The Good, The Great and The Awesome

Is it the same for you that everything always starts happening at the same time? You could be applying for opportunities for a year and hear nothing back, then, all of a sudden you are hella busy or having to choose which opportunity to take. That is me currently, super grateful.

THE GOOD

Starting with some housekeeping. From improved gut health due to finding the right supplements for my SIBO/IMO/IBS giving me capacity to live a normal life and eating diverse plant foods in abundance again, simply fabulous. The journey is not over but I am happy as SIBO is not holding me back or keeping me broke.

My 3rd out of 4 college projects is almost ready for submission and it has taught me so much the last 3 months including appreciating my team player qualities to effective leadership, radical acceptance and more truths about the realities of the events industry.

Picture was drawn and gifted to me at one of my events by the talented artist Lou Malaisé in Cork, Ireland.

Reminded of how lucky I am to look and feel like I do. That may sound so arrogant but it does not stem from arrogance. I have spent the last few years showering myself in acts and words of love as I wasted so many years doing the opposite as did most people I speak with so we all have a lot of making up to do. Yet, still there are times we can slip back to the habit of harsh self criticism. My inner self talk persisted daily about the darkness of my eyes, most likely due to poor sleep quality, overuse of screens and SIBO. Then, there I was looking in the mirror as I heard the words of a loved one repeat in my mind of how there are people out there who would love to have a face like mine with healthy skin which snapped me out of it. We all have parts of ourselves that others desire for themselves and we all have insecurities and that is normal but not if we treat ourselves without kindness. We can not stop the inner voice, only how we respond to it.

THE GREAT

It’s official! I am Irish. Tá sé oifigiúil. Is Éireannach mé.

Not because I speak Irish, I wish! My Irish citizenship came in the post after 2 years with the cutest letter I may add. Now let’s be honest my soul was Irish all along as even though I was born in Birmingham, yes a brummie that still says flannel, not facecloth; I moved to Ireland in 1995, aged 5 and my friends at 9 trained me out of my brummie accent and into the way of the kingdom, being County Kerry in the South West of Ireland. To this day though my accent isn’t distinct as it’s a mix of Kerry, Cork, Birmingham and the US thanks to all those tv hours as a teen.

SIBO-C THE HEALING PROCESS

GET DIAGNOSED

Find a person who is super familiar with treating SIBO, be it a naturopath, nutritionist, gastroenterology, GP, dietitian, gut health clinic specialist to work with you. Ensure you trust them and that they listen to and respect you. Determine with them what tests you need to do and they will help you understand the results.

DETERMINE ROOT CAUSE

This step is necessary to stop relapsing. I believe my root cause was dysmotility, caused by painkillers (solpadiene or solpadol – a form of opioid) I took every month for period cramps. Then, having an extremely stressful time at work for months which brought symptoms fully into effect.

FOLLOW PROTOCOL

Once you have your test results back, it is time to get a treatment protocol from your SIBO specialist. For me I had a mix of digestive enzymes, supplements for stomach acid and antimicrobials as well as some dietary suggestions like no sugar or processed food and avoid gluten as much as possible just in case I have leaky gut.

DIET

Follow whatever diet suits you but remember the obvious, sugar is terrible for you, processed food is not good for you (especially when your gut is compromised) and avoidance of other things will depend on your situation, such as gluten. I stayed away from it most of the time enjoying buckwheat and rice alternatives. If you have other things show up in your tests you may be recommended more dietary changes such as if you are having issues with histamines or oxalates.

Do not worry about people on the internet saying eat this, eat that as most are only managing their symptoms, not healing. Cutting out fibre or full food groups will not heal you, it will only keep symptoms down and we want to heal not just manage symptoms. Try find a variety of foods that make you feel good as feeling good even some of the time will bring down that stress which is necessary. At the start try gentle recipes like stewed apples with cinnamon, making broth, I’ll attach recipe below and cook your veggies so they are very soft perhaps in a blended soup.

FASTING

Try to keep 4 hours, at least 3, between meals to give your small intestine a chance to digest and not be overloaded. Do not eat in the evenings. Try have your last meal no later than 7.30pm.

