# Tips for leaky gas



## yellow11 (May 14, 2011)

Hi all,

Well astonishingly I must be living with this horrible condition for nearly thirty years!!!!. It first reared its ugly head when I was around twelve and I'm forty two now. Anyway having leaky gas for so long I hope I have gained a few insights into it along the way. Of course this is just in relation to my own experiences, everyone's different so perhaps none of this applies to others.
To those people who feel the cause of their smell is an anatomical defect like a weak pelvic floor, an anal fissure etc I guess unfortunately not much I say here would interest you as I look more to my digestive system as the root of the problem. There does seem to be a lot of good advice about the anatomical side of things on this forum at the moment thankfully.

Anyway here are some of the things I have discovered-

1 AVOID RED MEAT AND DAIRY. Unfortunately going by people's reactions my odour seems to be pretty constant. No matter what I ate I always smelled so I didn't pay too much attention to my diet. One day though I was on this body odour forum which ran a poll asking the members what sort of food made them smell the worst. Way out in front were dairy products and red meat.
I realised that when I looked back on the very bad days when my smell was way worse than usual I very often had eaten something like bacon either that morning or even the night before. Same with dairy. Having cut them out of
my diet I can safely say the very very bad days where my odour was at insane levels have diminished.

2 THE MORE TIRED YOU ARE THE MORE YOU SMELL. To be honest the title says it all. Those days were I haven't slept well I nearly always smell worse. One thing to note though, it sometimes works the other way around in that if you have a very weak digestive system it may cause you to smell and it will make you more tired also (more effort needed to digest your food, fewer nutrients that get into your bloodstream and the longer the waste products stay in your system). Very often even though I might be sleeping ok I feel wrecked, almost hungover at times even though I hadn't been drinking. I wonder how many people on here experience something similar?

3. GET A TMAU TEST. TMAU (which strands for trimethylaminuria) is also known more commonly as fish odour syndrome but don't let that put you off if you don't really have a fishy odour. Fish is just one of a range of smells those with TMAU suffer from. Looking at a tmau forum I see that it's most commonly a fecal smell people have most of the time which I feel is the same with me. Also sufferers have complained about people accusing them of having farted even though they themselves didn't feel or smell anything which to me is the textbook example of leaky gas. Apparently only one third of people who gets tested get a positive diagnosis though sometimes a person can get one or two negative results before it turns up positive. Personally I was one of the two thirds who got a negative result.

4.GET A SIBO TEST. Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth
(SIBO) is something that I feel leaky gas sufferers should check out. The test is very simple - just blow into a machine or bag and you get the result there and then. Sibo comes about when a person doesn't digest their food properly and then as the undigested food goes into the small intestine bacteria feed off it and grow there where they aren't supposed to. I did get tested positive for it but unfortunately the treatment didn't help with the leaky gas. Looking back though perhaps I wasn't doing the treatment (retaining antibiotics, vsl3 probiotics and a low fodmap diet) for long enough. I d be very certain that anyone with leaky gas which doesn't have an anatomical cause has a very high chance of having sibo. 
Since mainstream medicine doesn't recognise leaky gas going down the sibo route could be a foot in the door for sufferers seeking medical help.

5. AVOID CAFFEINE . I always loved my coffee but unfortunately it has proved to be a real problem for me. Some days I could drink it and get away with it but lots of other days I really did stink to be blunt about it after my coffee intake. Caffeine is known to irritate the gut so that could be one reason it's a problem. It's supposed to be bad for lots of chronic conditions like eczema so not surprising it's bad for leaky gas also.

6. BE EXTRA CAREFUL WHAT YOU EAT AND DRINK FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.I find if I take a trigger food first thing in the morning on an empty stomach I am guaranteed to smell terrible for the rest of the morning at least if not for longer. If I take the same thing later on in the day sometimes I might get the same reaction but other times I can get away with it. 
I think my stomach must be extra sensitive early in the morning so it really causes me to smell very badly if I take something problematic at that time.

