My Full SIBO Story (how I healed)

After suffering from SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) for 4.5 years, I was FINALLY able to get rid of it and I'm going to tell you how. I go through all the methods I've tried, people I've worked with, and you'll soon understand why it took so long for me to heal. I hope this helps some of you who are on your own healing journey, and of course my DM's are always open (IG: kaylaashworth_).

Transcript

0:01

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Fill Your Potential Podcast. This is my most long awaited podcast and I know many of you who have been following me the last four years have been waiting for this to come out as well, and so I'm just excited to finally have closed this loop and be able to share my story from start to finish. I know that. I've given y'all tidbits and so many times throughout this journey I didn't even know what was going on. So it was very hard for me to share it with y'all as I was trying to navigate, um, especially with how much influence I have on the, on internet, on the internet, on with social media. I never wanna put out something that could steer someone in the wrong direction. Of their own healing journey. So I just try to be very cautious throughout this whole thing. And then also protect my own piece because obviously this whole journey has been exhausting, but. I'm really gonna start from the beginning. This is probably going to be pretty long, so bear with me. But I want to give y'all as much context and as many details as I can for those of you that are going through SIBO or just wanna learn more about it to prevent it. Um, I just wanna give y'all a little bit of hope and maybe sharing my story will help you with yours. So let's go back to the very. Beginning. I honestly, from like fourth grade, I had stomach aches, random stomach aches, not, I don't really remember bloating, did not have any constipation. I was a pretty healthy kid, but I do remember having some stomach aches growing up and fast forward all the way to college. I have always been an eater. I've shared this before, but I love to eat. I was a garbage can. I could eat anything and everything. No intolerances to food, no trigger foods. I really, I mean, I'm sure I just bloated because I ate so much. Not necessarily um, an actual gut infection or anything like that, but I was fine, you know, never had to see a GI doctor. I pooped probably three times a day. I was. Thriving. And again, I was eating so much food, um, and everything was fine right back in the good old days. So fast forward to, what was that college? I started bodybuilding. Now, just for some context, I had never dieted before. I had never done a cut. I. Ate clean, quote unquote. I've talked about this before, but I would eat clean during the week and then on the weekends if I wanted to go out, I would go out, enjoy myself. Didn't really have any issues with that. Um, I dated a bodybuilder prior to Trav and he would go out and like dirty bulk and I would just go eat like triple meat. Whataburgers with him. Just nasty stuff, like anything under the sun. And I mean, I was fine. So. All of that was going on, and then I got into bodybuilding. I did, I've met, I've talked about this all in my first podcast, kind of my story. But I did a cut with a coach and lost 25 pounds very quickly. Did not have any GI issues during that cut. Um. That I can remember. You know, I didn't really know a lot about gut health or food or anything back then, so I honestly could have been having issues and not even known, but I did that cut and then started binge eating, right? So binge ate for about a month, and I'm talking bad like I was eating. Full pizzas before bed. I was at one night I gained 15 pounds overnight. 15 pounds. That is absolutely absurd. And then I ended up losing it in within like four days. 'cause a lot of that is, you know, water retention and whatnot, but just insane amount of binge eating. And then did another cut up a month later to kind of quote, unquote reel me back in. And that's when I qualified for nationals, um, with my bikini competition. Or in my MPC show, and then I started binge eating again, so that went on for another few months. So lots and lots and lots of binge eating. A quick. Um, fat loss phase and then lots of binge eating after that. And then I kind of got my shit together. Um, I honestly, I really don't remember what digestion was like during that time. I know I wasn't having chronic bloating, but I, I'm sure. I was a little constipated. I really don't remember, but obviously it wasn't that bad 'cause I don't remember it. So then finally got food pretty much under control. I was in a good head space and I started my prep for nationals where I turned pro back in 2021. And about halfway through this prep, I am in the HEB parking lot and I eat my normal breakfast and I just blow up like a balloon, like the most painful, hard belly you've ever experienced in your life. And I knew I had never experienced that 'cause it happened. And I was like, what in the world is this? Like this is new. Never felt this before. So. That started happening for the remainder of prep. I wouldn't do anything to trigger it. It just, I just started flaring up and come show day. Um, and my coach at the time really didn't know anything about gut health, so we just, you know, kept chugging along. But come show day. Everything is so dialed in under control, so I didn't have any issues. Thank goodness you're really not eating or drinking too much. Um, and a lot of it is low for minimal low FODMAP food, meaning it doesn't have a lot of fiber for minimal carbohydrates. So I wasn't really bloating, but again, didn't really know what was going on with me. So finish that show, qualified Turn pro, whatnot. And after that show, the binge eating was better. I definitely had multiple episodes after that, but it wasn't as bad as it was before. I had a little bit more of a handle on things, but this bloating thing was just absurd. I mean, if you go to my Instagram, I've shared many of photos before, you can see, but I would just literally blow up like a freaking balloon even when I wasn't binge eating. So. At this time, four years ago, I don't know much about gut health. I know a lot about just general health and fitness, nutrition, food, all the things. But I don't know anything about gut health. It is not talked about. I'm young, I'm like 21 years old. Um, so really. Am just a newbie in this whole world. And people kept saying the word sibo and I was like, what is sibo? So I looked it up and I was like, oh my gosh, wait. That's exactly what I have. Gas, bloating, and