Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Always BLOATED, Gassy, and Backed Up? It Might Actually Be SIBO (and How to Fix it) with Dr. Lindsey Walker

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Here’s an overview of what you can expect in today’s episode:03:14 - Introduction04:20 - SIBO risk factors05:46 - The role of the MMC (migratory motor complex)07:51 - The role of eating disorders, dieting and restriction on SIBO risk10:32 - How to test for SIBO16:36 - How to cure SIBO21:36 -  Can carnivore diets cure SIBO?23:40 - Probiotics for SIBO (what to choose and what to avoid)30:00 - Fiber Dos and Don’ts in SIBO31:37 - How to prevent SIBO recurrence35:14 - How to Deal with Painful BloatingCheck in with today’s amazing guest: Dr. Lindsey Walker, NDWebsite: Dr. Lindsey Walker, NDAppointment Booking Disclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.  🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

I would hear stories in my office about people who could not travel because they would not know where every bathroom was in a new location. People who would take public transit to work who would know where all the bathrooms were on their route so that they could stop and move their bowels. It shrinks people's quality of life. Welcome to another episode of Bite Back with Abbey Sharp, where I dismantle di-culture rules, call it the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience, and help you achieve food freedom for good. I am very excited about today's episode because it basically is like doubling for me as a free cancelling session with one of my most respected colleagues.

My long-time followers might recall that about three years ago after my second son was born, I went through a very long, arduous battle with a functional gut disorder called SIBO, aka Small Intestinal intestinal bacterial overgrowth. This is a condition where excessive amounts of bacteria pool in the small intestine, leading to extreme bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, and an inability to tolerate a lot of your favourite foods without a painful flare. There are a lot of proposed risk factors and mechanisms that put one at risk of SIBO, but for me, it was likely due to my existing IBSC, which affects gut motility, and the fact that I had to be treated with very strong antibiotics on five different occasions, basically back

to back, for painful debilitating mastitis while nursing my sons. I was in so much pain and like visibly so bloated that I looked pregnant even though I was like 18 months postpartum, which was exactly when I called my guest today, Dr. Lindsay Walker. Lindsay is a naturopathic doctor with an expertise in digestive disorders, women's health, dermatology and pediatrics, who is also a key scientific advisor

for new theory. But I'm super excited to have her on to chat about the causes and symptoms of SIBO, testing and treatment, the role of low FODMAP and carnivore diets, probiotics, and some tips for managing the bloat as you work through your treatment. A reminder that this episode is for entertainment and educational purposes only and is never a replacement for any one-on-one advice. So, if you are experiencing some of the symptoms that we are going to be discussing today, definitely speak to your doctor, dietitian or naturopath about SIBO testing. Also, if you are new here, I would really love if you give Vibe Bite Back a nice little comment and a five-star review because it really does help me out.

All right, let's get into it. All right, Lindsay, always such a pleasure. I love having, I love talking to you. My note taking from like all of our calls is is just so intense all the time because I just learn so many cool things that I want to deep dive into after we get off. So thank you so much for coming on to share your expertise. Oh, that's really sweet. Thank you for having me.

So first of all, for folks who maybe are just hearing the term SIBO for the first time, how does SIBO differ from, you know, IBS? Well, that's a really good question. They're very closely linked conditions, like you're saying. And I would say that there's a high propensity of IBS patients where SIBO is actually the root cause of their IBS dysfunction. So it's definitely something to keep in mind when somebody comes in with that pattern of IBSD, IBSM,

or IBSC, and it's worth ruling out, because if you treat it, the patient can dramatically improve and not be left managing symptoms lifelong. Some of the telltale signs, I would say bloating, and the degree of bloating, the pattern of bloating throughout the day, and certain foods that would make the bloating worse. And then accurate medical history, like case taking

from that perspective to look for medical red flags, that would put the patient at higher risk for having SIBO. And can you talk a little bit more about what some of those, you know, risk factors would be? Sure. So when you're asking about medical history in the context of the SIBO lens, you definitely want to look at and ask about concussions. You want to ask about whether probiotics make them better, worse, or no change. You want to ask if they've had episodes of travelers' diarrhea or food poisoning or viral gastroenteritis

that have rendered their digestion permanently disabled after those infections. And that can be shortly after. You can recover from those incidents and be normal, and then months later, this pattern of SIBO can emerge. Screening for hypothyroidism, or asking if they've ever been hypothyroid on and off medication for that. Chronic proton pump inhibitor use, chronic antibiotic use. So that could be back-to-back antibiotic prescriptions

