Hershman says the antibiotic rifamixin is “the mainstay backbone to therapy in both hydrogen and intestinal methane overgrowth types.
There’s also the risk that people can develop a resistance to them. While antibiotics are effective in killing bacteria, they can also wipe out gut-friendly bacteria. The sooner you get treated for SIBO, the faster you can recover from its debilitating symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, or in extreme cases, weight loss, anemia, and vitamin deficiency.Īntibiotics The main treatment available for SIBO is antibiotics. They include:Ĭatching SIBO early is vital. Imaging Once you are diagnosed with SIBO, your doctor may order imaging tests such as computerized tomography (CT) scanning, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), or an upper endoscopy to pinpoint any structural defects in your intestines that may be causing your SIBO.Ī few different health conditions have overlapping symptoms with SIBO, which means you may need to be tested to rule those illnesses out, as well.Blood test An analysis of a blood sample tells doctors about your nutrient levels and whether other nutritional markers are low.But this test can be unreliable, since bacteria can grow in patches. During an endoscopy, the doctor will take a sample of your digestive juices from your small intestine to see how many bacteria are in your digestive tract. Aspirate culture This test is more invasive, time-consuming, and pricey.Bacteria in our guts emit these gases, so this test helps doctors understand whether your gut microbiome is stable or not. Carbohydrate breath test This fast, cost-effective test will evaluate how much hydrogen or methane is in your breath.If you think you might have SIBO, your care team may recommend that you take one or more of the following tests. Hershman.Īn SIBO diagnosis may involve a few different tests, since there is currently no standard approach to testing for SIBO. “While IBS is a disorder of pain or abdominal discomfort, in some way associated with defecation, patients with SIBO tend to have symptoms of delayed bloating with abdominal distention, and either diarrhea or constipation depending on the overgrowth subtype,” says Dr.
And experts can often tell the two disorders apart by how they manifest in the clinic. Luckily, doctors are equipped with some tools to differentiate the two diagnoses, such as a breath test that clarifies which type of bacteria are overgrowing in the small intestine by detecting certain gases.
INTESTINAL BACTERIAL OVERGROWTH DRIVER
“It is not clearly understood which one of these disorders is the driver of the other, and there is still some expert debate about whether these are truly coinciding or separate disorders.” “There is undoubtedly overlap between SIBO and IBS,” says Melissa Hershman, MD, an associate professor in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology at Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland. In a review published in Frontiers in Psychiatry in 2020, researchers noted that SIBO is common in people with IBS and shares some symptoms, including:īut experts still don’t fully understand the relationship between the two disorders.
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