constipation. And this was like. Gas to where you could clear a room, like it smells like rotten eggs. You want to actually die. I was dating at the time and I would like have to hold in my gas on the date and when I would go home, I'd literally be bawling my eyes out because my stomach hurts so bad from holding in this gas. It was insane. Terrible time in my life. But that being said. Looked this up, saw sibo, and I was like, holy shit, this is what I have. Like gotta get this fixed. So I met someone at the gym and they told me, you know, this person that I work with, they are very familiar with sibo, they've healed a lot of people. You should give it a go. Now, mind you, at this time I am reversing outta prep. So I'm still very lean and I have been on the hormonal birth control pill for about 10 years at this point, which is an incredibly long time in hormonal birth control. Pill specifically because you take it orally. It is going to have to be detoxed by the liver and it is going to affect the gut microbiome. So keep that in mind. Not saying this is what caused the sibo, it was an accumulation, but this could have definitely added to the just shift in my microbiome. In addition to the other things which I'll get into. So. Start working with this guy and looking back again. At the time I didn't have the information. Looking back, I do understand what he was trying to do. I do not believe the herbal protocol he had me on was strong enough to get rid of sibo, but I do understand what he was trying to do. Um. And actually, hold on. There's so much I, I did leave out a part. So first I went to my GI doctor. That's the first thing I did. Just like most of you I'm sure have done, and they probably gave you a PPI or they diagnosed you with IBS Didn't tell you much. My doctor told me. To eat my last meal at 6:00 PM and chew my food well, and I left the office bawling my eyes out because I didn't feel heard or understood, and I felt very dismissed. So that didn't go well. Of course, they did the colonoscopy and the endoscopy, which everything was fine. Spent thousands for nothing. This is what typically happens. My doctor actually did though, give me a SIBO breath test, which again at the time. Didn't really know what this was, but 'cause this was before working with that, with the person I was talking about gave me the SIBO breath test, it came back positive. So again, I don't know what this means. I'm like, okay, I have sibo, whatever that means. And they gave me two antibiotics. So Rifaximin and Nehemiah. Now this antibiotic combo has worked for a lot of people. Some people go the antibiotic route For me personally. It did not, but also you have to remember when it comes to sibo, sibo. First off, let me explain what SIBO is. So SIBO is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. A lot of our bacteria, majority of our bacteria is housed in our large intestine. So our colon, a small amount of bacteria is housed in our small intestine. Now, whenever food sits in the small intestine, the stomach too long. It does not move through the system quick enough. This, this, um, happens. A lot of times with people with low thyroid function because low thyroid function slows gut motility. So food sits in the gut longer and it allows for it to ferment. And when it ferments, that's what creates that gas, which creates that bloating that those bacteria feed off of that food that's just sitting there. And then it creates gas, and that's what causes a lot of the bloating, and that's why it smells so bad. So. That's what was happening. Now, there are three different types of sibo. There's hydrogen dominant, which is more diarrhea based. There's, um, methane dominant, which is what I have had, hold on, had, and that's more constipation based. And then you also have hydrogen sulfide, which you can have a mix of both. But that being said, this overgrowth happened because. All the binge eating. I constantly had food and sugar and fermentable foods in my gut, so this bacteria was not moving into the colon quick enough. It was building up and sitting in my small intestine, and this overgrowth was occurring. Now also, when you're in prep and you're stressed. Your stomach acid is gonna get depleted, motility is gonna slow down, and this food can sit in the digestive system a lot longer as well. Constipation can occur because of that downregulation of thyroid whenever you're in a dieting phase. And then also the downregulation of stomach or um. L lack of production of stomach acid, which is also going to lead to slower motility and poor breakdown of food. So now, especially protein, 'cause our stomach acid breaks down our protein. That's why you're gonna get larger food particles in the intestines causing issues like gas and bloating and causing that slur, motility that fermentation can happen. So now that you know what SIBO is. Back to my GI doctor. Got the SIBO test done positive, gave the antibiotics. But you have to remember, there's so many different things happening here that need to be addressed, such as stomach acid, digestive enzyme production, motility movement, um, stress reduction. Again, my body fat was super low. You need to, um, adjust your. Food intake, your meal timing, your fiber intake, like there's so many things that go into this. You can't just take an antibiotic and expect it to go away. Also, my SIBO was okay. Just to put it in perspective. For methane dominant, you should not blow. It's a breath test. You should not blow above a 20 or a 10. I'm sorry, a 10. I was at a 60. At that time, later on, I got up to an 85. It got worse, but I was at a 60. That is absolutely absurd. I've never seen anyone above like a 35 insane. So you have to remember like 14 days of antibiotics was likely not gonna wipe out a 60 worth of this sibo. And again, I didn't have any additional support in healing this now for a lot of people. There is another underlying root cause of Y. SIBO was there for me. I truly believe that I'll get into another possible root cause later, but I truly believe it was the stress of prep and then also all of the binge eating and all that fermentation happening, um, that did it for me and did it for me so bad. But I do think there was another underlying root cause that I'll talk about in a little bit. I just don't wanna throw too much at y'all too quickly. So did the antibiotics. Absolutely nothing happened. So I start working with this guy. Um, again, looking back, I understand the protocol, but I was very lean and because I was coming outta prep and I was on the hormonal birth control, and then he wanted to put me on this gut protocol to kill off