for like stubborn strep throat, soft tissue infections. Or it can be prophylactic antibiotic use at low dose for cystitis prevention, so UTI prevention in females, or acne treatment. Gallbladder removal, because bile is really important at reducing bacterial load in the small intestine and keeping it free of too much. Those are really the main ones. And then you're always asking about high FODMAP foods, how they tolerate those. And I'm hoping you can maybe kind of speak to

the motility piece and the migratory motor complex because we do hear often that one of the theories of SIBO is that there is some unimpaired MMC or migratory motor complex. Maybe you can speak to what that even is for people who've never heard that term. Sure. So that's really the predisposing factor that sets the gut up for this pooling and then overgrowth of bacteria in the wrong place inside the digestive system. So we are hardwired every night for our small intestine to make phase 3 contractions, which is the migrating motor complex, the MMC.

And while we're sleeping, the small intestine makes high intensity sweeping contractions to sweep debris and bacteria down to the colon. And it also keeps the pressure in the colon high so that bacteria can't flow backward into the small intestine and then start to populate. So, dismotility is the term that's used to describe those contractions being discoordinated, weak, or not happening at all. And that rhythm is critical because if you don't have that rhythm nightly, this condition has a very high rate of occurrence in a person where that's happening. And dysmotility

can be a short-term occurrence and it can self resolve and the patient could be fine, or it can be a long-term occurrence and become chronic and then the patient is set up for long-term SIBO symptoms. And really, when you're treating this condition effectively, when you're rounding third base and going to slide into home and the treatment's going to be well-rounded, that's the last step is correcting the dismotility so that the condition does not reoccur. Because if you don't do that step, it will reoccur. Yeah, so it's the root cause of the condition and needs to be addressed as part of the plan

for long-term remission maintenance. And, you know, I'm thinking about my audience here and that so many of my listeners are coming from a place of, you know, diet culture history, eating disorder history, under-eating, you know, chronic dieting, things like that. How does under eating or, you know, history or active eating disorders potentially affect the MMC, the motility and how is that a potential risk factor

for SIBO down the road? So cases where that is part of the history, they do have a higher rate of SIBO and other dysbiosis. When you are actively participating in bulimic patterns, it gives... the gut does not know whether it's coming or going. It's... because it's having a lot of reverse peristalsis from the vomiting action, the coordinated muscular contractions, they're not coordinated because of the pattern.

So those cases, yes, they have a higher rate. When you're under eating or restricting, your gut doesn't have the energy to move well, because you need all the cells to be pulling together. You need proper cellular metabolism and cellular respiration to be happening. So people who restrict tend, their guts tend to move slower because they don't have the capacity. They have to use the calories they have to run their brain and their cardiovascular system. So the gut ends up being kind of second or third fiddle if you are participating in active restriction

and anorexic patterns. Yeah, and it's so hard for people because unfortunately the symptom of SIBO, the bloating, for example, and the pain that you then experience from eating a wide range of foods tends to then kind of further encourage people to eat less. So it becomes this like this cycle, the self-perpetuating, you know,

the self-fulfilling prophecy, which just perpetuates the poor motility. So yeah, very important to be working with a dietician or a naturopath like yourself to help you kind of navigate those SIBO symptoms if you're concurrently stuck in disordered eating behaviors, because again, that can severely interfere with your treatment and your success in your treatment. But speaking of treatment, we have a test that's quite easy to do, you know, even though the prep for it sucks. I will just say I hate it because you're really only allowed to eat like rice and chicken basically, like no fiber whatsoever for one to two days. Not as bad as a colonoscopy prep, I will say that.

But can you kind of briefly explain how the SIBO test works, like what's involved, what do people need to know? Sure. So I think the first starting point is to understand this is not a new test. This test has been around since 2006. It's not a new kid on the block. It's a very effective tool for diagnostics, and it's a very effective tool for reassessment to see how your treatment's going if you've achieved full eradication from SIBO treatment. And so it's a provocation test. So like you highlighted, it involves eating

a preparatory diet for one to two days that has no fiber. So you just eat white rice, white bread, and protein because there's no fiber in those foods. And then effectively when you do that for the preparation, it gets all the fiber out of the digestive tract. So if you do have an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, it will not have been fed from the preparatory diet. So then after doing the preparatory diet, you do a 12-hour overnight fast, and then you wake up and you're ready to test. And this test is done at home, and you have a little device that you blow through and you collect your breath specimens with

