Bloating

I’ve been having digestive issues, more notably since 2022, which often cause discomfort, gassiness, and bloating.

Identifying the source

From How to Stop BLOATING Fast on YouTube

• Stress: stress can cause bloating. If your bloating happens when stressed, that may be a point to investigate.
• Stomach: If the cause is low acidity in stomach, you may feel acid reflux or indigestion and bloating. Try betaine hydrochloride or apple cider vinegar.
• Gallbladder: If low bile in gallbladder, which cuts down fat, you may feel burping/belching/bloating. Try purified bile salts and gallbladder acupressure massage. Also, when bloated press down and massage below the right ribcage. If that helps, likely not enough bile cells.
• Pancreas: enzymes (diabetes/carbs excess in past) – signs inclde floating stools and diarrhea. Need more enzymes. Eat raw salads, fermented foods, etc. Pancreas improves naturally on a low carb diet.
• Small intestine: 90% of all digestion happens in the intestines, but small intesting is not supposed to have bacteria. Bloating problem could be caused by fermentation in the small intestine. Will cause fluid retention or gas. Known as small intestine bacterial growth (SIBO), bacteria growth in the small intestine is a problem. Bacteria should be in large intestine. If you consume probiotics you will feel worse since it’s causing more bacteria growth in the small intestine. You will also feel more salad when eating salads. If this is the case, avoid probiotics and fiber for a 1-2 months reset. Also try natural antibiotics such as oregano and garlic, clove, thyme, sage. Fast as long as you can. This will all Reset the small intestine and get rid of this excess bacteria.
• Large intestine: could be caused by excessive fermentation. This would be an imbalance in microbes. If this is the case, try more fiber by eating a wide range of vegetables. In addition, probiotics could be beneficial. Sauerkraut is great for both fiber and probiotics.

Food journal

• 2023-01-14 ate spicy cucumber salad, roasted shiitake, ginger scallion noodles, roasted squash, caramelized chocolate pie. Was bloated a lot before dessert, so not just the pie sugars.

Treatment

• 2023-01-14: self-diagnosed with SIBO. No tests.
• 2023-01-15: doing longer intermittent fasting, the idea is to starve the overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine and give my digestive system time to clean up. Also cutting back significantly in carbs.
• 2023-01-17: started taking oregano oil 2-3 times a day. Oregano oil is supposed to be an effective antimicrobial and should help with SIBO.
• 2023-01-27: spoke to a GI doctor and he mentioned the following:
  • Could be backed up stuff if not enough fiber in diet – psyllium hust and magnesium would definitely help, so keep doing that.
  • If feeling good, we can delay next steps, otherwise he’d want to:
    • X-ray the abdomen
    • Start a slow dose of laxative (Miralax)
  • Since I’ve been feeling much better since starting things on 2023-01-17, he recommended that I:
    • Continue taking the Magnesium, Psyllium Husk, and Probiotics.
    • Try cutting back on the Oregano Oil since at this point we don’t know for sure that SIBO/bacterial overgrowth is the problem. If symptoms return could go back to Oregano Oil and see if there’s a strong correlation.
• 2023-01-28: I did take another dose of oregano oil last night since I was feeling some weirdness after cutting it back, but it may have just been a one off. Haven’t taken it today.
• 2023-03-12: the past few months have been mostly better. One additional tweak that I started about 2 weeks ago is to avoid caffeine while on an empty stomach/fasting.

Last Updated on March 12, 2023 by Omar Eduardo