7. LIMIT ALCOHOL INTAKE. Well to be honest this is definitely one I don't take too seriously myself: ). If you have an odour condition unfortunately alcohol can make things worse. 
It's hard though I find being so miserable most of the time living with this awful condition not to escape my troubles with a few glasses of wine especially if I don't have to go to work the next day. I saw on some old forum people discussing this saying that beer and wine are pretty bad odour wise so if you really want to have a drink it's best to stick to a small glass or two of spirits. I would agree definitely that beer along with cider can really make you smell bad the next day. I m not too sure about spirits except to say vodka absolutely kills my stomach and my smell goes off the charts if I take it. Personally I find some types of wine especially if it's sweet and not too acidic are the safest options.
I guess it's worth saying too that the standard advice about making sure to drink water between or after your alcoholic intake to limit hangovers also probably helps smell wise as alcohol is supposed to dry out your gut which is not good for people like us.

8. PROBIOTICS SEEM TO BE HELPFUL BUT BE CAREFUL WHAT TYPE YOU BUY. I 've never stuck long enough on a probiotic for reasons I 'll explain to personally vouch for their effectiveness though I do remember the first time I tried vsl3 my stomach felt a lot better than usual. Experts seem to agree though how beneficial probiotics can be. I genuinely believe there's a very good chance if you take enough of them over a long period of time it may well result in a significant reduction in your odour levels. There are two points of caution I d like to add though. One is that a lot of the probiotics you see in health shops especially ones you see on a counter unrefigerated are pretty useless. As someone pointed out they 'll say on their labels the incredible amounts of good bacteria they got in them but they leave out the fact that a person's stomach acid will kill all these bacteria before they get a chance to do some good. Also if it's left at room temperature it might weaken the probiotic. A good tip I learned was that if you pour some probiotic into a glass of milk and leave it in the fridge overnight than if the probiotic has any potency it should be able to ferment the milk into a sort of yogurt.
A study was done of the various probiotics on the market and most of them were found to be ineffective. A probiotic drink called symprove (not too sure is it available in America unfortunately) did the best in the study and VSL3 also proved to be effective. However both vsl3 and symprove are quite expensive to buy.
One big warning though - probiotics can very much worsen your smell at the start. That's what happened to me, after taking some probiotics for a little while I got some seriously adverse reactions odour wise, got scared and gave it up only to start again later for the same thing to happen. 
Its said it's best to take a probiotic first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Going back to what I said though to number six that can be very dangerous. This one horrific day I took a sachet of vsl3 after I got up as advised and went to work. To cut a long story short my office reeked of sh#t for most of the day . I found it was far safer to take it in the evening two hours after I had eaten anything.

9. THE HARDER IT IS TO DIGEST A FOOD THE MORE YOU'LL SMELL. I guess this is pretty obvious advice. I already mentioned red meat and dairy, a few other things that are real trigger foods for me - NUTS; especially the roasted peanut kind is something which make me smell very bad. Food covered in GREASE. If I eat anything covered in grease chances are my odour levels will be a lot higher the next day. Another tip I 've picked up along the way is that when cooking or frying something use coconut oil which cuts out a lot of the grease and is supposed to be a lot healthier also. 
Too much FRUIT in one go. Ok this is something that might surprise some people. Intuitively you d know greasy foods would be bad for you but surely fruit is a good thing to take. Well obviously it's healthy to eat fruit but digestion wise I would be wary of taking a lot of it in one go and most especially not to have smoothies. The one and only time I took a smoothie not to put too fine a point on it I could detect a strong fecal smell coming from myself for most of the next day . Also this one morning I decided I was going to go on a health drive and eat a whole load of fruit for breakfast, unfortunately that fecal smell reappeared with a vengeance. I since learned the sugar in fruit, frutose, is not that easily digestible and fructose malabsorption is a genuine problem for a lot of people. However please don't think I m suggesting you shouldn't eat fruit, I would have an orange most days and sometimes eat a few grapes. Its just that for me I can't take too much of it in one go without smelling awful.
Foods high in SUGAR. The bad bacteria are said to thrive on sugar so it sort of makes sense that it can lead to a spike in leaky gas sometimes. I don't think is causes me as much problems as the other types of food I 've mentioned. Actually one drink though I can't have anymore is I coca cola. For years I drank it with no apparent problems but then all of a sudden I d be guaranteed to have the most awful smell if I took it, I d be interested to know if anyone else experienced something similar?
HIGH SULFUR FOODS. These are not a good idea for odour sufferers, things to watch out for here would include cruciferous vegetables like broccoli,cabbage or cauliflower as well as eggs and various kinds of meat and fish.
FODMAPS. FODMAPS are particular kinds of food molecules which can be quite difficult to digest. Its a very involved subject so I 'll leave it to Dr Google to explain. Also there used to be a poster on this forum called Common Response who found the low fodmap diet very helpful though it wasn't an outright cure. He wrote some very insightful posts on here a few years ago if you d like to search for them.

