Bloating with SIBO is painful, awkward, and uncomfortable. It is one of the most common symptoms of SIBO and digestive distress. Bloating is often caused by two things- inflammation of the digestive tract, and gas from the SIBO bacteria.
Gas from SIBO bacteria is the byproduct of bacteria eating the food we eat. With SIBO, this is caused from good bacteria residing in the wrong place in the digestive system. This means bacteria have access to our food as our bodies digest it.
There are many things we can do to reduce gas and bloating symptoms.
Easy Step To Combat Bloating
Chew your food. Chewing your food enables your body to break it down faster and more efficiently. By chewing foods well, you create more surface area for the acids and biles in your stomach to break down your food faster. The faster you can break down your food, the more likely your body can absorb the nutrients and calories before the bacteria have a chance.
Choose Cooked Over Raw
Cooked foods are easier for the body to digest than raw foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Heating food breaks down the fibers and proteins taking much of the workload off of your body. When symptoms are bad, cooked foods are particularly helpful.
Eat Peacefully
Turn off the TV and put away the devices. Turn on some relaxing piano music, spa music, or something that calms you down. When you sit with your food, take a few deep breaths and think of the enjoyment of the food. Be thankful for what you can eat and can tolerate and think of the nutrients from the food nursing your body. Calming your body will allow it to digest food. When your body is in any sort of stress mode you cannot digest food. Stress causes your body to go into fight or flight mode. Fight or flight HALTS digestion, as it sends energy and blood flow to your arms and legs allowing for quick action. Thankfulness and peacefulness about the nutrients you are about to enjoy will promote healthy digestion.
Smell your food. Allow your brain to sense your food with the delicious aromas. Smelling your food helps to kick in production of biles and acids and saliva. Take a moment to smell and enjoy your food before you take your first bite.
Things To Avoid
Avoid drinking a lot of water during a meal as water dilutes your stomach acids. Water is very good to drink between meals to stay hydrated but during meals you want your stomach acids and biles to be at their greatest. Consuming most of your daily intake of water between meals helps to keep your acids and biles strong and effective.
Avoid sparkling and carbonated beverages. While carbon dioxide doesn’t actually feed SIBO, it puts an extra burden on your body to process and rid itself of gases from consumed beverages. By lowering the load of gases put into your body, your body can focus on removing what is produced by the bacteria.
Do not drink with a straw. Simple but true. You swallow more air by drinking with a straw. Lower the amount of gas in your digestive system by avoiding straws.
Combating Inflammation
Food falls into three main categories: foods that cause inflammation, foods that are fairly neutral, and foods that calm inflammation. SIBO diets cut out the major inflammatory offenders like table sugar, wheat, corn, soy, and many alcohols. But sometimes just cutting out is not enough. Consciously adding foods into your diet that reduce inflammation will decrease bloating and speed up the healing process.
You can read much more about reducing inflammation in my ebook, “Foods For Fighting SIBO,” but a few ideas to get you started include:
Almonds
Blueberries
Coconut
Fresh fatty fish like broiled salmon
Fresh fish broth or fish soups
Olive Oil
Leafy Greens
Turmeric
Combating Gas
Sometimes you can do everything right and still get bloating from the gas produced by the SIBO bacteria. When this is the case, the body needs help breaking down the gas and to calm to digestive system. When gas is present in the small intestines, it pushes against the walls of the intestines, pushing against the muscles causing cramping and shooting pain. Adding gentle herbal teas after meals can be helpful for dispelling gas. The fancy word for dispelling gas is, “carminative.”
You can also help the body combat gas by adding carminative herbs to meals. Oregano, sage, thyme, and lemon balm all have carminative properties, as do caraway seeds, fennel seeds, anise seeds, and herbs like chamomile, peppermint and catnip.
Carminative Teas
Catnip Tea
Lemon Balm Tea
Chamomile Tea and Peppermint Tea can be helpful for symptoms of SIBO. (Both of these teas tend to be hit or miss for SIBO patients. So don’t get discouraged if one or even both do not suit you well.)
Dr. Nirala Jacobi’s Carminative Tea
1 Tbs Caraway seeds
1 Tbs Fennel seeds
1 Tbs Anise seeds
Mix the seeds together.
Take 1 teaspoon of the mixed seeds and crush them.
Steep the crushed seeds in 1 cup of hot water for 20 minutes.
Drink after each meal.
Common Herbs for Bloating
Oregano and oregano oil
Lemon Balm
Sage
Thyme
Fennel
Caraway
Anise
Chamomile
Peppermint
When all else fails…
When all else fails, Summer Bock, a SIBO guru with Guts and Glory recommends Candibactin AR by Metagenics.
References
2017 SIBO SOS Summit, Lee Holmes Interview
2017 SIBO SOS Summit, Summer Bock Interview
2017 Integrative SIBO Conference, Dr. Nirala Jacobi Presentation
