Today I'm going to share my experience doing a course of Rifaximin with
Neomycin for SIBO so stay tuned. Hey there. If you're new here,
welcome. My name's Amanda Malachesky. I'm a Certified Functional Nutrition Health Coach and
a digestive and allergy detective. To learn more about why your digestive symptoms are happening
and what you can do about them, please consider subscribing and be sure to hit the bell to be
notified when I post a new video every week. I recently completed a three-week course of
Rifaximin with Neomycin SIBO treatment, which is a standard SIBO treatment.
So in today's video, I want to just really briefly talk about what SIBO is in case you don't know,
and then share what happened to my symptoms over the three weeks I was on the treatment and also
talk about what I'm doing post treatment. My hope with this video is that you'll feel
a little less anxious or worried about doing this potentially really useful treatment for yourself.
I also want to just talk a little bit about how these kinds of experiments can help illuminate
what's happening in our gut. Let's get started. All right, super brief overview of SIBO. SIBO
stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and basically is what it says; it's an overgrowth
of bacteria in your small intestine. The trick is that there shouldn't be very much bacteria in your
small intestine and when bacteria overgrows there, it tends to mess up your gut motility or the speed
that food moves through your digestion. So if it speeds it up, you're going to have diarrhea and
if it slows down your motility, you're going to have constipation. SIBO is one of the most common
underlying causes of IBS. So that's why talking about SIBO is really important. It's because it's
a really common underlying cause of IBS symptoms; diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas, and so on.
I have likely had SIBO for many years. If you've seen my video where I talk about my endometriosis
and gut health journey, I'll leave a link for that so you can watch it if you haven't seen it,
my case of SIBO is a situation where another health condition
screwed up my digestion and made it so that SIBO could develop. My worst gut symptoms started about
six to seven years ago when my endometriosis got really bad and I had a tremendous amount
of scar tissue and adhesions and things in my abdomen holding my guts tight, including
attaching to my large bowel. So I started having slow motility, which I think allowed
bacteria to build up in my small intestine. I tested positive for methane SIBO in about
2017. At the time I did some herbal treatments and my symptoms did improve a little bit. That
was kind of where I left it. But not too long after I had a relapse and my symptoms kept
getting worse and then all kinds of new symptoms started happening. So just about a year ago,
maybe a year and a half ago, I started working with a naturopath and she wanted to treat me
for SIBO. She's like, "You probably still have it." I tried some of the herbal options
and found that I didn't tolerate them anymore. So fast forward to a couple of months ago,
we decided to run another SIBO test just to double check and see if that's what was really going on.
My methane levels on my SIBO test were really extremely high. We decided we were going to do
a standard treatment protocol, the Rifaximin plus the Neomycin. I was asked to take the Rifaximin
three times a day and the Neomycin twice a day. I started this protocol on February 13th.
Now a core idea in my teaching is that when we try something new, whether it's a supplement,
a medication or a dietary change, we want to be going into that process asking a question that
we're trying to answer for ourselves so we can decide whether or not to continue with it, or we
learn more information about the edges of our unique situation. So my question here was will
the Rifaximin and Neomycin have an effect on my constipation? I was also curious about some other
symptoms. I did make a list of symptoms that I wanted to track during my treatment protocol,
and they included things like migraine headaches, joint pain, back pain flares, and hot flashes.
These are some of the recent symptoms that I've been dealing with, oh yeah, and reflux.
During my treatment protocol, I kept a little log just day by day to note anything that happened
and what was changing and what was happening. I also recorded some short little video updates
for you throughout this period of time. So let's take a look at how that process unfolded for me.
Hey there. I am just getting started today to start my SIBO treatment that my naturopath
prescribed for me. I've been waiting for a really long time because I don't have health
insurance and I needed to order the generic form of Rifaximin all the way from India, and so it's
taken four or five or maybe even six weeks for it to get to me through customs, but it just
arrived the other day. Today I've started my SIBO treatment. I'm going to be tracking how things go
every couple of days, giving you guys an update and letting you know how it's going.
This is how the Rifaximin came. It came in these little foil packs. I took the first one
this morning. Here's crossing my fingers that this treatment regimen really helps me feel better and
decreases the bloating and gas that is kind of ongoing and totally constant for me,
and maybe it'll improve some other stuff too. So I'm excited to see what happens, stay tuned.
Hey everyone, just want to give a quick update on my day three of my SIBO treatment program.
Today is the third day that I've taken things. I did notice a little bit of stomach discomfort
earlier today, and I've been having a little bit of dry mouth, no big deal. But the really exciting
thing that's happened today is that I had a piece of poop that's sank. That may not sound like a
big deal, but as someone who tracks changes in bowel movements as a measure of people's health,
this is a really significant thing for me. I have tried everything I can think of to get
my poop to sink. When it doesn't sink, this is an indicator that either fats aren't digesting well,
or there's too much gas in the stool. So today's experience in the bathroom was a
huge win for me. I'm super excited to keep you updated, so I'll check in again later.
Good morning, everyone, day five. I'm waking up feeling really refreshed this morning after
having a really, really bad headache last night at the end of day four. It kind of came
on during the afternoon and got to just bad, bad levels. I had to go to bed early. I do sometimes
get headaches. It's not unusual, but I think they're probably connected to my SIBO treatment
to the antibiotics. So thought I'd share that all with you, but I feel a lot better this morning and
it's a beautiful morning so I'm out for my morning walk. I'll check in later.