the overgrowth, right? So you have to remember whenever, or I had talked to him about getting off the birth control. You have to remember when you are coming off hormonal birth control, hormonal birth control castrates, you, your natural hormone production is shut down. It does not fix your period, um, modulate your period. It literally tells your body, Hey, we are giving you synthetic hormones, so you do not need to create any natural hormone production. These synthetic hormones, progestin not progesterone, which is what our body. Creates, but progestin is going to hit the receptor differently. It's going to cause symptoms. There's going to be side effects to any hormonal birth control you take. So that being said, when you come off of hormonal birth control, you wanna make sure body fat is adequate because you want to have excess energy to be able to turn your natural hormone production. Back online, if you are in a stressed state and body fat is low and you do not have sufficient nutrient um, amounts, you are not gonna have the excess energy for these hormones to turn back online. So I was very, very lean at the time and pulled me off birth control after being on it for 10 years. 10 years of my hormones being shut down. Of course I was not going to regain hormone, hormone function, like especially now having this chronic gut infection causing more stress to the body. Like probably looking back, I mean, I don't know if it really made a difference, but potentially staying on that birth control, or at least getting off the birth control and having higher body fat. While I was going through this protocol, I didn't need to be on the low food that I was on. I ended up losing like. I think another, honestly, you know what? Maybe when we started, my body fat wasn't that low, but because the diet he put me on was like only 1600 calories, I lost like 25 pounds. I think that's what happened. I was reversing, I was binge eating, gained body weight back, and then when I got on the protocol, I lost 25 pounds, but we were also trying to get my cycle back, so my cycle was not gonna come back losing that much body fat. So that's definitely what was going on Now. Again, looking back, I just think the herbal protocol, like the, the meal plan he had me on was not bad. Some of the supplementation he had me on, looking back, it was beneficial. But the herbal protocol he had me on was not strong enough to kill off SIBO the way I needed it to be killed off. Um, and I didn't really understand it at the time. It's really hard to go through a protocol when you don't understand what. The supplements do. When I have my girls take supplements, I try and go in and break down each one and say like, Hey, this is exactly what this does and this is how it's gonna benefit you. So when they take it, they have that understanding and they're more willing to kind of follow the plan, um, and buy into the protocol. So I just really wasn't bought in. I stayed on that bitch for 16 weeks. 16 weeks after coming out of this bodybuilding prep and trying to heal my gut, I was so, I've never been so diligent with anything in my entire life. Even more than prep, 'cause it was so strict food wise, I was. Man, I was in the thick of that thing. Um, and after those 16 weeks, I had the same symptoms. Nothing subsided. So that's when I kind of just got turned off to the idea of being on a strict protocol. And it made every protocol moving forward so hard for me because I was like, if I was on a 16 week protocol, being so disciplined and strict, and that did not. Cure me. Why am I gonna continue to follow these protocols and be strict in the future? So after that, I, what did I do? Oh, I hired someone else. That's what I did. I hired someone else and I paid them $9,000. I'm actually just gonna say her name. It was Sierra Baes because I've heard so many horror stories of people getting scammed by her and being charged way too much and not getting healed. So. Don't recommend. That's just my take on that. And that's just from personal experience. I think she's an amazing person. Very kind. Um, and I think she means well, but I think for the price point, like are you really trying to help people at $9,000 for six months? And again, she actually gaslighted me and told me I didn't have SIBO when she never tested. Me for it, and it was very clear I had sibo. I'm not really sure how you could deny that, um, or how you could not even test for that, but which I'd been tested in the past, but I, I didn't really put two and two together. Again, very new to all this back then. Anyways, worked with her for a little bit, trying to restore my cycle. But long story short, I ended up getting a breast augmentation, took off the gym for six weeks and my cycle came back. That was 13 months in of getting off hormonal birth control. So took me 13 months before I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna stop training altogether and just relax. And my cycle came back. And honestly, I use this method with a lot of my girls. Um. If we're not getting any movement, I'm like, just don't train it all. If you don't know how to pull back, like don't train. But now we use other supplementation to support the brain ovarian connection and restore nutrient balance and all the things and focus on diet and lifestyle, which looking back a lot of that was not done with me, which is kind of crazy. But anyways. That's besides the point, so got my cycle back, still had all the same GI issues. My cycle's actually been very resilient throughout this entire protocol and journey. A lot of people. Um, will lose their cycle because of the stress of the infections in the gut. But everyone has a different stress resiliency. I know other women that have perfect cycles. A lot of my girls, we have to heal their gut and then their cycle comes back because a lot of the systemic stress is then reduced once the cycle is, or once the gut is healed and restored. Um, and a lot of hormone conversion happens in the gut. So. This is different for everybody, but for me, I've always had a very resilient cycle. So that came back, um, again, still had the GI issues and that is when. I actually think I reached out to Lacey. Lacey is the RD that I currently work with. She is phenomenal. She is quite literally the smartest woman I know and I look up to her. Um, she is a registered dietician and has been through like probably eight plus years of schooling. Um, I will never go back to school for that long and I will never get to that level of education. So I admire her for that and I will always use her as. Sounding board and take my complex cases to her. Um, she's incredible, but