test tubes. So the first specimen that you take is in that fasted state after doing the preparatory diet for one to two days. So that's your baseline sample. And then you drink a testing substrate which is in this case, the top testing substrate is lactulose, not lactose, lactulose. I always like make that distinction. Lactulose is an indigestible, non-absorbable sugar, which means it will not be altered by the digestive system as it passes through the small intestine. It will stay

just in the intestine and it will interact with any bacteria that will be there. They will feed on it and it will generate measurable gases of hydrogen and methane gases in your breath. So the small intestine, it's 22 feet long. So this test is three hours. And after you collect your baseline sample and you drink the testing solution, you then collect samples every 20 minutes until 180 minutes. And that gives us an excellent snapshot of the microbial distribution of the small intestine. Right.

And so you get your results and you're going to see different subtypes of bacteria. And we have hydrogen, methane, and then sometimes they'll report hydrogen sulfide. Can you kind of explain how these different bacterial overgrowths present themselves differently? Sure. So with the three subtypes, you have your classic presentation, which we'll review, and then you have your A-classic. So, sometimes I'll run a test and I will assume what the results might be based on the patient's symptoms and they won't match.

That's why testing is important because clinicians do not have a crystal ball to predict what results will be. So with the hydrogen subtype, it's the most common, and that means that the organisms that are detected on the test are generating hydrogen gas. So when they consume high FODMAP substrates from the patient's diet, they generate that type of gas. And generally, the symptoms would be bloating, diarrhea, urgency, and intestinal cramping because hydrogen gas, as it flows through the system

and goes into the colon, it makes the colon contract. So that's when you're case taking and you hear that somebody has frequent urgent spasmodic diarrhea, that that is a regular occurrence weekly, your mind goes that okay this might be a hydrogen overgrowth. So IBSD would be kind of the diagnostic there. And then the methane subtype is the opposite. The organisms there generate methane and the colon hates methane gas. It slows it right down

like basically the contractions go to like very low intensity and very low frequency. So the colon kind of arrests when methane is in the system. And that picture will be infrequent bowel motions, straining, bloating, trapped gas because the system is not moving well. And then the third subtype, the rarer subtype, hydrogen sulfide SIBO, they are hyperfermenters. They are uber bloated. They can have diarrhea. They have other hallmarks.

So they will tell you that they have like bad breath all the time, or they have a metallic taste in their mouth. And the type of gas that's generated in that instance, the traditional SIBO breath test does not directly report it, but you can tell by looking at the hydrogen numbers and the methane numbers if it's possible that that's the subtype the patient has. Yeah, I always get sacked with the more difficult methane, which is again the IBFC, which is again what I've struggled with most of my adult life, but is trickier to treat, is it not? Yeah, so out of the three, hydrogen overgrowth are the

easiest to treat. The second subtype, the methane, are harder to treat, and the toughest ones are the hydrogen sulfide. Yeah. Because the treatments so far, we have the treatments we have, and I believe that science will evolve over time just like it has to bring us to where we are now in this arena, and we will have better treatments

for hydrogen sulfide as things evolve. Great. Let's talk about treatment for...and obviously everybody's SIBO eradication protocol is going to be very different. But generally speaking, it's positive. What are the next steps for most people generally? Yeah, so there are three ways to kind of approach this from an eradication standpoint. So generally you want to A, set yourself up for success and do some prep in the gut before moving on to eradication. And that involves generally taking a formula to address bacterial biofilms.

Biofilms, like the straight up way to think about them is they are the apartment building that bacteria live in. So inside our gut, they live in this kind of network. It looks like a coral reef and the bacteria that are there actually steal small amounts of minerals from the diet to make this structure. Wow. And it protects them from treatment and it protects them from the immune system. So they're smart.

They're not just, this has not been their first rodeo, these bacteria. They want to survive just like any other organism. Yep. So the first phase is that preparatory phase to like what I effectively say, let's prepare the garden for weeding. So like if you were going to make a garden and you just had your backyard, the first thing you would do, you would rotor till the soil, you would till it up and really bust it up so that you could actually access the fertile soil beneath.