Unfortunately I 've noticed as I get that bit older I seem to have more problems digesting my food which has got to be bad for my smell.

10. CHEW YOUR FOOD VERY WELL / DON'T DRINK TOO MUCH FLUIDS WHILE EATING Ok I realise I now sound like someone's grandmother and people on this forum aren't four years old but for lg sufferers chewing well probably does help a lot. Personally I've always had a tendency to gulp down my food, it really takes a conscious effort on my part to eat properly. The more you chew food in your mouth the less work the rest of your digestive system has to do. Also I read somewhere that one of the main causes of normal flatulence is swallowing excessive amounts of air that then gets in to the gastrointestinal tract. I didn't realise until recently there's a technical term for this called aerophagia and the principal cause of aerophagia is gulping down your food. If it causes flatulence in normal people it surely must be worse for us lg sufferers.
One more thing that will help with digestion is if you try not to drink too much water or whatever while eating. It can dilute all the digestive fluids that are secreted when food enters the gut.

11. TOO MUCH ACID - PROTIUM TABLETS CAN HELP.
I read before how bad bacteria thrive in acidic environments. I found that quite interesting as I once had a colonoscopy done and the only thing slightly wrong they found was that my insides were very raw which apparently is the result of too much acid being produced by the digestive system. Often I feel my stomach way too acidic and an acidic stomach for me usually equals more smell . One thing that solves this problem I find, at least in the short term, are PROTIUM tablets. Unfortunately you may need a prescription to get them but I find they get to work pretty quickly in slowing down the release of stomach acid. Its probably not a good idea to take them too often but at times they are a real life saver for me anyway.

12. SUPPLEMENTS. Well in this area I am definitely very under qualified to speak. I m absolutely terrible at taking various supplements over a long period of time. I might start off with good intentions but after a few days I would start forgetting to take them and generally lose interest. Another problem is it can get quite expensive buying them. Anyway I d just like to mention a few things which seem to be fairly well thought of. 
VITAMIN B is supposed to be good in two ways, b12 is known for giving energy which helps with point number two and b2 also known as riboflavin is supposed to be of help to tmau sufferers with their odour (the technical details I don't quite remember sorry) so maybe it would be helpful with other odour conditions also.
NATURAL ANTIBIOTICS (GRAPEFRUIT SEED EXTRACT, CAPRYLIC ACID) If there is some bacterial basis to our odour then it stands to reason that anything which can kill these off is going to help. If you google it you 'll see there's plenty of natural antibiotics out there if you d like to give them a go. I d make particular mention of grapefruit seed extract and caprylic acid as I 've seen those recommended a lot online and in books.
CHARCOAL AND CHLOROPHYLL. Both these substances are supposed to be good for masking the odour. Plenty of times I 've seen people on forums recommend taking charcoal tablets, however when I tried them before it made me smell a lot WORSE so it just goes to show what works for some can have the opposite effect for others.
Think you are on safer ground with chlorophyll, if I understand things correctly it's a natural substance found in a lot of green plants and is a naturally occurring deodorant, something to do with its oxidizing properties which is far too technical for me to comprehend. Apparently you can get it in health food stores through either chorella or spirulina powder which have very high concentrations of chlorophyll.
DIGESTIVE ENZYMES. The more you digest your food the less you 'll smell so for obvious reasons digestive enzymes which can be found in health food shops come in handy.