she's the first person that, or not the first person, she is who I went to between Sierra and the other person I was working with. And again, it's really, really, really hard to follow a protocol and understand everything when. You know nothing when you're new to all of this, you're trying to figure it all out. So back then, I think it was just too much for me. Like I really just didn't understand the process and what everyone was trying to tell me, and I wasn't bought into it for that reason, and so I just wasn't able to follow the protocol well. So that didn't really work the first time I worked with Lacey, just because on my end I was like, so. Honestly over it. After following that 16 week protocol, I was like, I don't even, I don't even know what's going on anymore. So hired Sierra and then went back to Lacey after Sierra, after I got my cycle back and was like, okay, I'm ready to go back into the gut stuff. Like I have a little more understanding of what's going on and I really wanna start tackling this again. So I retested for sibo. My SIBO came back at an. Uh, 83 at that point. So y'all have to remember, you're supposed to blow below a 10. I blew an 83. That is quite literally insane. So it gotten worse this entire time. My eating, my relationship with food was still not great. I was definitely having binge eating episodes throughout this period. Um. In that 16 week strict protocol of being on 1600 calories did not help. The best thing you can do for overeating is not restrict. Just allow yourself to really process the emotions of why you wanna overeat and just enjoy things when you want them. And that way you don't feel restricted and feel the need to overdo it later on. Sorry, I haven't like been talking for 22 minutes straight. Um, okay. So moving forward. Talk to Lacey about getting on a protocol for the sibo, and she wrote me up a protocol. There are three different ways you can go about getting rid of sibo. There is the antibiotic route, which again, is not necessarily a bad route. Some people swear by it. I think it's very situational. It depends on why you have sibo. It depends on. How bad your SIBO is. Definitely. Um, and then I think really just how you respond to it. And you're not gonna know until you try it Now, herbals. Are more expensive and they take longer. So it's kind of like, why the fuck would you use herbals? However, they're a lot gentler when it comes to the gut and your beneficial bacteria. They don't wipe out your beneficial bacteria quite as much. And I've seen way less side effects from herbals than antibiotics. 'cause antibiotics can be a little harsher. So you have the herbal route, and then there's also something called the elemental diet. This is a liquid diet of pre-digested food because you have to remember. SIBO is an overgrowth in the small intestine. If we, when we eat, if we are eating formidable foods or we are eating too much carbohydrates or things that that bacteria feeds off of, then obviously we're feeding it as we're trying to kill it. So with a pre-digested shake, you're drinking that liquid and that liquid is getting, and those nutrients are getting absorbed in the upper part of your small intestine. Remember, the small intestine is like. I think it's like 32 feet long. It's something insane. So that, and the sibo, the overgrowth is gonna be more towards your colon. So like the last, let's say, I don't know, 10 feet. So that back that, um, nutrients will be absorbed in the initial part of the small intestine. So it's not gonna make it down to where the overgrowth is. So basically that overgrowth and that bacteria has no food to feed off of. Right? So eventually that overgrowth should die off. So. The thing with the elemental is obviously it is, well, one, it's very expensive, but two, obviously you're only drinking liquid for X amount of days. I actually did all three of these methods, so I'm gonna go into 'em. Um, so that can be exhausting. And then three. The issue with the elemental is once you come off of it, that bacteria is very susceptible to overgrowing again. So you have to be very, very, very careful about reintroducing food and kick-starting digestion again, and you can not let yourself get constipated or it will backfire. Now, I know people that have done elemental and it's worked great for them. It literally wiped everything out. I know other people that have done Elemental, including myself. It did nothing. It, I felt phenomenal while I was on it. Obviously I wasn't eating anything, so I felt great, but an energy was high because all my stress was low from all the internal stress with my gut. Um, and I was absorbing all of that nutrients. But that being said, it didn't necessarily work for me because it ended up backfiring. So again, everyone is different. It really just depends who you are. What your case is, and we can go in and talk about what method would be best for you. But I've done herbals that has been the best route for me throughout this entire process. So the first round that I did. Was, and for methane, it's a little different than hydrogen, but for methane, the main herbals that you're gonna wanna use for kill off are gonna be oregano. A concentrated form of garlic called Allison, and then ne or berberine. So these are ones that I've used this entire time, and in addition to this, you have to remember your digestive system when you have this infection is very impaired. You're under a lot of stress. Your entire body is dealing with this day-to-day stress of not being able to properly break down food and detox and go to the bathroom. So. A lot of pathways are going to be downregulated and shut down. So my stomach acid was obviously suppressed, so I replenished that with Betain. HDLI did not, well, hold on. I did have h pylori at one time and I did have candida at one time. I feel like I should probably go into that. So there's a lot here guys. I'm sorry if I'm losing y'all, but had the sibo, got the GI Map done, I also had a h pylori, which is a bacteria in the stomach. And then I also had candida, which is a yeast overgrowth now because of all the binging and sugar I was eating. Candida is a yeast that naturally lives in in our body, and in normal amounts it's fine, but when the immune system is suppressed, it can overgrow. Um. Or if you're overly feeding it, it can overgrow. If you have a lot of UTIs, you could definitely have yeast overgrowth. There's a lot of correlation between our gut microbiome and our vaginal microbiome. So if you're someone who has high sugar cravings, UTIs, rashes, or acne, um, a white coating on your tongue, you could definitely have yeast. Definitely look