And the biofilm disruptor is exactly like that. It is busting up the biofilm so that the bacteria will be exposed to whatever eradication therapy you're going to select. And that phase, the preparatory phase, continues throughout the eradication phase. So then the eradication phase involves you selecting either pharmaceuticals, natural antimicrobials, or something called the elemental diet to eradicate the overgrowth. And those, whatever you select, depending on the case, the chronicity, the severity, the test results, you would deploy those treatments anywhere from two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, and

you're always monitoring clinically and then reassessing with the placebo breath test to see how things have been going. So that's the eradication phase. And then the third and final phase is that phase we talked about before, where you are recovering the motility of the small intestine with generally a medication or a natural agent to correct dismotility. And that phase is 90 days minimum. That phase can go on longer to protect the patient's investment and protect their clinical remission in having completed the other two phases. That's kind of an overview. And, you know, as you probably know, there's a lot of talk online about, you know,

how do you cure SIBO naturally through diet? And you mentioned the elemental diet, maybe just like very briefly, what do you have to eat on the elemental diet? It's a hard no for me. I'll take the antibiotics any day, but what is the elemental diet that is an option? So the elemental diet is a 14 to 21 day period where you consume a Health Canada approved

meal replacement where the shake that you're drinking, which is your sole source of nutrition, is all of the macronutrients broken down into their elemental form. So literally it's sachets that are flavored in vanilla and chocolate, and you consume a certain amount to meet your caloric needs, but there's no fiber. There's nothing, there's only the macronutrients and microminerals you would need, and that formula is rapidly absorbed in the first three feet of the small intestine to nourish the patient, but there's nothing for the bacteria to eat. So they die by starvation.

And it is an effective eradication tool, especially if antibiotics have not been well tolerated or they've failed. And so if you have a treatment failure, the elemental diet is a really good selection. It is psychologically quite difficult to do. You have to clear your calendar. Like, you can't be going to social events where there's food. No.

Because you're really on a liquid diet, and there always is some weight reduction. It's always water weight. People gain it back once they start eating again. And when you do the elemental diet, it's always medically supervised. You have to be overseen by a clinician so that you are drinking enough of the shake to function and be able to move through the

process. And during the elemental diet, you're monitoring the digestive symptoms. Everything goes pretty quiet pretty fast when you're not eating because there is an element of bowel rest and like digestive rest and the elemental diet is not just used for SIBO, it's used for other like IBD, it's used for a xenophilic esophagitis, it's used for other conditions where we need the digestive system to rest from its process and provide, you know, adequate nutrition through those means. So then building on an evidence-based, you know, treatment protocol like the elemental diet. We see a lot of animal-based or ancestral or carnivore advocates online claiming that you can cure SIBO and other forms of dysbiosis

by eating carnivore. What's the take on that? So with the carnivore diet, you would have to engage in that diet probably long term. So let's say you committed to eating that diet for two years. Technically, scientifically over time, because there's nothing for the bacteria to eat, they would reduce. Maybe they would be fully gone. But generally what we see when people take that approach is when they return to a diet that has fiber, fermentable fiber, sugar, polyols, their symptoms come back. Now they might be to a lesser degree because the overall bacterial load has reduced by eating

that diet, but I've never found that particular approach to be curative. I do believe you need some form of eradication to really get the job done. I would say those diets, they subdue the overgrowth, they subdue the symptoms, they reduce the symptoms. They're a management tool and maybe folks who have certain philosophies about not wanting to use the eradication therapies we have available, well, then they have those dietary tools to manage. Right. Yeah. I mean, my followers know I'm anti-carnivore for many reasons. I think plants are important, you know, if for long-term health specifically, you know, again, because once the SIBO is healed,

we know that, you know, good gut bacteria need prebiotics and fiber to flourish and thrive. And, you know, even when we look at the literature, there was a review of the literature that found that folks whose diet was low in fiber and high in animal protein, like what we would expect on an all meat diet like that, had guts with a bacterial species ratio that is linked to conditions like obesity and other metabolic conditions. So maybe short-term

relief but perhaps long-term disadvantage. But I want to talk about probiotics because obviously we hear probiotics and we automatically think, yay, good for gut. And if we are struggling with our gut because we have SIBO, people may automatically think, you know, more is better, anything goes, all probiotics are appropriate, but in some cases it may actually make it worse. Can you kind of explain the do's and don'ts of probiotics and SIBO? Sure. So I find probiotics are like a litmus test for whether SIBO is likely. So let's say a client comes in and they have a pattern suggestive of IBSD and they've never taken probiotics. They're hesitant to run the test. They're unsure. I'll say, let's do a trial

of probiotics and this will be a bit of a canary in the coal mine if you will. So we'll prescribe a multi-strain probiotic for two weeks and if they flare, SIBO likelihood is very high. Because when you think about the condition itself, it's a pooling of bacteria in the wrong place that are now overgrowing. The bacteria present, they're not pathological or pathogenic. There are naturophlora, but just in the wrong place because of the

dismotility of the small intestine, short term or long term. So when you take probiotics, they are a test. And if it's a multistrain probiotic that contains both lactobacillus species and bifidobacterium, you will probably see either a flare, no change, or improvement. If they improve, chances are that SIBO is like moving down the diagnostics list because they have tolerated the product and they have actually improved by 50% in bloating, bowel movement frequency, abdominal pain, burping and flattice. But if they do get worse, that's definitely a red flag and they should likely move forward with being assessed with the breast test.