Hey there guy voyagers. It's Amanda here and it's day 10 of my Rifaximin SIBO treatment.
I've continued to have really great bowel movements that are normalized,
far beyond my expectations, so that's great. I haven't noticed really many other improvements.
I guess my bloating is a little bit reduced. I've also been highly distracted by a major case of
poison oak in my left eye. Don't know if you can see that right now in the video, but that kind
of triggered a major histamine problem over the weekend with some foods and whatnot. So I'm hoping
with all that clearing up, I'm going to start to see a lot more improvement. I'll keep you posted.
Hey everyone. Good morning. It's day 12 of my SIBO treatment. You can see it's a really sunny morning
here. I wanted to report that yesterday I had this really intense period of negative emotions.
What I've been noticing is I'm sort of having what I call my greatest hits of symptoms. I have had
a major histamine flare over the last several days that cleared up with my poison oak,
and then now I've got this anxiety high emotional state that sometimes happens when I have symptom
flare. So I'm not sure if this is happening due to the treatment, or if it's just this is my normal
monthly fluctuation of things that's causing these symptoms. So anyways, that's the latest.
Otherwise, I'm still having perfect BMs. Super awesome. I'll check in again in another day or so.
Hey everyone, day 13. I'm feeling a bit better today. Yesterday I was having a lot of just low
grade nausea all day, but today I haven't had any of that and I feel pretty good.
That's all there is to say today. Hey there everybody, it's day 17 of my SIBO
treatment and want to update you that in the last couple of days I've been having quite a bit of
joint pain, so I'm not sure if that's related or not. My bowel movements have been continuing to be
absolutely amazing until this afternoon when I had this, something's gone wrong with my brain this
afternoon, I don't know exactly what's happening, but it kind of triggered a little bit of a loose
stool, which is the first time that's happened since I started. That's the update for now.
I'll be finishing my course I think in a day or two. The pharmacy shorted me a couple of Rifaximin
tablets so I'm not going to quite have enough for 21 days, but I have another
round ordered. So I'm going to do a wrap up maybe tomorrow or the next day and we'll go from there.
Okay, so that brings us up to date. Since I've finished the protocol just on Wednesday,
today's Friday, I have been prescribed a medication called Prucalopride, which is what's
called a prokinetic. A lot of SIBO relapses happen because the gut motility slows back down again
once you stop the treatment, and the medication, the Prucalopride, helps speed that process up.
There are some herbal alternatives. I have tried all of them. I don't tolerate them or they don't
really do enough. So I'm at a point in my journey where I'm ready to try medications. I have not
generally been in this position, but I am now. I'm excited to see how I do with the Prucalopride.
The other thing that's been kind of interesting is that towards the end of my SIBO protocol,
I started having a lot more joint pain and back pain, and that's continued since I finished my
protocol. I'm not really sure what that means. I'm going to keep an eye on that and keep trying
to determine what exactly is going on there. I'm also continuing to have a little increase in
my gut irritation and pain. I'd kind of forgotten about this symptom during the treatment,
which tells me that actually it had improved it. Certainly, I had this question about;
does the Rifaximin improve my constipation and IBS symptoms? The answer is a resounding yes,
it definitely helped. This tells me that bacterial overgrowth is a huge part of my constipation
problem. So this is super useful information for me. It tells me that if I want to keep
working on this issue and improving myself a little bit, I have to keep focusing on that issue
with what's right, and what seems right to come next as I keep trying to heal myself. Figuring
out these kinds of things are vital to figuring out what is going on with you and how to heal.
The only way to do this is to do really targeted experiments like, "Okay, I'm going to do this
medication protocol and see what happens," or, "I'm going to change my diet and see what happens.
I'm going to change this supplement or add this supplement, see what happens."
You need to just make note of those things and keep track of them over time.
I know that I have farther to go with this issue. My naturopath is recommending a second course of
Rifaximin. All along she was suggesting I might need to do two or even three rounds of treatment,
so I'm waiting for my next shipment of Rifaximin from India. Once that shows up,
I will get started and I can do another update later on. But for now that's where things are at.
Do you have any questions about SIBO treatment? Be sure and leave them in
the comments below and I will get back to you. That's what happened during my SIBO treatment.
I wondered if it would help my constipation and it absolutely did.
Okay now, if you are someone who is struggling with not knowing why your symptoms are happening,
despite trying lots of different solutions, I would really love to help you. I'm currently
interviewing people who are having this struggle because I'm in the process of designing a program
to help. So if you feel like this is you, you are trying to figure out what the right foods are,
the right supplements, the right diet, and you haven't been getting anywhere,
I would really love to meet you. I'm going to leave a link to schedule that interview
with me down below this video, or if you know someone who might like to talk to me,
please forward them the link as well and I will look forward to talking with you.
I hope that this video helped you understand what SIBO treatment with Rifaximin and Neomycin
is like, and also may help you feel a little more relaxed about trying this treatment if it's
something your doctor has recommended. If you liked this video, please be sure to click like,
drop me a comment or a question down below or forward it on to somebody else who you think
could use it. I will look forward to seeing you all next time and I wish you good health.