into that. So I did a yeast protocol, which is just antifungals, in addition to the SIBO protocol, as well as an h pylori protocol. Um, I think Sierra ended up getting rid of my h pylori. We did mast gum and matatu, so I think we actually ended up getting rid of that. And then I believe she had me on some antifungals. I can't remember if the candida was gone when I got to Lisa or not. But candida doesn't usually show up in the GI on the GI map. It's very hard for it to be detectable there. So if it is detectable, that means like you have it bad. And mine was detectable, so I knew like it was very prevalent in my body. So when I got to Lacey, I'm sure it wasn't fully killed off. Um, so anyways, we started on an herbal protocol and I supported digest, or I supported my stomach acid. I supported. And because the h pylori was gone, I could support my stomach acid. You don't wanna take bean hcl l if you have h pylori, because that can cause a lot more inflammation in the gut lining. And it could create stomach ulcers, which obviously we don't want. So make sure you kill the h pylori before you replenish the stomach acid. But anyways, I did that. I had the digestive enzymes. I had motility support, which means how quickly food is moving through the system, more so in your small intestines. So when we think about like laxatives, we think about food moving through the large intestine like pooping. But when we have motility support. And things like, um, pro kinetics, so that's what they're called. It's more in the small intestine. So taking a pro kinetic, I took Motil Pro by pure Encapsulations. It's a really good one on Amazon. Took that to help move food through the small intestine and then to make sure I was pooping every day because as you kill things off, you have to open your detox pathways. Our main detox pathways are our lymphatic system. Our um. Liver. So doing liver support, bile support through our skin, so sweating because our skin is actually our biggest detox organ. And then through our kidneys peeing, and then through our colon pooping. So supporting all of these systems. So I was making sure I was sweating via sauna. I wasn't training super hard, obviously trying to lower stress during this kill off. So I was making sure I was sweating and then I was supporting the liver. I took revived liver. I still take revived liver and then phos, acetylcholine, trine to help support bile flow and then castor oil packs to help with bile flow, dandelion root. Um, what else? I feel like those were the main ones to support bile flow, but that's gonna help that bile be. Produced and secreted into the small intestine to bind to toxins and help excrete them through my body. And then for the large intestine, I did magnesium citrate and cascara citta. Those have been like my go-tos. You could also try TriCal. Um, there's, I mean, there's a lot of laxative agents out there, but you really wanna do something. As mild as possible because we don't want like a full emptying that then leads to constipation the next few days because your system is trying to catch up. Basically, these lighter laxatives, like the magnesium citrate, the cascara, all they're doing is pulling water into the colon to help push that bowel movement along. So they're not heavy laxatives, they just have a laxative like effect. So taking those to make sure I was going to the bathroom every day, and then on top of all my vitamins and nutrients. It is so critical to make sure your nutrients are up to par because your body is under so much stress during this time, during this kill off if you are not. Supporting your body and your nutrient status. That is another stressor to the body. If we have low magnesium, low potassium, low sodium, so low electrolytes, if we have low, um, vitamin B levels that are readily used when we're stressed, if we have low vitamin C, vitamin A, um, vitamin D that are needed for a hormone production, like all these different vitamins, if. Obviously when our gut is impaired, we're not absorbing them well, and when our gut is impaired, we're probably not eating the rainbow because fiber makes us gassy and bloated. So during this, um, healing phase, you really do need to rely on supplementation to keep your nutrients up to par so your body actually has the energy. To kill this stuff off and support you while doing so, your body is not going to be able to kill stuff off properly and excrete it properly if all systems are not supported. Our body, all systems work together. Everything. It's like a huge spiderweb. So you cannot neglect one thing that might seem small, um, and just focus on another. You cannot just focus on the killing. If you're not focusing on the actual detoxing and supporting and hormone production, all of that. So I was doing all of that at the same time. Um, and I can tell you right now, supporting my vitamins made the biggest difference in my energy in the entire world, supporting my B vitamins especially. 'cause again, I wasn't absorbing them. And obviously my overall just diet was very minimal because I wasn't able to, um. Eat a lot of fiber without just blowing up like a balloon. So started this kill off, did that for about each round is about four to six weeks before you wanna retest and then switch up herbals so your body doesn't get used to them, um, or resistant to them. So did this for about four to six weeks, retested went. All the way down to like a 32. It was freaking awesome. So from an 85 to a 32, phenomenal. Went in and was like, let's do another round. So, changed up the herbals a little bit, did another round, and brought that all the way down to a 19. So we're making a lot of progress. Again, we only need to get below a 10. Um, so I think I went from a 32 to a 19, if I'm not mistaken. I feel like I'm missing a number. I think it was something like that. Um, and as far as food goes, during this time I did four meals a day. Low fodmap. If you go and look up a low FODMAP diet, low FODMAP is gonna be low fermentable foods. So these foods are not going to be as fermentable. They're not gonna feed that. Um. Bacteria. I would say staying below 200 carb is probably gonna be in the green for you. Everyone is very different for me, like I, I tried the whole like carnivore thing and I just could not switch over into ketosis and get my energy stores up and I was, honestly, my digestion was shit because I wasn't breaking down my protein 'cause my stomach acid was depleted. So it was honestly backfiring me. So I've just done. All the protocols with around one 60 to 200 carb, and I just use potato and rice and low FODMAP fruits, lots of berries I can tolerate kiwi, um, carrots, zucchini squash, things like that. I mean, y'all see my. My meals on Instagram, but during this time, you do wanna be very mindful with food. You wanna keep protein lower because again, stomach acid is gonna be depleted. If you're eating a ton of protein and you're not breaking it down, that's gonna lead to more fermentation, more gas and blow. You're gonna feel like shit. So just being mindful with food. Um, I did four meals a day, spacing them three to four hours apart for the migrating motor complex because again, we want our stomach to fully empty. We want everything to be cleared out before we put more food in us. 