There is in the probiotic community a big differentiation between the two main species that we see in products, so lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. The bifidobacteria, they actually are quite sievo-friendly and they're friendly to patients who've recovered from the condition and received the proper care because they are like very small organisms. They self-propell. They can get to the colon on their own, whereas lactobacillus organisms, they do not self-propelled, they are much larger.

They require being shuttled to the colon by the small intestinal contractions. And in a SIBO patient, those contractions are messed up. So they can pool and add to the overgrowth, and that's why they make patients who have existing overgrowth flare, make their symptoms worse. And what about the bacillus strains and the espulardi? The espulardi is in a different category because it's actually a yeast. So it can be very friendly, especially during eradication phase, where we're using pharmaceuticals to eradicate the overgrowth,

because yeast is part of our flora. And when you are going after the bacterial overgrowth and reducing it with your treatments, we don't want there to be a flourish of the yeast organisms flourishing. So we give the espulardi and it helps really increase treatment tolerability and reduce the possibility of yeast overgrowth from the eradication itself. And then the spore formers, they're really interesting. I think we're just kind of in the infancy of really understanding them. They kind of recondition, like they have a reconditioning effect that the lactobacillus

and the bifido don't have. And they seem to have like more immune interaction with the local enteric immune system, so the GI immune system, the digestive system has its own immune system, which communicates with the systemic immune system, but it has its own comings and goings. And spore formers, sometimes they're used short term just to kind of hit reset, recondition, and then add the other organisms, And sometimes they're used chronically. So I'd say like with probiotics it is about figuring it out and it is about like using the data we have in the scientific community to say look I believe based on everything to

date this probiotic would be well suited for your case based on your diagnosis and what we've done so far. The other question I get sometimes is, do I need to change my probiotic? No. If it's working well for you, that means it's meeting your needs on a microbial level. You don't need to switch it up. And if your diet is a healthy diet full of plant fiber, you're going to get other diversity and populous from your nutrition.

Super helpful. And if there is suspected or confirmed SIBO, should we also be ideally limiting kind of natural sources of probiotics like fermented foods, kombucha, yogurt, sourdough, all that jazz? I would say it depends on load and frequency. So generally, those will, if the patient has active SIBO, those foods will make them worse. If they eat them below a certain threshold, they probably will tolerate them okay, but if they go over that threshold, they will be symptomatic.

And in cases where we've reached the final phase and they are in remission clinically from their previous symptoms that plague them every day, I will say, like, stay away from fermented foods. They're not your friend right now. They might never be your friend. And we can talk about weaving them in down the road, but right now we're so close to like having you a hundred percent cured that I don't want to muddy

the water with you ingesting them. Fermented foods are a great source of diversity for a healthy digestive system. Yep. SIBO patients do not have healthy digestive systems. They have an ongoing chronic process. Right. So work through the eradication and then once things are looking good then you can work in some of those, you know, nutritious fermented foods. And what about fiber? Because again, we know a healthy gut depends on fiber. What should we be thinking about when we're actively dealing with

SIBO symptoms when it comes to our fiber choices? So during treatment, if you're on a pharmaceutical protocol or a natural version of that, natural antimicrobials, you do want to eat a high fiber diet while on eradication because it makes the overgrowth more active and it will improve the effectiveness of the eradication medicines. When the patient is in that phase, they often ask, oh, do I need to eat like a low FODMAP diet

or do I need to eat like I did when I was preparing for the tests? I'm like, no, we want the bacteria to come out and play so that the agent that we're using, they will interact with it and it will kill them. So you want to eat a high fiber, high FODMAP diet when on eradication. In fact, some of the trials on rifaximin, which is the main pharmaceutical used for hydrogen overgrowth, they give it with like five grams of partially hydrolyzed guar gum

