# breath test negative -- is that it for SIBO for me?



## SteveE (Jan 7, 1999)

After reading Pimental's book, I sought the best GI I could find with a quintron SC and scheduled a n H2 test. The results were described as "unremarkable/normal." I really thought with the improvement I experienced on antibiotics (prescribed for other issues), that I'd test positive. I guess this means I simply don't have it? Or are there other perspectives?Unremarkably yours,Steve


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## gilly (Feb 5, 2001)

Steve,Perhaps you are one of the people who produce methane instead of Hydrogen?I think they use a slightly different test for that.There was a reference (I think in the research forum) where antibiotics helped IBS patients even when breath test was normal.Sorry havent got time to go and search for it now.Hope this helps Gilly


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## SteveE (Jan 7, 1999)

He checked for methane too. He described my results as "unremarkable...in other words, normal." I had really hoped after reading Dr. Pimental's book that I'd have a shot at licking this thing. I feel like Wile E. Coyote getting excited about ordering ACME's latest and greatest IBS remedy repeatedly only to find myself face-down in the dirt with an anvil or something about to fall on me.


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## Kathleen M. (Nov 16, 1999)

That has to be disappointing. I know the doctors that do it here at the clinic say sometimes that happens. Someone you'd be sure has SIBO based on symptoms just doesn't. The symptoms overlap with other things, so it isn't always SIBO even when all the indications are there.Hopefully you will find something that helps you soon







K.


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## Arnie W (Oct 22, 2003)

One appointment with the GI, 2 separate tests (lactulose and lactose) and hundreds of dollars later....and my results were the same as yours. My lactulose test was borderline and I could have had it retested, but the GI said that the readings are not always completely accurate and I didn't want to waste any more money.I liked your 'unremarkably yours'. Good to see you're retaining a sense of humour.


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## 15221 (Dec 7, 2005)

Steve E I too feel much better when I am on antibiotics....only deductive reasoning I can offer in my case is that I am killing the microbes that are causing the release of toxins that are overstimulating my immune system....also tested negative for small bowel overgrowth....


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## SteveE (Jan 7, 1999)

Well, it could be that antibiotics are just taking the edge off by reducing numbers of all normal bacteria, thereby reducing gas/bloating. Of course we're in the "SMALL INTESTINE bacterial overgrowth" forum here. Could we have a large intesting bacterial overgrowth? Is much known about that possibility? The test is simply looking for an early spike in gas which would mean overgrowth in the SI. The spike at the end is the LI and considered normal.


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## flux (Dec 13, 1998)

> quote:The results were described as "unremarkable/normal."


A test such as this doesn't really have that as a result. That is, the test produces actually values, not a negative or positive. So you can simply ask what your numbers were. Generally, they are reported as ppm of H2 and CH4. It is possible for a person to have SIBO but not produce hydrogen or methane. The bacteria might produce CO2 instead. But it is believed that only a small percentage of the population are CO2 only producers.


> quote:it could be that antibiotics are just taking the edge off by reducing numbers of all normal bacteria, thereby reducing gas/bloating.


That had been my initial thinking when Pimental published his first article. That there was never any SIBO, but because the gut is so sensitized that even normal amounts of gas affect it and reducing that cuts back on symptoms. This is the same reason an elimination diet would appear to help; it reduces normally undigested carbohydrates that feed the bacteria.


> quote:Of course we're in the "SMALL INTESTINE bacterial overgrowth" forum here. Could we have a large intesting bacterial overgrowth? Is much known about that possibility? T


There is no "LIBO" per se, but it is possible for those bacteria to produce excess gas in an apparently rare circumstances. However, it appears that almost no one suffers from excess gas, so this is probably a very rare situation. Generally, the SIBO test is not run long enough to see how high the peak would get in there, but presumably it would probably *ten times* what SIBO would be or more.


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## 18383 (Sep 4, 2006)

Hi,in my opinion, IBS is only the case if your intestine nerves are more sensitive than in normal people, so a normal gas volume, that a normal person would not feel at all, gives you a lot of pain.This can be tested by injecting small ammounts of gas into your intestine and looking for your pain.If the pain is caused by excessive gas, then you do not have IBS but you have a different desease, like SIBO, a sugar malabsorption (LI, FI), starch- or fat- or proteine-malabsorption due to a dysfunction of your pancreas, bile or gastric acid, excess mucosa cells in your intestine lumen due to a mucosa inflammation, a maldigestion due to unappropriate chewing of your meals, too much drinking to your meals and thereby diluting gastric acid, or any other reason while there are too much bacteriadegenerable nutritions are reaching your large intestine.You also might have something like LIBO or dysbiose of the large intestine, where the constitution of the bacteria in the large intestine is altered in a way that the usual indigestible carbohydrates that normally are fermented to short chain fatty acids are metabolized to gas or laxating toxines.Lets say if a normal person has a lot of bifidobacteria that ferment lactose to lactic acid, and fructose to acetic acid and fructans (like inulin) also to acetic acid, without gas being produced, one with a large intestine dysbiose would have too few bifidobacteria, but maybe too many bacteroides or too many E.Coli, that ferment the carbohydrates predominantly to gases or laxating toxines.That is why taking antibiotics does not always help, as the bad bacteria recover quick and the symptoms come back.You MUST take MANYMANY good bacteria (Bifidos or lactobacilli) beginning with the antibiotic therapy and at least a few weeks longer than the AB, so the bifidobacteria can take over the free mucosa space from the killed bad bacteria.I would say that noone should be given the final diagnosis of IBS if he has not been tested for oversensitivity of his intestinal nerves. If he is not oversensitive, then ther must be a different source for the problems that has to be searched for further until it is found.Regards,Roland


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