A quick post to update…I finished up the Xifaxan on Monday. I have been taking Erythromycin at night before bed per Dr. Pimentel’s June 2009 study in Gastroenterology & Hepatology. My pharmacy only had 250 mg tablets, not the suspension of 50 mg specified in the study. There was an afternoon of discussion in the Yahoo group over dosage/tablet cutting, etc. and whether or not it would be safe or effective to take the Erythromycin in this way. Frustrated, I wrote to Dr. Pimentel to ask his take; he wrote back right away and said cutting the tablets in quarters should be just fine. ( I had the wrong address before!)
I’m not feeling god awful anymore but it is really too early to tell what I’m feeling. I get really atypical results with the Xifaxan; feeling pretty crappy while I’m on it, then getting great relief but not in the same manner/timeframe as others I see posting about their experiences on ibsgroup and other places. Except for the course I took in August, which really knocked my socks off, and which the effects of dissipated nearly as rapidly as they came, I usually need a lot of time and strict diet after the course to feel really well. So not feeling so amazing right now is not really important, but not feeling terrible is a pretty good sign. I’m still eating Atkins, and dutifully taking the Erythromycin at night. I’m trying to stick to three or four meals a day, and not take snacks, so that the cleansing wave of the small intestine has time to do its thing. I’m still not taking probiotics in any form (I hope I didn’t confuse anyone when I mentioned my “kefir/yogurt fast” in the last post – I meant I was fasting FROM these foods.) I took a closer look at the digestive enzymes I’d been taking and they had 3 strains of “beneficial bacteria.” Luckily I had stopped those during the Xifaxan (mostly out of laziness!) I’m picking up some ox bile today and I will use that along with the HCl with meals.
I had a conversation with a friend last night who is studying nutrition about vitamin D. I had no idea but she had also been having the odd, migratory, musculo-skeletal, or “bony” pain that I have been suffering from. She had also experienced cramping and curling of the hands and fingers. This is something I experienced back in 2007/2008 whenever I would finish my workouts, but it would happen in my toes and feet. She was diagnosed with severe vitamin D deficiency this year and says that months of supplementation have nearly turned her life around. I’d already started supplementing only this week but I think I need to up my dosage a bit. I’m also looking into Calcium D-Glucarate. I could really use a good education in micronutrition. I tend to find vitamins and minerals about as confusing as digestive enzymes. Really, I suppose the only thing I do know a lot about is antibiotics. This is actually a great realization to have; one which makes me very happy. I stated in a recent post here that I was growing really uncomfortable with the amount of information I had collected and the amount of knowledge I had amassed about SIBO, since I seemed to be one of the only ones I was coming into contact with who had put in the hours doing the research. Lately however some of the discussions in the yahoo group are incredibly enlightening for me and I no longer feel like a walking encyclopedia of SIBO info. Because I long for knowledge and lately I’ve been able to gain so much, I feel I’ve become more open to some of the knowledge and information that has been out there all along that I may have glossed over or considered irrelevant for one reason or another. Which is a great thing really. It’s very nice to have one’s eyes opened. And I will update when I know more about how things are working for me.
A quick post to update…I finished up the Xifaxan on Monday. I have been taking Erythromycin at night before bed per Dr. Pimentel’s June 2009 study in Gastroenterology & Hepatology. My pharmacy only had 250 mg tablets, not the suspension of 50 mg specified in the study. There was an afternoon of discussion in the Yahoo group over dosage/tablet cutting, etc. and whether or not it would be safe or effective to take the Erythromycin in this way. Frustrated, I wrote to Dr. Pimentel to ask his take; he wrote back right away and said cutting the tablets in quarters should be just fine. ( I had the wrong address before!)
I’m not feeling god awful anymore but it is really too early to tell what I’m feeling. I get really atypical results with the Xifaxan; feeling pretty crappy while I’m on it, then getting great relief but not in the same manner/timeframe as others I see posting about their experiences on ibsgroup and other places. Except for the course I took in August, which really knocked my socks off, and which the effects of dissipated nearly as rapidly as they came, I usually need a lot of time and strict diet after the course to feel really well. So not feeling so amazing right now is not really important, but not feeling terrible is a pretty good sign. I’m still eating Atkins, and dutifully taking the Erythromycin at night. I’m trying to stick to three or four meals a day, and not take snacks, so that the cleansing wave of the small intestine has time to do its thing. I’m still not taking probiotics in any form (I hope I didn’t confuse anyone when I mentioned my “kefir/yogurt fast” in the last post – I meant I was fasting FROM these foods.) I took a closer look at the digestive enzymes I’d been taking and they had 3 strains of “beneficial bacteria.” Luckily I had stopped those during the Xifaxan (mostly out of laziness!) I’m picking up some ox bile today and I will use that along with the HCl with meals.
I had a conversation with a friend last night who is studying nutrition about vitamin D. I had no idea but she had also been having the odd, migratory, musculo-skeletal, or “bony” pain that I have been suffering from. She had also experienced cramping and curling of the hands and fingers. This is something I experienced back in 2007/2008 whenever I would finish my workouts, but it would happen in my toes and feet. She was diagnosed with severe vitamin D deficiency this year and says that months of supplementation have nearly turned her life around. I’d already started supplementing only this week but I think I need to up my dosage a bit. I’m also looking into Calcium D-Glucarate. I could really use a good education in micronutrition. I tend to find vitamins and minerals about as confusing as digestive enzymes. Really, I suppose the only thing I do know a lot about is antibiotics. This is actually a great realization to have; one which makes me very happy. I stated in a recent post here that I was growing really uncomfortable with the amount of information I had collected and the amount of knowledge I had amassed about SIBO, since I seemed to be one of the only ones I was coming into contact with who had put in the hours doing the research. Lately however some of the discussions in the yahoo group are incredibly enlightening for me and I no longer feel like a walking encyclopedia of SIBO info. Because I long for knowledge and lately I’ve been able to gain so much, I feel I’ve become more open to some of the knowledge and information that has been out there all along that I may have glossed over or considered irrelevant for one reason or another. Which is a great thing really. It’s very nice to have one’s eyes opened. And I will update when I know more about how things are working for me.