and the effectiveness of it goes up because of the fiber being present and the overgrowth being more active and that whole kind of thought. And then on the back end, once eradication is complete and you've completed correction for the dismotility, you can go back to enjoying fiber, both soluble and insoluble, because they have different roles and are important in a healthy gut process. Yeah, super, super helpful. And finally, we know SIBO recurrence is incredibly common, unfortunately. Here I am, and I felt like I did everything that was within my control

to prevent it. I take my fiber supplements, I take my resitran, I've got a high fiber diet, but I'll never deny antibiotics when needed. So what can we do to give ourselves that best shot of preventing the SIBO from reoccurring? If we're thinking long-term, yes, we've done the stage three as required or recommended. Now what? Not to sound fatalistic, but some people, this will be an upcoming and going condition for them simply because we can't get the motility perfect. And most people who have only had SIBO a short time, like less than two years from the starting

point of the bacteria started to pool and overgrow. Generally, they'll be treated, it will never reoccur. People who have had chronic SIBO or IBS for five, 10, 15, 20, 30 years, they probably are going to need more routine oversight and eradication here and there when their symptoms and testing dictate it. And I would say the bulk of the cases I have seen are the one and done. They're treated once, the treatment's good. I never see them again once they're in remission.

And then the more chronic folks, their lower number for sure. But they probably go through a period of dismotility for one of the risk factors that's either chronic or new to their case. And they see a slowdown, the slowdown is like longer and it allows the condition to reoccur and then they need to be treated again. And then where I'm always hopeful, like when we treat them again,

that the remission will be longer. And generally the new results from the reoccurrence are not what they were when they first had the condition. The overgrowth are more mild, they're easier to take care of. It's like a little blip. And you're like, okay, we got to treat the blip. This seems like it's back. It's not back to the same degree as five years ago when we first

detected it and had you go through treatment at that time. Yeah. So I think there's just that population where we can't get the motility perfect. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely me. Again, I'm kind of grateful that my second rodeo seems a lot less aggressive than my first. So we're just kind of staying grateful for that and that this is an easier eradication phase. My mission to assist with this condition, because I would hear stories in my office about people who could not travel because they would not know where every bathroom was in a new location. People who would take public transit to work, who would know where all the bathrooms were on their route

so that they could stop and move their bowels. It's definitely a quality of life shrinker. It shrinks people's quality of life. Yeah. And you know, when you have a day and your digestion is good, it's like such a great day for those people. Oh, my God. Yes. I think everyone,

anyone with IBS can identify with that like a good poop day or like, you know, you're not feeling bloated that day or you know, you just feel comfortable for once and it's just like, Whoa, this is what it's supposed to feel like. So thank you so much, Lindsay. This was so insightful as always. Um, and of course, I'm going to be leaving links below to where people can find you. So thank you again. You're welcome, my pleasure.

I could honestly talk to Lindsay all day. She's just such a wealth of knowledge. So I'm just so grateful to have her to call on for advice on our formulas at New Theory. And as Lindsay and I alluded to, resolving SIBO can be a long game, which can feel like an absolute eternity when you're feeling physically uncomfortable after every meal and emotionally uncomfortable in your body and clothes.

But as someone who's now been through this twice, I want to share some perspective on what has been really helpful for me. So for one, when I'm having a particularly bloated day, going for daily walks after my meals can really help to address the psychological stress piece of IBS, but also help to support digestion. Number two is making meals and snack times a priority. So that means sitting down, chewing thoroughly, and not rushing through. Tip number three, so for days that I get a flare from like very high FODMAP foods like cauliflower, legumes, onions, asparagus,

or dairy, I am definitely leaning on my brand new New Theory Digest and Deep Blowout supplement because it's got high-potency digestive enzymes plus herbs for motility and gut irritation and inflammation. So I'm going to leave a link to where you can find that below for folks who struggle with regular or sporadic bloating. And finally, practicing self-compassion. You know, wellness culture may try to make you believe that your bloating or SIBO diagnosis is some kind of visual cue that you aren't prioritizing your gut or your health, but as Lindsay and I mentioned, there are so many risk factors for SIBO that we

have little to no control over. So reminding myself that I am not defined by my disorder or symptoms, that dysbiosis is not permanent or a static state, and that with the right supports, I will overcome this challenge. And that brings me to the end of our episode. So thank you so much to Dr. Lindsay Walker for the incredible insights that she brought to today's show. Again, I will be leaving a link in the show notes for where you can find her. And if you are not already, I would love if you would subscribe wherever you get your

podcasts and leave me a little love note review and a five star rating because it really does help my show out. Signing off with Science and Sass, I'm Abbey Sharp, thanks for listening.