anxious about food might do this to you. And so this is where just simply taking some deep breaths, saying a prayer, humming, gargling, singing before eating can really make such a big difference. So the thing that I really want you to take away from this episode, one of the most common mistakes that I see is that assuming food is the problem instead of asking why or if digestion is the problem. So this is the pattern that keeps people stuck. They remove foods, they temporarily feel better, and then they keep removing foods until they're eating just a super limited amount. And I've talked with so many individuals in that exact same spot. They're isolated. They're frustrated. Restriction alone does not rebuild your microbiome. In fact, it shrinks your microbiome. So we need to address things like stomach acid, enzyme output, motility, bile flow, your microbiome, your nervous system. Those things need to actively be supported, and until they are, your symptoms will continue to return, even if you're on this really limited diet. So gas is a clue. It's your body communicating. Your body's not betraying you. It's just communicating with you. And when you start to understand these patterns, the smells, the timing, what's happening, you can stop guessing, and you can actually start supporting your body in a way that moves things forward. So if this episode is making you realize maybe there's a bigger picture that you haven't fully understood, I would encourage you to go back and listen to episode 107. I talk a little bit more about, in depth about things like stomach acid and bile flow, et cetera, related to burping and gas and bloating. That episode is just gonna go a little bit more in depth, um, if you want more information about those specific root causes. And then if you're tired of feeling uncomfortable after meals or if gas is ruining your job or your life, your social life, you feel like you've tried so many things, our team would love to support you. The link to apply for Gut Together is in the show notes. This is our signature program where we will look at your complete history, your symptom picture. We will run specific functional testing and build a plan to look at actually what your body needs. So if this episode was helpful, send it to a friend. If you haven't left a review yet, we do a giveaway every month for a free HTMA to one of our reviewers, so it's worth a couple minutes of your time to leave a review, send it to us. All the information is in the show notes. But thanks for being here, and I will see you next week on the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.