13. PATIENCE. I 've put this down because sometimes I 've seen people complain about how they have tried different diets, supplements whatever and nothing seems to work but they then go on to admit they might have only been trying it for a week or two. Unfortunately I think we 'll just have to accept that in terms of a cure it would have to be a matter of months not weeks before we might start seeing results.
A doctor once wrote about having to put her patients on a strict diet to cure their gut problems and in her experience it took a minimum of three months to change things but it could take up to a year, the average being six months.

Interestingly I think the same doctor also say that after three months of a very strict diet her patients would start to develop a bit of a musty smell as all their old gut bacteria started to die off.

14. DOING THINGS IN UNISON. Finally something that always stuck with me was when a mother of a tmau sufferer wrote how her son had tried various approaches to solving his odour problem all to no avail. It was only when he starting to do all these things together at the same time that he thankfully was able to cure himself.

These are just a few of the things I 've learnt along the way about trying to lessen the impact of leaky gas. I d love to hear what tips other people may have. It would be great if we could have a long list of them and as a community we could pick the very best ones. Perhaps we could break it down into sections so we could have a section dealing with dietary advice, one for exercises another for supplements etc. Maybe then we could pin this list at the top of the forum? Think it might be a really useful thing to do...


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## Mariano (May 19, 2018)

Same here, similar ages, periods, nightmare beginning at 12, 13, 14 years old, etc. Now i´m pretty sure that most of my digestive problems (not counting the caused by the strangulated sigmoid) were caused by unconscious pushing, that made all the system go crazy. The exercises of Pokerface controled all that pretty well for some time but the final solution for me was, is, a SNS implant. No more pushing, no more smell, farts back to normal, etc.All that went back to normal with the excercises of Poker but eventually the abnormal reactions of my dig system started coming back, the SNS put a stop to that. My personal opinion is that when you pass certain age (let´s say 30) more drastic approaches must be taken, like the SNS implant. The trial period is not that expensive and if it doesn´t work the body doesn´t suffer real trauma.


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## Mariano (May 19, 2018)

By the way, i didn´t learn about SNS implant because of Pete, i was considering this years ago so he should stop saying that i should thank him.


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## Tabithaj (May 11, 2018)

Hey, I'm currently suspecting it's chronic hyperventilation that causes this problem in the first place. (I guess physical exercise helps, cause it relaxes and affects your posture, which again affects your breathing.) Anyway would be interesting to know what kind of result you get from Buteyko control pause test: www.normalbreathing.com/index-measure-CP.php and how long can you hold your breath?

For me control pause was/ is really low, only a few seconds but when I've taken benzodiazepin which also helps with LG, my control pause is over ten seconds. I also have several other symptoms that can be linked with hyperventilation. I've been practising Buteyko breathing since last week and got some promising results, but I'll write more about that later on, when I see what actually happens.

Mechanism shortly explained would be something like this: Hyperventilation -> less Co2 (acid) -> respiratory alkalosis -> H+ ions (acid) dissosiate from plasma proteins to balance blood pH -> more Ca++ ions can bind with plasma proteins -> hypocalcemia (well not real hypocalcemia, but lack of free Ca-ions which are the biologically active form of calcium) -> Ca-ions usually "block" sodium channels so, when there is less Ca++, Na+ can enter cells more easily -> sodium (Na+) depolirizes the cells easier = increased nerve excitability -> more muscle contractions everywhere in the body (blood vessels, gut, skeletal muscles).

Leaky gas is probably caused by inappropriate muscle contractions in the gut, which also make inner rectal sphincter open too easily and too often-> gas leaks out. This disturbed motility pattern in the gut might even be the reason why you get SIBO in the first place. Same mechanism also explain why pelvic floor gets too tight and causes incomplete evacuation. Also hyperventilation causes stress to your body which means body thinks it must priorize staying alive over digestion -> more digestive problems.

