SIBO Herbal Treatment

Contents:
• Natural SIBO Treatment
• Herbal Remedies
• Resetting the Migrating Motor Complex
• Supporting the Vagus Nerve
• The Normal Standard of Care
• Conclusions

SIBO is an acronym that stands for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. While gastroenterologists and family medical doctors alike once considered SIBO to be rare, new research shows that the condition is far more common than previously assumed (Source: PubMed). The normal standard of care for SIBO treatment centers around antibiotics such as Rifaximin or Erythromycin. While these antibiotics can kill off the offending bacterial infection, they don’t resolve the underlying health conditions that led to the occurrence of unwanted bacterial growth in the first place. Another drawback to antibiotics is that they can kill off beneficial gut bacteria along with the bad. Without this healthy gut flora in place, the patient may be vulnerable to reinfection and may have other digestive issues. While there may be times when SIBO treatment necessitates antibiotics, it’s a good idea to also incorporate natural treatments to rebuild gut flora and modify food/lifestyle to support proper recovery.

SIBO Herbal Treatment combined with a holistic approach to rebuilding a healthy gut flora has been gaining in popularity in recent years. Despite the progress being made in natural and herbal treatments combined with the low FODMAP “SIBO Diet“, there may still be times when an antibiotic is deemed necessary by your gut health doctors and specialists. While we prefer natural and herbal treatment when possible, there are times when things get bad enough that we may prescribe antibiotics to a patient. Interestingly, the antibiotic Erythromycin has been shown to have an effect on how food moves through the digestive tract that may offer some benefits for certain patients suffering from gastrointestinal issues (Source: National Institute of Health).

Despite this, natural treatment, herbal remedies and a holistic approach are still viable ways to treat SIBO and to help prevent future reinfection, which is a common outcome. Medical researchers have found that SIBO reoccurs within 9 months for 40-45% of those treated with antibiotics. In the course of our clinical practice at Terrain Wellness in Portland, Oregon, we have found that reinfection after antibiotic use is less likely when a holistic, herbal and natural approach to rebuilding healthy gut flora is used. Logically it makes sense that unless we dismantle the conditions that were present when the infection occurred, it stands to reason that reinfection would be a common outcome.

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What’s Wrong With Standard SIBO Treatment?

The standard method for treating SIBO is to kill off the bacteria with antibiotics, with repeated rounds of antibiotics given if the infection comes back, as it does often. This reinfection after treatment with antibiotics may be due to the fact that these medications don’t dismantle the risk factors that led to the infection to begin with. Researchers note that almost half of those treated with antibiotics have the infection come back in less than a year. As a clarification, there may be times when an antibiotic becomes necessary and it is important to follow your doctors’ instructions. That said, the medical community needs more open communication about the side effects and limitations of treating SIBO with antibiotics as well as exploring the benefits of lifestyle modification and natural treatment.

Standard of Care is a medical term meaning the established way in which most doctors (including many gastroenterologists) treat excessive bacteria in the small intestine. Basically, the standard of care is what you’re taught in medical school. This approach is often a one-size-fits-all approach that seeks to reduce healthcare to a simplistic series of if-then scenarios. Think: have sickness -> give solution. While this approach can be useful in emergency medicine, it doesn’t address the complexities of the human body. Also, it can easily lead to polypharmacy, where doctors need to prescribe more and more drugs to combat the complications from the last drug given. While the Standard of Care provides stability and ensures a minimum quality, the system discourages innovation and is slow to evolve. As with anything in life, there are pros and cons.

So, what’s wrong with the Standard of Care when it comes to harmful intestinal bacteria? The first problem is that the normal testing procedures can lead to false negatives, leading well-meaning gut-health specialists to believe that SIBO isn’t a factor. The next problem is that since SIBO was long-considered to be a rare condition (we now know better), an internal medicine doctor can be dissuaded from investigating gut microbiome health further because of this historic bias. All these notwithstanding, the biggest problem is that doctors frequently prescribe antibiotics to kill off the excess bacteria without taking action to rebuild healthy gut flora or microbiome after treatment. Also, doctors can also give further consideration to natural, SIBO Herbal Treatment as well as dietary and lifestyle changes to help prevent reinfection.

