My gut has made me fear crowded spaces

Honestly, I don't even know how to say when this started, because as far back as I can remember, my body has never quite worked right. I'm 25 now, and this has been a lifelong thing, not something that appeared one day out of nowhere.

For years I just thought this was normal. Everything I ate seemed to disagree with me. The gas was constant, and at its worst, genuinely hard to control. Constipation... the kind where three coffees, a cigarette, and laxative herbs still don't get things moving. I know smoking makes SIBO worse, and I only picked it up recently, but I'm actively trying to quit.

Eventually I did the SIBO breath test and came back positive for methane. On top of that, I've had recurrent candida for the last 3-4 years, since my ex-partner passed it on to me. So at this point I feel like I'm carrying a kind of molotov cocktail in my body haha

SIBO (and possibly SIFO) makes you plan your life around it without even realizing that's what you're doing. I started feeling on edge, anxious, in any space with a lot of people — classrooms, the cinema, the metro, the bus, work. Mentally it's been rough. It messes with your self-esteem whether you want it to or not, because you start associating your own body with unpredictability and shame.

I tried rifaximin, and neomycin. Neither worked for me. I've been following a low-FODMAP diet. For a long time I only ate once a day, because that was the only way to keep the bloating and gas manageable until I recently learned that eating that way is actually worse, because it never lets the Migrating Motor Complex do its job. So that was a fun realization. Now I'm about to try a new protocol: herbal antimicrobials, a stricter diet, and proper meal spacing instead of fasting.

Good luck everyone!