'cause if we have that constant flow of food. Again, that fermentation's gonna happen. So being mindful of that and then making sure you're pooping every single day. Do not start kill off if you are not pooping every single day. 'cause those toxins are just gonna recirculate. You're wasting your money on herbals. Um, sorry, this happens a lot. So I get a little, I get a little passionate, but moving forward. Did second protocol, got it to a 19 third protocol. I was like, Lacey, we're so close. Let's do antibiotics. And because I hadn't done them in so long, I was like, let's do antibiotics in combination with herbals and knock the rest of this out. And did the rifaximin. I didn't, I couldn't get ahold of Ne Mycin, but Rifaximin alone is not nearly as effective as having them both together. So that kind of sucked. Um, I didn't really expect much from that. I don't even really know why I did it, but. I was feeling so good before that protocol, but I could still tell like there was a little bit of overgrowth left just because of my symptoms. So I wanted to, you know, obviously with the testing I wanted to finish the job, but man, this rifaximin fucked me up. I don't know. I just responded so poorly to it. I don't know what it was, but I just started getting this burning in my stomach. I had never had that throughout this entire protocol. Even when I was bloated to the max, my stomach lining was just pissed. So. I ended up having to come off all of the herbals. I couldn't touch Betain because of this burning, and my stomach lining was so incredibly irritated, and this went on for about eight months all throughout my wedding. I mean, I couldn't do another protocol because my stomach lining was so irritated. I thought I had a stomach ulcer. Honestly, for a while. I was like, I took too many herbals. I have a stomach ulcer now, like I'm gonna have to go get an endoscopy and take medication for this. It was a whole thing and I took a ton of DGLD. GL is licorice root and it coated my stomach. And it is the only thing that would give me relief. Not even Carafate would give me relief, which is a prescription medic medication to coat your stomach lining. The DGL is what did it for me. Um, so this whole time, this whole seven months, I'm just literally falling like a gastritis diet. I'm trying to relax my stomach and nothing is working. Um, so after the wedding I was like, you know what? I haven't tried an herbal in seven months. I'm still having this burning, but like, let me just give it a go and see what happens. Mind you, herbals are pretty harsh on the stomach lining, so I was expecting for the burning to be worse, I couldn't tolerate beane, which is basically hydrochloric acid. It's replacing your stomach acid, so it's also very acidic, very strong. But I tried the herbals again. I started another round, another protocol, and the burning went away within like a few days and I was like, holy shit. It was just from the gas traveling upwards and burning my stomach. I mean, again, still when I think back on it, I'm like, it doesn't make sense because my SIBO was way worse back then and the bloating was way worse, and I didn't have that stomach burning. It wasn't until I took that rifaximin. But I ended up getting an endoscopy at, at some point this past year because I was trying to figure out if I had ulcers before I took more herbals and I didn't have ulcers, thank goodness. So I, I started the herbals and I was fine immediately. I still do have. 100% irritation in the gut lining. So I hit my glutamine really hard. I take my bone broth, I drink low acidic coffee. Um, just to make, yeah, I always eat before I have my coffee. 'cause coffee's a stomach lining irritant, so not something I'm willing to give up yet. Um, but I am very mindful with my coffee. So that being said, started to go away. And that was this past protocol. So I'm talking to y'all January 1st, 2026. This was within the past few months. I'm doing this protocol and I am locked in, like I am on my shit and I can feel it getting better and better and better. I'm pooping every day, like not really bloating. The heart burns down. I'm feeling good, I'm really excited. I go and retest after four to six weeks of on this new, um, on this new protocol and. My Sibos all the way down to a 10. So it was at a 19 all the way down to a 10. And oh, I forgot to mention, there's so much that happened, y'all. Um, I did the elemental when I was having the burning 'cause I was like, I can't do herbals. I can't do antibiotics. Let me do the elemental. So did the elemental during those 21 days Felt phenomenal. Oh my gosh. I literally, my HRV was like at 1 30, 1 40. I was sleeping like a baby. My energy was through the roof. 'cause I didn't have any, um, inflammation from digestion. Like, oh, it's feeling so good y'all, but. Again, when I got off of it, after 21 days, I started eating again slowly, but I wasn't pooping. 'cause everything, my dig, my digestion had been shut off for 21 days. Things didn't pick back up quick enough. I started getting constipated and things just started deferment again. So I don't think the bacteria was ever killed off. I think it was just quieted from me not eating. I think I needed to do herbals on top of the elemental and I probably would've been fine. Um. It just didn't work for me. It ended up backfiring. My SIBO came back. I actually retested, it was a 25, so I went from a 19 to a 25. That's when I did this most recent herbal protocol. Got it down to a 10 and then did another one. 