Many leaky gas triggers you mentioned (e.g. coffee, sugar, alcohol, red meat, peanuts) cause metabolic acidosis in your body (they produce co2). If you're used to hyperventilate, it means your body can't tolerate normal co2 level so co2 rising makes you to hyperventilate -> leaky gas.

This might mean that alkaline diet could be helpful (???), which could explain why apple cider vinegar and proton pump inhibitors helped some of these people: www.ibsgroup.org/forums/topic/163208-no-lg-for-over-2-monthsmy-cure/
Even though that vinegar is acidic its metaboly causes alkalosis. Also proton pump inhibitors (at least omeprazol) obviously cause metabolic alkalosis sometimes (???), (couldn't find why).

I'm wondering whether magnesium (ion?) deficiency has a role here too... It seems hyperventilation affects magnesium-ions too. Obviously they too regulate nerve-excitation.

What causes hyperventilation in the very first place I'm not sure about. For me it was probably the combination of anxiety, sugar and alcohol.

Also Mariano, I've read many of your posts and based on them I'm pretty sure your problem can't be something that couldn't be fixed without SNS (though I'm happy to hear it works). If there's something that has made you symptom free for a while, it simply means your problem must be functional, not anatomic


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## Mariano (May 19, 2018)

Correct, purely behavioral, and i believe that also applies to many of you too, why? None of us born with this, all normal until one day people around us started complaining about fart smell, eventually that advanced to plain ###### smell, leakage, gas incontinence, etc. Also most of us did a myriad of medical studies that couldn´t find any important abnormalities that could explain the smell problem (internal or mucous prolapse don´t count, many of us proved that by fixing them through surgery that those are not the problem). If i´m correct the SNS should be able to give the final "ignition" to the correct unconscious behavior and i wouldn´t need the device after some time of using it.


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## PokerFace (Jan 13, 2017)

lol the Pete comment

I was actually in the healthiest of diets when this started.
I think its brain led. Your body tried to hide fart holding, then trauma of some sort, then high pressure from whatever began to excess the holding and it started to let go.

Im sure none of us tries to peoperly hold gas ever


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## Tabithaj (May 11, 2018)

Well, breathing is mostly brain-led. This might be far-fetched, but you said vegan diet caused you muscle loss, which is a condition that can be caused by acidosis and also causes acidosis itself (at least really quick muscle loss does).

Also healthy diet doesn't mean the food couldn't be "acidic" and therefore make you breath more. It seems that e.g. rice, blueberries, some beans and peas and many nuts, cause metabolic acidosis that body has to compensate somehow. (Though these alkaline-acidic food lists are f*cking controversial.)

I know "official" medicine doesn't take this alkaline diet thing seriously, cause "food's pH doesn't affect healthy individuals". But then again, are we healthy when experiencing something like this??? Respiratory alkalosis caused by hyperventilation is a condition that "officially" exists and some people seem to be more sensitive to that than others.

There's a blood test called astrup that might prove my theory if taken when symptoms exists. But I bet I'd need to lie about my symptoms/ at least pretend I cannot breath to get that test taken... Capnometer could also be useful, but they seem to be really expensive.

I've noticed my other symptoms (like flashes of light I see in the corner of my eyes, bruxism and tingling in my arms) also react to my breathing pattern, which makes me believe this must be about something else than [email protected] dysconnection only. Though probably there must be something wrong with gut/ pelvic floor/ @ss before something like this starts happening.


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## PokerFace (Jan 13, 2017)

I think that can be related to anxiety mostly.
We all sort of panick in the gut during social situation and the body releases anxiety throught our ass basically.
I think its just us getting used to the wrong movements and the body loses education. Gas incontinence can be linked to breathing abnormally has it hardly will have to deal with some kind of body acidity. I did like 3 months of raw vegan diet and I had Crystal clear pee and still leaked shit like no tomorrow. As I reintroduced animal products I started digesting decently again.

