Hi, it's Eric Bakker, naturopath from New Zealand.
Thanks for coming back.
Die off symptoms.
Herxheimer reactions.
You probably heard all about this.
Many people with Candida about the acetaldehyde, or the chemical that Candida produces, and
can make you feel drunk, or spaced out or stoned, even.
These sorts of words I hear from people, when they're coming off sugars, when their Candida
is being killed, it's being reduced.
Well, it's a similar thing with SIBO.
When you're killing bacteria, you can release a lot of endotoxins.
But there's two-fold things happening here with SIBO patients that we need to discuss.
Two-fold.
One, they'll often take stuff to nail the SIBO.
Two, they'll often change their diet.
So, when the diet change is occurring and the supplements come in to clear the SIBO,
you've got a two-fold effect.
With the diet, you're actually taking the sugars out of the diet and the foods that
we're feeding the SIBO up.
So, they're going to be a bit annoyed.
If I took your coffee and your doughnuts and all your treats, and in fact, let's just take
all your food off.
How are you going to feel?
You're going to be cranky.
Cranky, annoyed, pissed, really, really annoyed.
And that's what bacteria react, as you take the food supply off them.
So, you're going to get bacteria dying.
They can't multiply properly.
They're going to release things into the lymphatic system, into the bloodstream.
You're going to feel spaced out.
And then, secondarily, you're going to take stuff, some pills or capsules or herbs, and
that's actively going to kill the SIBO.
So now you're doing more.
You're killing actively, plus you've taken the food supply away.
Of course, you're going to get Herxheimer reaction.
You can mitigate this.
You can slow it right down.
We'll talk about that in a minute, but the symptoms can be terrible for die-off of SIBO.
Brain fog, headaches, fatigue, problems with the eyes.
Some people have told me it's a bit like being hung over.
I remember one guy told me it was like drinking vodka all weekend, for three days, how he
felt for weeks, he just felt hung over and drunk the whole time.
When people talk about the brain fog component, often it's because they push themselves far
too hard.
So, your body's not like a Chevrolet, or a Ford in pile or whatever, you've got all these
mo....
It's not like that.
You can't just make snap decisions and quickly do something and not expect some type of fallout.
So, when you're going into a SIBO kind of a protocol, you need to do it slowly.
Take your time.
Especially being sick for a long time.
If you push it too hard, you can have neurological symptoms, because the endotoxins can create
all kinds of problems.
Or, you could have musculoskeletal symptoms.
You could have twitching, little shakes in the body.
You could have pain, darting pain, shooting pains.
You could have burning pains.
You can have a lot of gut symptoms.
Fatigue, insomnia are very common.
But also, you could get emotional disturbances.
You can get really annoyed, get very irritable and cranky with people.
These are all common scenarios when you push yourself too hard.
So what's a solution?
You need to back off.
When you first take some supplements for SIBO, you need to go nice and slowly and gently.
Not like a bull at a gate.
You're not going to take six or 12 capsules straight up, upfront.
You're going to get sick.
Simple as that.
It's the same with the diet.
Remember?
In Candida crusher I talk a lot about going warm turkey, not cold turkey.
Cold turkey means that you're going to turn around your diet on a dime.
You're going to change everything you did and then do this whole new diet.
And of course, you're going to feel like crap.
You can mitigate all this.
This can be stopped by taking it easy.
I think you get my point.
And the symptoms are not nice for SIBO.
They can be really, really terrible, but most of it can be avoided by a little bit of thinking
carefully ahead and planning and taking your time.
An extra few weeks, two, three weeks of lead-in, you're superior than having a whole week or
10 days of vomiting, headaches, being in bed and feeling terrible.
And that can be the outcome for some people, particularly some of the bad cases I've seen,
they can be really sick all because they wanted to get better too quick.
So take your time.
Take your time.
Thanks for tuning in.