Reading other people’s stories helped me make sense of my own experience. They gave me questions to ask and introduced me to ideas I probably would not have come across otherwise. Most importantly, they gave me hope that I could come out of it.
We often take everyday things like eating for granted. This journey has shown me what a blessing it is not to fear the food I eat.
This is just my experience. It is not medical advice, and everyone’s journey is different.
It started with nausea around January or February.
At first, I assumed it would pass. Maybe I had eaten something bad. Maybe it was because I was transitioning at work.
But it didn’t pass. I felt nauseous whether I ate or not. Then the regurgitation started. Food would come back into my throat, and eventually I began vomiting. Even walking would trigger me to throw up. It didn’t matter what food I ate. I just couldn’t retain it.
I lost my appetite and around 6 kg.
I knew something was wrong.
My GP organised blood tests. Then an ultrasound. Then an endoscopy.
I was told that it could be coeliac disease, Crohn’s disease, gastroparesis, pancreatitis or H. pylori. I took all the tests. They ALL came back normal or negative.
No one could figure out what was wrong with me, so, “just in case,” I was prescribed a course of antibiotics with PPI for H. pylori.
That was where it went downhill, very downhill.
The PPI stopped my vomiting, but whenever I stopped using it, I would vomit again.
It was so hard because I felt like taking a PPI wasn’t the right answer. But at the same time, I wasn’t sure if I should trust my own gut feeling or others. Maybe I didn’t know enough? But I just couldn’t go through the waves of feeling fine and then suddenly vomiting again. I stopped the PPI.
Eventually, the vomiting stopped.
But even more symptoms appeared. I was extremely bloated, my stomach was so distended that it hurts, I started having halitosis and I was so self-conscious about my breath and speaking to people (it was embarrassing). Then I started waking up in the middle of night with sharp upper abdominal pain and sometimes lower right pain. My stomach was the first thing I thought about when I woke up. Then came brain fog. Light-headedness. I started getting concerned because my memory started deteriorating. I couldn’t remember things as well as I could. I was also so lethargic that I could literally sleep whilst walking. At this point, I was mainly eating plain rice, pumpkin and carrots for months because that’s all I could stomach, as my ability to digest protein was so poor. So it was either soft food or dealing with the consequences of pain.
Then I went to multiple gastroenterologists, and they said everything was normal (again). I was advised to follow a low FODMAP diet. Probiotics. Prebiotics. They said it was probably caused by stress and that it might be functional dyspepsia (which was a code word for chronic indigestion with no identifiable cause). But I thought, “I swear I’m not stressed.” My siblings, too, said maybe I was stressed. I felt so dismissed, as though my symptoms were made up.
I started questioning if I was exaggerating or overthinking it.
But I know my body. I know something is wrong, but nothing could explain it. I was so frustrated. I felt helpless.
What helped
So I decided to start my own research. To take things into my own hands. I started with the IBS subreddit, and then eventually this rabbit hole led me to the SIBO subreddit. I had never felt so understood and not “crazy.”
I started experimenting with magnesium. Zinc carnosine. Slippery elm balm. Peppermint oil. Stomach massages. SB Floractiv probiotics. Ginger tea. Berberine. L Reuteri.
It got better, then it got worse. I was right back where I started. I was feeling so defeated and frustrated by the constant trial and error. I felt like I was investing so much time, effort and money, but nothing was working. I couldn’t “figure it out.”
So I decided to consult a few nutritionists and got a SIBO test done.
Hydrogen positive. Which was confusing because I was so constipated, but I then found out I had intestinal methanogen overgrowth (IMO) as well, which was the cause for constipation. I didn’t want to do another round of antibiotics because I was so terrified after my H. pylori incident. I decided to go the holistic route with a nutritionist (shout-out to Rose Flannery!!). I continued researching for myself, just in case it didn’t work out, and learned about the connection between the vagus nerve and gut motility. That’s when it dawned on me. They were right. I was stressed. Everything felt urgent to me. I constantly felt that there was more to be done. I had these insane standards to meet. It felt like I didn’t have enough time. I wanted things to be a certain way. I had become so accustomed to living in a constant state of doing, pushing and coping that I no longer recognised it as stress. I thought it was “normal.”
I thought being stressed meant feeling overwhelmed. That I mentally couldn’t “handle it.”
I didn’t realise it could also look like functioning well while constantly living in “go” mode. Or, more accurately, I didn’t want to admit that I was stressed because other people had it harder. My situation wasn’t “that” stressful.
I started slowing down my life. I cut back on intense exercise, did more yoga and practised diaphragmatic breathing (huge help). I also worked on easing the constant pressure I placed on myself by doing therapeutic work and being more intentional with mealtimes (not multitasking all the time). I didn’t realise how hard it was for me to rest without feeling guilty. I had to constantly remind myself that this is what progress looks like. “Disappointing” my overachiever side. I had to admit that just because I have the capability doesn’t mean I have the capacity.
It was a constant practice of calming my nervous system.
Eventually, my pain was mostly gone, my bloating and fatigue were almost gone, and I was more mentally awake. I dove deeper into learning about the vagus nerve and understanding how much it affects our gut motility, how it triggers the migrating motor complex (MMC) in the digestive tract, how much our gut is impacted by our emotional wellbeing and all the different ways we can regulate our vagus nerve.
I had been so hypervigilant about my food choices and gut issues that it took a while to build trust in my body, to believe that it could handle the food and that it was okay to rest.
Calming the nervous system was working. It worked!
Today, I went to my aunt’s house and ate the best buns and a home-cooked meal with garlic, onion, gluten and all the stuff I couldn’t eat before. I was completely fine. What a blessing! It might be such an ordinary thing for others, but being able to just eat “normal” food and not be stressed about it was all I wanted.
As a therapist, I know that chronic illness is not “all in your head.” I also know that living with it can affect far more than the body.
The uncertainty, food fear, frustration, loss of trust in your body and exhaustion from repeatedly trying to get better can take a real emotional toll.
Therapy alone cannot treat SIBO itself. It offers a space to talk honestly about how living with it has affected you and to begin easing the pressure you may not realise you are putting on yourself.
If you are navigating chronic gut symptoms and would value support from someone who understands this experience both personally and professionally, you are welcome to book a session with In Relation.
Book NowAnd finally, thank you to everyone in r/SIBO. Reading your stories helped me through some very difficult months. I hope sharing mine can do the same for someone else.