Elimination diet and SIBO

[bethben]

So, I went on an elimination diet for two weeks and noticed my eczema (which was my main reason for the diet) was getting worse.  I gave up and went to a functional medicine person for actual blood testing for food sensitivities.  She suggested all my healthy ferments could be causing the problem due to possible SIBO so I gave them up to see if it helped the eczema.  My eczema is on retreat and has almost cleared in only 5 days.

I’m going back to see the doctor in another week.  Here’s my current question until I see her again.  I can no longer eat foods I was able to eat before I went on the elimination diet.  Foods that were on the no no list.  I get gassy and crampy if I eat any food I eliminated.  Tonight it was ribs with a sweet homemade barbecue sauce.  I’m in pain.  I used to eat all sorts of food without getting gassy for the most part.  I used to eat this very recipe with no side effects.  Now, after just two weeks on a pretty restricted diet, I can’t.  What is going on?

[prairiewindmomma]

That sounds SIBOish to me. BBQ sauce has a ton of sugar in it to feed yeast....and ribs themselves are hard to digest as a fatty meat.

[bethben]

But I used to eat it all the time before I did my two week elimination diet without any symptoms.  It makes no sense to me.

[prairiewindmomma]

So, imagine that your elimination diet combined with eating fermented stuff allowed a tiny bad bacteria army to grow in your upper intestines. Just because you went back to eating normal stuff doesn’t mean that the bad bacteria army went away.

And you fed the army sugar tonight, so it grew and released more bad toxins.

[bethben]

I ate the ribs because I thought I could have a food party since when my test results come back, it will probably be a fairly restricted diet for a while. I'm pretty sad that my body can no longer tolerate foods I used to have as treats without my gut rebelling.   I will be talking with my functional medicine doctor about all of that when I go back.  I'm guessing I do have SIBO since stopping the ferments also stopped the eczema.  I guess I am looking at sticking with the diet I started for a while until I can heal.  I'm pretty sure that the doctor will not just try to tackle this through diet alone.  I am going to ask her about antibiotics.  I was just surprised that I was having such stomach issues when I ate a forbidden food after having spent years eating those very same foods.  I ate a fairly healthy diet already with pretty low sugar.  My concern right now is that when I'm eating a Paleo diet, I'm losing weight fairly quickly.  Some of that is probably inflammation.   When I went on a similar diet 20 years ago, I ate a ton of food and still kept losing weight to the point my parents got really concerned when I visited after not having seen me for 6 months.  Granted, I was in my 20s and that's a whole different animal since now, being perimenopause, my body tends to want to keep the weight more and I'm probably 20 pounds heavier.  The other thing I'm trying to tackle is my insomnia due to restless leg and other factors.  I'm on medication for this and I really want to try to get off of it.