Bloated Stomach from FODMAPS?
Have you ever heard of FODMAPS?
Well, if you are like me, you probably didn;t know about them until you started looking for answers to your digestive problems.
This is kind of embarrassing, but when I was 13 I started having terrible constipation. I thought it was because I had football practice after school, and I was “holding it” so that I didn;t have to run all the way back to the field house where the bathroom was.
Crazy as it is… coaches didn’t like people leaving practice, but that is another story. Needless to stay, you didn;t want to have to announce that you were going to the bathroom to the whole team.
Anyway, that is when I first noticed my difficulty with my digestive tract. Today, my symptoms would have been diagnosed as IBS, or irritable bowel syndrome. I was constipated most of the time, but I would have diarrhea some too.
You know what my #1 symptom was?
BLOATING!
Guess when I bloated the most?
After drinking a fiber drink… you know the one, you mix it up, and if you don;t drink it in time it makes a huge think, disgusting mess that you can’t drink…
After bloating enough times, I finally got it through my head that “this drink is probably not good for me,” why else would it bloat me?
Little did I know then, but what was actually happening to me was that bacteria from my colon (the large intestine) had worked its way up into my small intestine where it was not supposed to be. This is call small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO.
What I ended up doing was severely restricting my diet for years, avoiding foods that made me bloat… frankly, it sucked, but I didn’t want to feel bad.
These problems carried on for over 20 years…
Fortunately for me, I have always been interested in my health, and working with my body to be healthy. This lead me on the path of continuing to search for better health through formal education, and eventually lead me to practice functional medicine.
Today, I have been practicing and formally studying functional medicine for 8 years, and informally for 12.
What I know now, is that my bloating was becasue of FODMAPS, or (Fermentable Oligo, Di- and Monosaccharides and Polyols).
FODMAPS were feeding the SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) that had occurred due to my holding my bowel movements during football practice, causing the ileocaecal valve (where the small intestine empties into the large intestine, near your appendix) on my large intestine to blow open, allowing the upward migration of bacteria from the colon into my small intestine, where it fermented on the fiber I was drinking!!!
This my friends was an epiphany… I just wish it had happened about 20 years earlier, then I may have been able to prevent chronic leaky gut, which I believe triggered my autoimmunity.
So here we are…
Through what I have learned about FODMAPS, SIBO, IBS, the GI tract and testing, I have been able to help myself and a lot pf patients and clients beat SIBO.
Because of my own personal struggles, I wanted to share some information with you on FODMAPS (Fermentable Oligo, Di- and Monosaccharides and Polyols). These are sugars found in certain foods difficult for many to digest so that maybe you will not have to go through what I did.
Want to know more about SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth)? Click here.
Want Dr. Shook to help you with your digestive or autoimmune condition? Click here.
