The road to healing from SIBO isn’t always a straight line, so as you work with your health care provider, avoid these five mistakes to boost your treatment success and prevent SIBO from recurring: Timing your meals is also important. The migrating motor complex (MMC) is a wave of contractions1 that starts in the stomach and goes through the small intestine, and interruptions in MMC increase the risk of SIBO2. Think of the MMC as “housekeeping”; it sweeps bacteria and undigested food and dumps them into the large intestine. The MMC needs 90 to 120 minutes to complete this job2, but it gets stopped and has to reset every time you eat. If you take more than an hour to nibble on meals because you’re too distracted or because you think it’s healthier, or if you eat every two hours or less, you’re interfering with your MMC. Instead of grazing, sit down and eat your meal mindfully, then “close the kitchen” for three to four hours. What interferes with proper motility? Food poisoning and infectious gastroenteritis with certain bacteria, viruses, or parasites can damage the cells that act as the pacemaker4 and control the MMC. Uncontrolled diabetes has a similar effect, and hypothyroidism, gastroparesis, celiac disease, and Parkinson’s disease slow down motility2 as well. To top it off, stress triggers the fight-or-flight response that shuts down digestion. As I mentioned before, treating SIBO can be a process, and you have to be ready to test, retest, and adapt your treatment plan as you go. The good news is that by avoiding these five mistakes, you can save yourself time and, hopefully, set yourself on a quicker path to healing your gut for good.