Taking antibiotics to treat intestinal bacteria without resolving underlying factors is problematic because 43% of patients had their SIBO return within 9 months or less in a recent medical study. This means that almost half of patients would need to undergo multiple rounds of antibiotics in the course of treatment. This is problematic because the antibiotics used to combat SIBO may also kill off the healthy bacteria that we need for proper digestion. Furthermore, some healthcare professionals cite multiple rounds of antibiotics as a SIBO risk factor. This may be because these medications kill off good and bad bacteria alike; which may leave the gut more susceptible to infection by bad bacteria because there are no healthy bacteria in place.

I’ll use an analogy to explain. Suppose you have weeds in your lawn and kill them using a general herbicide that kills everything. Weeds gone, end of story, right? Well, not so much. The herbicide also killed the grass, so now there’s a desolate wasteland devoid of weeds and healthy grass alike. Then what happens? With no healthy grass in place, weeds don’t have to compete with healthy grass and take over the entire yard. And guess what, weeds tend to grow faster and repopulate bare dirt faster than the healthy lawn that we want. So, now instead of having healthy grass with some weeds in it, you have a desolate wasteland with nothing but weeds.

In the above example: the dirt is your gut, the lawn is healthy gut bacteria, weeds are bad bacteria and antibiotics are herbicide. Antibiotics will solve the problem of bad gut bacteria but will not ensure that beneficial gut flora come back.

Also worth noting is the fact that new medical research shows that herbal treatment was effective for treating small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. This shows that the medical Standard of Care is evolving, albeit slowly (PubMed: Herbal Therapy Is Equivalent to Rifaximin for the Treatment of Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth). In our clinical experience, we’ve found that natural treatment and/or herbal remedies do work, but there may still be times when an antibiotic is called for. When we do prescribe antibiotics, its important to continue treatment with us afterwards so that we can work to rebuild gut health over time.

Conclusions:

Natural SIBO treatment including herbal supplements, lifestyle changes and dietary modification have come a long way in helping to alleviate this uncomfortable and painful health condition. There are pros and cons to antibiotics vs natural treatment, so consider speaking with a doctor experienced in gut health, functional and natural medicine to get the whole picture. Antibiotics without supporting treatment frequently results in a reinfection. As such, consider moving from considering natural treatment versus antibiotics as an either/or scenario and use herbal supplements, lifestyle and supportive care to help make your SIBO recovery more permanent.

Yours in Health,

Dr. Danielle Lockwood ND LAc

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Featured Physician: Dr. Jonathan Shaffer

If you found this article helpful, Book an appointment with us to start your healing journey. My name is Dr. Jonathan Shaffer, and I am a graduate of the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon and licensed doctor of naturopathic medicine. I have additional training in Applied Kinesiology and Neuro-Emotional Technique as well as direct instruction from Dr Danielle Lockwood to treat chronic and complex cases. I am also receiving instruction in Ayurvedic medicine, and continue to expand my knowledge in this modality. I use these various lenses to create a comprehensive picture of any disease or disorganization in the body.

I work within the scope of practice in Oregon with full prescriptive rights. I am happy to manage prescriptions and understand their inherent value, but tend to lean more heavily on other modes of treatment. I use homeopathy, botanicals, muscle testing, and body manipulations to address most concerns. I treat patients with attention disorders, spectrum disorders, brain injury, autoimmune disorders, neuropsychiatric disorders, and gastrointestinal disorders. I especially focus on complex cases, specifically pediatric mental health/chronic conditions, and men’s health at any age. No matter who I am working with, reinstating a balance is my core focus.

I currently live and practice in Portland, Oregon. I love learning, helping people and exploring the outdoors.

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