sibo sos summit

Lyme Disease: An Overlooked Underlying Cause of IBS & SIBO

August 23, 2018 By Trudy Scott 5 Comments

Lyme disease is an overlooked underlying cause of IBS & SIBO and Dr. Tom Messinger addresses this fascinating connection in his interview on the IBS & SIBO SOS Summit, happening September 3-10, 2018.

Summit host, Shivan Sarna, found out about this connection when she told Dr. Messinger that her feet really hurt. He responded with this:

You know, the spirochetes from Lyme do like the feet

Who knew!?

He also shared that an acute presentation of Lyme disease can manifest with GI symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea:

a common underlying cause of SIBO is what’s considered either a GI flu or food poisoning. Most times, clinically, you can’t tease out which of those two scenarios happened. The person just has the same symptoms—nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping.

However, there is research—and that’s published research—showing that one of the ways an acute presentation of Lyme disease can manifest is that those GI symptoms—nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

So, a person that has that, and then years down the road is diagnosed with SIBO, it’s traced back to that as probably the onset, and thinking, “Well, it’s probably a GI flu,” you don’t get worked up for it, or it was a food poisoning, but it could’ve actually been a tick bite, Lyme disease, that caused that. And it was written off as it was just a GI flu. So an acute presentation, Borrelia can cause those symptoms that may lead down the road to SIBO.

And there is more:

We know that Borrelia does live in the intestinal lining cells
Borrelia has an affinity for nervous system tissue and that’s why there’s a lot of neurological symptoms in Lyme. But as we know, the GI system has a lot of nervous system tissue in it. It’s felt that Borrelia has an impact on the migrating motor complex and definitely has a profound impact on motility. It could either make motility hyperactive or hypoactive (diarrhea or constipation).
Borrelia has a great affinity for that and usually will impact the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is your main parasympathetic nerve in your body that helps to regulate all of your digestive function—hydrochloric acid secretion, pancreatic enzyme secretion, motility.

He reminds us to not discount the possibility of Lyme disease based on the following belief:

Well, I don’t live in the northeast. I don’t hike. I’ve never had a tick bite with a bulls eye rash. So there’s no way I could have Lyme disease

Dr. Messinger goes on to talk about the incidence of Lyme, how it can be transmitted, how it affects many body systems (digestion, neurological, hormones etc.), the challenges with Lyme testing, treatment and how overall toxicity may be playing a role in symptom severity.

I have chronic SIBO myself and I’m a speaker on the summit too. I cover how GABA reduces the visceral pain of IBS & SIBO, eases anxiety and helps with insomnia, plus some other protocols for easing the pain when the dreaded belly bloat occurs and you can’t sleep.

I’m also in the process of testing for Lyme disease. I wonder if this is one of the underlying causes of my SIBO? You’ll be sure to hear from me once I find out more.

Summit host, Shivan, asks the excellent questions YOU would ask if you were in the room with these experts. She draws on her own experience with painful digestive issues and years of failed treatments (alternative and conventional) to be YOUR champion for improved health…

…and she’s here to share her knowledge with you!

Join us at The IBS & SIBO SOS Summit to learn more about:

Identifying the root cause of your digestive struggles
Saving money from wasted doctor visits and ineffective treatments
Identifying which foods cause your flares
Naturopathic and conventional principles important to gut healing
Strategies for food reintroduction
Treatments, protocols and diets for IBS and/or SIBO
And more!

The IBS & SIBO SOS Summit is online and complimentary from September 3-10, 2018!

I’ll see you online at this educational summit when you register here today

Fecal microbiota transplants and helminth therapy on the SIBO SOS Summit

October 21, 2017 By Trudy Scott 1 Comment

Mark Davis covers fecal microbiota transplants and helminth therapy on the SIBO SOS Summit part II. The title of his interview is: No Holds Bar Conversation About Fecal Transplants (yup, we go there) From a Fearless Expert. You will discover:

How Helminth therapy benefits autoimmune conditions & allergies
Fecal Matter/ microbiota Transplants: The shocking treatment with incredible results
New options for treating C Diff
Why not all parasites are bad! Parasite, commensal, and mutualistic organisms explained

This is what Mark has to share about helminths (microscopic worm-like organisms) and SIBO

My understanding of Dr. Pimentel’s hypothesis is that SIBO is really autoimmune enteritis. It’s your own body’s immune system launching antibodies either against cytolethal distending toxin B (CDT) or against vinculin in the gut. That’s an autoimmune process.

What these microscopic worm-like organisms, helminths, do for us is they invoke a robust T-regulatory cell response. T-regs are responsible for telling the rest of the immune system when to calm down.

If you’ve ever looked at the great book, Epidemic of Absence, the premise of the book is how absence of exposure to microbes, including helminths—your ancestors were exposed to them over and over again—absence to all that might be causing an epidemic of allergic and autoimmune disease today.

He also shares that his favorite helminth is one called Necator Americanus.

That’s the new world human hookworm. I have about 30 of them living in my gut right now. I’ve worked with dozens of patients using these.