I think hypopresssive excercises could help the coordination. And the anal breath thing laying on the bed. Theres this Belgian girl in discord who had 1000 tests done and she is totally fine but still has lg.
I suggest anoscopy and ibs / gluten/dairy free diet to reduce the inflammation


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## Tabithaj (May 11, 2018)

Yes, lg in connected to anxiety and so are probably my other symptoms. And so is hyperventilation. Hyperventilation is what causes panic attacks and most of my symptoms are something that can occur during a panic attack. Of course there can be other reasons to those symptoms too, than breathing faster, but I'm pretty sure, it's the key here.

I hate it how western medicine often explains physical problems as "psychosomatic" and that's it. No. If there's a physical symptom there's also a _physical_ mechanism that causes it. It's not like anxiety or depression would just somehow magically make you sick. It affects the whole body (nervous system, hormone secretion and so on). Both gut and inner rectal sphincter work involuntarily, so getting used to wrong movement patterns doesn't explain why they're both f*cked up. (Yet wrong movement patterns might still have some sort of a role here.)

Here is your connection between breathing, acidity and incontinence:
1. Chronic hyperventilation means your body gets used to a lower Co2 level.
2. Usually body regulates pH very strictly, which means that if Co2 goes down (losing acid -> alkalosis =high pH) it has to compensate it by causing metabolic acidosis. This means your body throws out HCO3- (base) via kidneys.* Now we have metabolically compensated respiratory alkalosis. Because of compensation, pH remains actually normal, but there is less CO2 and less HCO3- than normally*.
3. When you eat something that produces acid in the body (= tries to cause metabolic acidosis by producing e.g. Co2) your body easily overreacts, cause it can't stand normal Co2 level anymore.
4. Overreaction makes you breath faster to remove that "excess" of Co2 -> body can't compensate anymore and pH rises = respiratory alkalosis = the state that causes panic symptoms via increased nerve excitation -> inadequate muscle contractions open inner rectal sphincter and make it and area around it stiff -> lg and defecation difficulties.
-This overcompensation cycle causes a constant "fight" between respiratory alkalosis and metabolic acidosis in the body.
-It can be cured by "taking back what you've lost" by causing respiratory acidosis (higher Co2 level) by breathing slower (this is why breathing exercises help) or metabolic alkalosis by eating alkaline forming food (getting back HCO3-) (this is probably why the weirdest nutritional supplements cure people -they rise pH (you get HCO3- back.)

This theory might even be a part of explanation why placebo helps in the first place (calming down = breathing slower = no more respiratory alkalosis).

I've been considering maybe hypopressive works because it is one sort of "breath deep -hold your breath" exercise which might lead to lower Co2 level in the body. Just like Buteyko. I mean as far as I know there is no evidence it actually strenghtens the pf muscles...

Right now I still have anxiety daily, yet my gut motility is more normal than it has been for months + no more incomplete evacuation.

Come on. I'm not saying your diet has to be clean, raw or vegan to get cured. I'm only saying that if your body can't stand Co2, it can't stand diet that rises Co2 levels neither. I don't even think vegan diet is healthy. I guess It can be, if you're really dedicated, but it can definitely cause you nutritional problems too. It's ethical yes, but humans are not "naturally vegans", whatever they say. Your lot of veggies + meat diet is probably much more natural option for us. It might even be more alkaline than a vegan diet would be, since green veggies compensate acidity from the meat and you avoid dairy and gluten grains which are also acid forming. And your diet is probably low-Fodmap -unlike vegan diet -which of course reduces gas and other digestive issues.

Clear pee you had, means you were drinking a lot. Which can also be connected to metabolic acidosis, since it seems to cause insuline resistance, which rises blood sugar, which makes you thirsty.

Could you ask that girl did they take her astrup or do any sort of hyperventilation provocative test, and what were the results? Did they measure how much CO2 she breaths out or what is her O2 saturation and pulse when she is having symptoms?

By the way, even though I disagree with you, I still appreciate a lot that you bother to hang out here, trying to help people.


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## PokerFace (Jan 13, 2017)

You could have a trial of hyperbaric chamber and see if that helps and let us know


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## lone_wolf777 (Dec 20, 2017)

I noticed dairy gives me a fecal odor as well. It's almost like being lactose intolerant, minus all the other symptoms.


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