365 days of IBS (SIBO-C)

If you find yourself on this blog post, I know you have probably already read 1000 articles about SIBO/IMO and know what it is and now you just want to do something about it, right. Just in case you don’t know yet I’ll leave a resource below which explains all. I choose to write IBS as such a high percentage of people diagnosed with IBS actually have SIBO or a form of gut dysbiosis.

THIS IS MY JOURNEY

Firstly, I am so sorry that you are going through this. SIBO can feel like literal hell when it seems like it will never end or in the middle of a flare. Currently, I am in the rebuild phase after almost a year and feel like my life has been saved, even with the journey not over yet.

I was blessed in a few ways during this healing process, starting with being familiar with SIBO so I knew to act fast with tests and caught it relatively early, also finding the right person to help me. My lactulose breath test showed I had a super high count methane dominant SIBO. My stool test showed no parasites, no fat malabsorption or anything. I knew what tests to take and was eventually made a full treatment plan, thanks to Simon Hammett of Gojiman Nutrition who I’ll link below.

I am also vegan for about 9 years and only needed to reduce what I was eating to lower fibre plant foods like tofu, soy yogurt, apple sauce and white rice for a few weeks to manage symptoms until my first antimicrobial treatment. Then I quickly aimed to get all the foods I normally eat back into my diet again. I also credit this way of eating to getting this far rather than the many restrictive diets out there. Diversity of plant foods for a diverse microbiome.

After the first antimicrobial treatment I no longer had acid reflux, iron deficiency, exhaustion after meals. Success!

SIBO & ME! My gut health journey

Huh, SIBO?? Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, also known as IMO – Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowth. Yep, that’s what I’ve been hanging out with since last year. 

Here is my story, without the nitty gritty.

2020 found me looking in the mirror more thinking, hmmm, perhaps I have put on weight or could it just be unusual bloating. Types into google… how to improve distension…

Thinks no more of it! 

Every month or bimonthly I’d experience an unpleasent bout of acid reflux, putting it down to overindulgence as I did tend to have times my emotional eating habits got the better of me or eating late which I knew was a no no for me. I blamed these habits and didn’t think there was much I could do but mock my lazy digestive enzymes. Sorry enzymes, you’re doing great!

Around the same time I was experiencing a significant amount of stress in my life and working a lot. Then, we get a couple of months into 2020 and the symptoms just seemed to get worse and worse as my bloating was constant (this bloating is legit; goodbye jeans, hello leggings). I also noticed I was suffering constipation [vowed to be honest in this blog for the support of all gut’s everywhere] and I came to the conclusion I must have IBS.

Boom, shut downs begin! In the meantime I knew from my knowledge of working in health shops that with gut health the sooner I act the better and something I forgot to mention is I was feeling exhausted after almost every meal, needing an iron tonic more and more frequently.

Calls doctor’s office! Ok, so no chance of getting scope for 6 months, very well then! Emails Simon Hammet of Gojiman Nutrition, whose work focuses on people dealing with compromised gut health. I order the tests he recommend to see what is going on in there. That was a pretty intense process as the kits came from the UK to Ireland and had to be posted back. I took the lactulose breath test for SIBO and a comprehensive stool test. Great crack posting that back!

Results are in! *Drum roll*

Entrepreneurship & Chronic Illness

Doesn’t sound like those 2 things go together, do they?! Well, often a push and pull situation; stepping towards my big dreams followed directly by ‘I give up, this is hopeless’.

I believe it is possible, most certainly! But, it can take longer, and I accept it may be more difficult. Still, it is easy to fall into the trap, feeling there is no way I can do this due to either having flare ups, bouts of exhaustion or hormonal fluctuations that dip me in and out of misery.

A problematic part of chronic illness is talking about it, including in my content. I feel uncertain or unworthy to speak about it fully as it is probably hard for someone who isn’t dealing with a condition to understand how 1 week I can be totally on top of the world; the next I’m flat on my face or to speak more literally under my duvet hiding from the world, stuck in the bathroom or busy trying to tap into my inner queen pulling out all the self care survival hacks. Then, fretting can I even call what is happening to me chronic when others have conditions I couldn’t imagine having to deal with. So grateful for all of you out there surviving and sharing your truths!