'cause I was like, look, it's a 10. It needs to be sub 10 technically to be negative. And like I'd rather be safe than sorry and just knock it out and do four more weeks. So I did four more weeks of herbals. Felt great not having. Any upper abdominal bloating going to the bathroom. I'm on like a 40, aired nice and soft. Love that for me. Um. So I was like, cool, Sibos gone. Like, let's fucking go. We did it. So excited. So now that the overgrowth is gone, remember it is going to wipe out some of your beneficial bacteria, especially because you can't eat. You wanna eat as much fiber as you can during the protocol 'cause you wanna feed your beneficial bacteria while you kill off the bad. But at the same time, you don't wanna cause symptoms and feed the bad and make things worse. So I was having to be very, very mindful with how much fiber I was eating. So now, once the bad is killed off, you need to go in and re inoculate the good, right? So I started on some probiotics. Now probiotics are like seeds. When you plant the seeds you have to water them, give them, um, fertilizer, food, and I don't think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, sorry, I'm talking to myself and allow them to grow. So fiber is your basically food, sunlight, water for the probiotic. So probiotic is the seed, the beneficial bacteria that you're basically implanting in your gut, but then you have to feed that beneficial bacteria so it can grow and flourish and actually stay in your gut. If you take a probiotic and you're not eating. Fiber or not taking any prebiotic foods, it's not gonna grow. It's not gonna stick. So for all of y'all that are really trying to help your microbiome, I recommend in, in, um, increasing your fiber intake to at least 25 grams a day and just getting as much variety as you can. You can literally go online, type in a fiber chart or fo. Polyphenol chart, and all of these things are gonna help your beneficial bacteria. You could also do something like keifers sauerkraut, kimchi. Now if you have sibo, don't do any of this 'cause you're gonna freaking feel like a gassy, bloated whale. But if you don't, then go for it. So. That being said, start incorporating these probiotics, and when I did these in the past, I would blow up like a gassy, bloated whale because I still had overgrowth. Now that I'm doing them, I don't have any gas or bloating with them, so I'm like, this is so cool. Like I sibos gone. You know, like I'm not, my symptoms aren't getting worse with these probiotics. Like I'm actually healing. Now, I did that for about four to five weeks. So this past month I feel like it was all of November. And when you have sibo, usually it's more upper abdominal bloating, like above your belly button into your stomach when you have candida, constipation, other infections, it could be below the belly button. Um, some people have SIBO and it's below the belly button, but I've just noticed it's more like the entire stomach. 'cause there's so much gas. You have like a rock hard belly, but I'm still having this lower abdominal bloat. It just looks like a little pooch. Now mind you, I've had this chronic gut infection for four and a half years. There is so much. Nervous system regulation work that has to be done and retrain my body to get out of this constant fight or flight state that I've been in this constant like safety guarding mode and let it know like, Hey girl, we don't have the infection anymore. You can relax, like take a deep breath. You can function normally again. There was a lot of damage done to my body for a long time, so I don't expect all of that. To go back to normal overnight, but also I just knew like something's still lingering. Something is not right. So I'm gonna go into this next part in another podcast because this one's already getting long and I want to separate the two, but just. To give y'all a summary. I grew up in my childhood house that I lived in for 20 years. We 100% had mold. We live in Houston, Texas. It's very humid. We've had flooding before and I would see like a little bit of mold in my bathroom, maybe in the vents. Um, I don't know if it was in the walls or the attics, but like more so just bathroom mold than anything but. I just had a feeling like I have a little bit of mold in my body. So I went and got a mycotoxin test done and sure enough I did have a little bit of mold. Nothing crazy, but I did have a little bit of mold. Now, mold mycotoxins, when they're in the body, they can suppress your immune system. And one thing that really seems to pair with that is candida overgrowth or yeast overgrowth or fungus overgrowth. So I knew I had candida in the past really bad, and it can be a. Bitch to kill. So I'm just thinking, and I'm like, you know what? I'm still having a little bit of acne. I'm still having a little bit of white, white coating on my tongue, and my sugar cravings are definitely down substantially, but. I'm having this lingering lower abdominal bloat and I just really feel like there's still some candida left. There's still some yeast left and there's still some mold left 'cause I had never treated the mold, so, and if you keep the mold in your body, the mold's gonna keep your immune system suppressed and that yeast is not gonna be able to be fully eradicated. Now also. I got my blood work back recently and my period's great, right? So I'm having a regular cycle. I'm feeling good. So my micro-nutrient status was great, which I am on my shit with my supplements, so I really expected that my period is regular. So seeing my sex hormones in where they were at, I really expected that to be good as well. But there are some markers that are showing that my liver is just not functioning the way it should be. My LDL was high. My sex hormone binding gob goin was high. My T three was low, showing poor T four to T three conversion, which is your inactive to active thyroid conversion. That was low. Um, there was something else that was on there that was also off. Um, oh, my CBC was all over the place. Like my red blood cell count was low. My white blood cell count was low, showing chronic infection. Um, there were just a bunch of markers pointing back to my liver production or my liver function that were just off. And when you have something like mold that is a consistent toxin being circulated in the body that the liver is consistently having to filter, and that can really weigh on the liver and hinder function. So. This just even further kind of led to my belief that like I need to treat this mold and get it outta my body and kill off any remaining yeast. And I feel like that is going to allow everything to start functioning optimally and get rid of any remaining overgrowth in my gut. So. That started about two weeks ago actually. I started an, I go into some of this protocol, I think in my first podcast, but I would like to do another podcast specifically on yeast and mold and things to look out for. Um, I would say Lacey has phenomenal podcasts on this 'cause she's way more experienced than I am. I can give you like the overview of these two things, but she like deep, deep dives into it in some of her podcasts. So I highly