Mark also shares what fecal microbiota transplantation is and how it is delivered:

taking the microorganisms that are alive in stool, which you have tens of trillions of them in and on you right now, and it is filtering and processing those in a way to isolate the important parts, as much as you can, and then delivering those to the gastrointestinal tract of somebody with a dysbiotic gut flora. That can be via capsule or upper endoscopy or via lower endoscopy or enema. Those are the most common ways to deliver it.

He goes on to share how effective a FMT is for a C. diff infection (when nothing else works, the FDA rulings about it only being allowed for C. diff or as part of a study, and how he is guiding his ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease patients through a DIY version.

I love this comment from Mark when we he is asked about the ick factor of working with poop:

It doesn’t feel like I’m processing poop. It feels like I’m mixing up a magic brew to help my patients.

Here is some background on Mark Davis, ND: He practices at the IBD Specialty Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, and once per quarter at Bright Medicine Clinic in Portland, Oregon. He specializes in natural gastroenterology, especially the care of adults and children with inflammatory bowel disease. He is one of the few clinicians in North America with significant clinical experience using fecal microbiota transplantation (or FMT) as a therapeutic intervention, and has written and lectured extensively about FMT and helminthic therapy. He sits on the board of directors of the Fecal Transplant Foundation, and serves on the editorial board of the Natural Medicine Journal.

Mark is one of the speakers on the SIBO SOS Summit Part II. SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) is a leading cause of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). The most common SIBO symptoms are digestive issues, pain and bloating, and there are many other complications such as leaky gut and yeast overgrowth that make it difficult to diagnose and treat SIBO. Anxiety, depression and insomnia are common symptoms too.

FMT is not actually for used for treating small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) and Mark shares this caution for about 5% of SIBO sufferers:

When you’re delivering [FMT] via capsules or upper endoscopy, some or all of them may end up in the small bowel. Ninety-five percent or more of the time, that ends up not being a problem, but if people already have impaired motility in the small bowel or an existing autoimmune process, or an existing small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), that can compound the problem.

Part II of the SIBO SOS is all new interviews and is a great resource. Here are just a few of the guests and topics:

Dr. Allison Siebecker, Shivan Sarna, and Kristy Regan—Delicious Nutrient Rich Foods to Eat Even When You Have SIBO
Susanne Breen—When a SIBO Patient is Also a SIBO Doctor: The Obstacles and Strategies That Work For Her and Her Patients.
Dr. Megan Taylor: Been There, Done That! Help For Patients From a Doctor With Chronic SIBO
Dr. Norm Robillard—Choosing Diet Over Drugs
Angela Privin—How a Gut Health Coach Cured Herself of IBS After One Year of Paleo Done Right
Whitney Hayes—The Art and Science of SIBO Treatment
Jason Wysocki—The Importance of Neurology on GI Health and SIBO

You can register for the SIBO SOS Summit Part II here (it runs from Oct 21 to Oct 29)

Dr. Allison Siebecker’s treatment approach: SIBO SOS Summit

June 24, 2017 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

The SIBO SOS Summit starts today June 24th and runs to June 28th.

SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth) is the #1 leading cause of IBS and other digestive problems and can cause bloating, chronic constipation or diarrhea (or both!!), anxiety, depression, pain and a host of other symptoms.

Shivan Sarna and co-host Dr. Allison Siebecker (a SIBO expert and hero of mine), are bringing some of the foremost experts in the country together to discuss this potentially life altering disease. Over 5 full days of expert interviews Shivan will take a deep dive into the causes, treatment options and expert opinions on everything from diet, to medication you need to know about to regain your optimal health and how to beat SIBO (even if you didn’t know you had it!)

You’ll also meet a host of patients who have lived with SIBO and have learned how to heal themselves… their passionate stories will give you the hope you need.

In her SIBO treatment interview Dr. Siebecker shares the following:

There’s several layers that we can aim our treatments at. I would say the top layer is the symptoms. And of course we want to get somebody feeling symptomatically better as soon as we can. And this is in regards to SIBO, it could apply to other diseases but specifically SIBO. The next layer down would be the bacteria. That’s the actual SIBO, the accumulation of bacteria in the small intestine aiming at eliminating those bacteria. And then the bottom layer would be the underlying cause of the SIBO. And that’s really where most of us probably want to focus our treatment because if we can get rid of the underlying cause well then we can get rid of SIBO and we can cure it, but that isn’t so easy.

I love these 2 tips she shares for the painful bloating:

something that helps a lot is charcoal, activated charcoal because it actually absorbs… gas into its little pockets and chambers inside the charcoal. That can really help people, especially if you’re having pain from the bloating that can really help.

Another thing is you can lie face down on your stomach and it puts the anatomy in a position where it can allow gas to be burped out and you can get some relief that way.

I’ve used the latter face down position but didn’t know about the charcoal tip, which is why I love these summits – I always learn something new!

Dr. Siebecker goes on to share in detail about

pharmaceutical antibiotics
herbal antibiotics (you would need to add in the allicin/Alimed if you had constipation type of SIBO or high methane)
prokinetics like triphala, MotilPro and Iberogast (and some pharmaceutical prokinetics) to assist motility
the elemental diet
visceral manipulation, massage and acupuncture

She ends with how important stress reduction is and that’s where my work comes in!

I hope you can join us. You can register for SIBO SOS here