Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) and Thyroid Disease

Hi Folks Dr Hagmeyer here and today I want to talk to you about Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, also known as SIBO and the connection SIBO has with Thyroid disease.

If you know anything about me, you know that I believe the gut holds a huge key to the proper health of your thyroid but also plays a pivotal role in things like mood, focus, sleep, anxiety, depression, blood sugar, pain, hormones, Immune Function, adrenal fatigue and so much more.

To illustrate this, I would bet that the majority of you watching this video… If you have thyroid disease, you also suffer with things like belching, bloating, gas, constipation embarrassing diarrhea and even reflux.
So if you have a Thyroid problem… today’s video is really going to hit home and connect some more of the dots for you.

If you never heard of SIBO, SIBO stands for small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and what happens with SIBO is you develop an overgrowth of bacteria whereby the bacteria in the large intestines migrate up into the small intestines they take up shop and after you eat some sort of starch, carbohydrate, or sugar, they start to give off gas hydrogen and methane. Both of these gases can make you feel like someone just pumped air into your belly.

I am always telling patients that when it comes to the thyroid or any other chronic health problem you are struggling with, you need to look at the big picture. You need to look at all of the symptoms your having and see how they are connected- I call this connecting the dots.

Don’t be short sighted and think that all of your problems you are experiencing, are coming from your thyroid and if your doctor could just get your TSH and T4 levels right or get you on the right cocktail of medications that you will be good as new.
That’s NOT how you build health. You need to look at the BIG PICTURE

One thing I forgot to mention is this… If you suffer with IBS symptoms- get your thyroid tested and… if you have thyroid disease make sure you get tested for SIBO and some of the other GI problems we have talked about in past videos.

Work with someone who understands the relationship between the gut and the thyroid. You’re going to find out that there are a lot of holistic doctors out there that really don’t look at the big picture or they don’t test for these things. It’s all about connecting the dots! and the more pieces you can connect, the easier and faster it will be… for you to feel better. OK

So… Lets dive into some of The Causes Of SIBO and why It can be a Huge Problem?

#1 is Low Stomach acid or an absence of stomach acid known as Achlorhydria- sometimes this is due to medications you have been on like Antibiotics, proton pump inhibitors, or birth control pills, sometime you’re dealing with a autoimmune disorder that destroys the parietal cells that make stomach acid. these will all affect something known as migrating motor complex that acts like a broom to sweep the intestines.

Other common causes behind SIBO deals with the digestive enzymes produced by the pancreas.
Other things like infection, hormone imbalances, disbiosis, obstruction of the illeocecal valve- valve that joins the small intestines to the large intestines.

These are all things that often need to be ruled out with specialized Functional testing. Standard blood work does not help in these situations.
The reason why this is all important is this… When you have SIBO you can’t absorb nutrients, and the longer this goes on, the more nutrient deprived and sicker you become.

So what if your watching this video and you have SIBO you might be wondering Can SIBO Be Treated Naturally?

Traditionally SIBO is treated with Rifaximin and neomycin and if you do a search about treatment with these and other antibiotics you will read about the high success rate.

What you never hear about is the rate of relapse (that part of the research seems to be left out)
If you search long and hard you will find studies that show a failure rate as high at 60% within a 6- 9 month follow up and when follow ups are done 12-16 months, I would bet that the failure rate would be about 90% or greater. That’s when people contact our office.

Most people who have SIBO, have it because of years antibiotics,Years of pain medications,years of poor diet, and all the things we already talked about in the video I did on the causes of intestinal disbiosis.

If you haven’t watched that video go back and watch it, I strongly encourage you to do that. If you treat SIBO with antibiotics realize that your treating your problem with the same mentality that often caused the problem in the first place.
So How Do You Treat SIBO Naturally.

The first thing you need to understand is that each case is different. You can have 10 people all with a diagnosis of SIBO and each of those individuals, may have a different mechanism or cause as to why they developed it. The ending point is SIBO, but what was the starting point and what were the aggravating factors. Here is a great video I did that explains the most common problems I see with People who have IBS.

You need to be a detective and ask the number one question… WHY…

Lets consider the person who has SIBO because of years of acid stopping medications. Well in this person, your going to need to uncover why they were put on antacids in the first place. Is it really a problem of too much acid or is it really that they don’t produce enough acid and the food is fermenting and rotting. If this is the case someone might consider various digestive enzymes depending on what your not digesting.

If the person was put on antacids because of H.pylori than whoever you are working with may want to implement a 4R protocol.

What about the person that has SIBO because of years of antibiotics and now they have complicating co-infections like parasites, candida, leaky gut– this person may opt to choose to take natural anti-microbials, antiparasitics, and do things to promote repair of a leaky gut.

Things like oregano oil, berberine, garlic, green tea, black walnut husk, wormwood, caprylic acid, Glutamine, Proteolytic enzymes, these are all things that can be of tremendous help.

Certain foods will also need to be eliminated if you have a SIBO that’s caused by antibiotics, parasites and leaky gut.

So as you can see there is no cookie cutter recipe book protocol here. You need to be tested and again you need to know the WHY. If you know why you can be the most effective with treatment.
Just a Word of caution here… not all “natural” anti-microbials are completely safe, certain supplements and herbs can also affect and disrupt the microflora of the gut, maybe not to the extent of an Antibiotic, but they have killing power. So don’t think that just because its natural it’s not powerful and shouldn’t be managed by a physician.

I have seen many patients over the years make themselves sicker because they didn’t understand how to properly use these natural agents.

From a dietary point of view- you will want to follow a low carbohydrate diet. The more carbs you feed your belly, the more you are feeding the bacteria. For this reason, I like a modified FODMAPS, SCD diet or a AI Paleo diet.

If you visit my website Dr Hagmeyer.com do a search on FODMAPS or Natural Treatments for IBS to see the kinds of foods you will need to eliminate—So there you have it— I know we unpacked a lot of information on SIBO and its connection to the thyroid, But I also hope I impressed upon you why you dont want to follow some cookie cutter recipe on how to eliminate SIBO you just found on the internet.
If you want more information on SIBO specifically- I put together a 5 part video series Titled “Everything you need to know about SIBO” (where we go into much more detail) if you want to see this video series head over to my site and in the search bar enter SIBO. Enter your name and email and you will get email link with access to those 5 video.
Till next time… Keep digging!

Our Personal SIBO Recovery Program Is A Great place To Start

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