recommend going and listening to her. But that being said, I started this protocol about two weeks ago. Um, I'm not gonna lie, like my gut is not feeling great right now. I am pretty bloated. But I will say during a kill off protocol, again, your body's going through a lot, it's releasing a lot of toxins. You can't expect to be a skinny queen in the thick of it. So what should happen is like the first one to three weeks are when everything is gonna be start to die off. The symptoms might get worse. You might get like a lot of fatigue, flu-like symptoms. These are called die off symptoms as that to those toxins are being released. I know when I was in like the thick of my protocol, I was literally sleeping like 12 hours a night. It was crazy. Um, this podcast is making me realize how much I could talk about my whole journey. I feel like I'm just scratching the surface. It's nuts, but I'll go into deeper things. Other times and do specifics, but, um, so anyways, I have been on this mold protocol not feeling too great right now. Um. It is very strict. I'm having to be very strict with carbohydrates 'cause that's exactly what yeast feeds off of is carbohydrates and blood sugar spiking. So I've had to be super, super mindful with that. No added sugar, really no more than five grams of added sugar. And then being careful with things that contain high amounts of mycotoxins. So like coffee, I've had to, I'm sure you've seen my stories, but I've literally bought mycotoxin, tested coffee. I'm grinding my own beans. I am doing it in a, um, oh my God. What is it called? A, I'm forgetting the name, but basically where you French press. I'm like, where you press your own coffee, French press a French press. Boiling my water on a kettle. Um, not doing chocolate 'cause chocolate is a high mycotoxin, um, food. I actually switched my RX bars to the blueberry ones to limit that. Being mindful of nuts, aged foods, cheeses, dairy, stuff like that. So it is a lot more strict. Um, but I'm really trying to dial in. I haven't been. Too great. I'm just so done with being restrictive, y'all. I'm not even gonna lie. Like I just wanna be normal, but I understand I've gotta lock in for the next few weeks and get this knocked out so I can get on with things. 'cause I have a freaking pro debut coming up in 10 months. So with that, with this protocol that I'm currently doing right now, I. Have been dealing with, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna make a whole separate podcast about nervous system regulation and how that affected my physical body and my healing, and my glute specifically, and why I'm quote unquote in rehab right now for my leg. And same thing with my shoulder and my wing scapula. I got a lot going on right now with my physical body that I definitely wanna get into later. In another podcast, um, save that for another day. But right now I'm really just focused on rehab every single day. I go to the gym every single day because I'm either I, every other day I'm doing either upper body or rehab for my lower body. So I'm not training every day, but I'm doing three upper body days a week. Half of that is rehab for my shoulder, the other half is lifting. And then for my lower body, half of it is rehab for my glute. And then the other half is like. Very, very, very light lifting and really focusing on re-engaging the glute and not letting my groin and hamstring take over. And it's a whole bunch of shit. Um, but that works out because all of that is very low intensity and I need to stay low intensity while I finish healing on this protocol because if I crank up training right now, my body cannot recover. Are you kidding me? I'm trying to detox mold and get rid of yeast. Do you think I can recover from, um. Um, training in micro tears in my muscle tissue. Absolutely not. So that being said, I'm really just honing on the end of this health journey trying to lock in so I can wrap this up and after this is done, I should be able to start and create. Once I see that my gut is like functioning perfectly, I'm going to obviously be off the protocol. Start increasing food, increasing probiotics, seeing how I respond and if everything is going well, then I will retest my lab work, see where my markers are at. If those have improved, I will start picking up training. So we do have some steps that need to be completed prior to me getting back into a true off season. But also my body needs to be recovered before getting back into a true off season. I need my glute and my shoulder to be functioning, functioning optimally, so it really works out. But I'm hoping to wrap this up like end of February by the absolute latest. I'm gonna be so locked in over these next four weeks, but I really, by February or. March 1st, I wanna be like back on my split eating at maintenance. I wanna be training hard and recovering well. That is my goal. So that being said, oh, I just can't believe I'm sitting here telling y'all that my SIBO is gone. I know I'm not at the end of my healing journey, but. Again, you'll have to remember how bad mine was and it's not gonna be completely gone overnight. There's a lot of different components that go into this. So if you're on your own healing journey, I hope you see how complex this is and just give yourself grace and understanding and just continue being your own advocate and learning. And, um, making sure you're supporting yourself in all different areas throughout the journey and looking at things from multiple different lenses. Get your GI maps, get your SIBO testing. Hit me up if you need help with that. Um, I can definitely help get you labs. Help run you through those protocols. And if I can't, then I will send you to someone who can. But my goal is just to help all of y'all get rid of your silly little gut issues. But they are not for the weak. I promise you that if you have GI issues, God knows you are a strong soldier. So keep that in mind. Um, but I get you girl. I feel you. I hear you. I, I've been there. I am there. So if you're still listening to this, thank you so much. Please, please, please DM me and let me know how you liked this. Let me know things I can improve on, things you want me to talk about. Your feedback, especially with me just starting this podcast is gonna be so incredibly important and beneficial. Um. I love you guys. Y'all are awesome. I'm really trying to be consistent with this. This year. I am going to be consistent. I think podcasting is kind of my jam. Like I've been talking for 56 minutes. That's pretty cool. So anyways, I'm gonna shut up now. Y'all have a great rest of your week, great rest of your freaking year, and God bless.