Could SIBO Antibiotics Also Help Treat Endometriosis?

Okay, so today we're talking about SIBO antibiotics and what role they might be able to play in endo.

Now, antibiotics understandably have a bad reputation because of how they've been overused, um, since their kind of invention and the resultant impact that that has had on our gut microbiomes and our overall health, not to mention antibiotic resistance, right, which is posing quite a big problem.

So when it comes to antibiotics for SIBO, when I talk about them with my clients, most of my clients are initially hesitant to consider them and will typically opt for antimicrobials instead.

However, there are some potential benefits of antibiotics for endometriosis, so I thought it was worth sharing these with you so that if you find yourself having to treat SIBO, which you might, based on the current research we have, because the two studies we have, one was 80% of us had SIBO, and then the other was 90%.

So if you find yourself needing to treat SIBO, you can use this episode to help you make an informed decision about which path of treatment you would like to take.

So first up, let's just do a quick recap on antibiotics for SIBO.

So antibiotics reduce gases by 30 parts per million on average per round.

So when we're measuring SIBO, we are measuring the amount of gas.

So if a client has 60 parts per million, they'll need at least two rounds of antibiotics if they're going down the antibiotic route, which would be 30 parts per million each time.

Now, FYI, I don't do antibiotics back to back.

No, I'm not prescribing, um, but I'm helping a client create their plan in a collaboration with their doctor.

So normally, if they needed numerous rounds, I wouldn't go, you know, back to back with antibiotics because that can be quite detrimental for your microbiome.

Um, so I would alternate treatments, but just to give you an idea.

Now, a round is 10 weeks-- A, a round is 10 days to three weeks.

It would be three weeks if the gas levels were above 70 parts per million, but honestly, most doctors do not prescribe that long.

Um, antibiotics have an average success rate of 70 to 73%, but they've been shown to have up to a 91% success rate, so they're very effective.

The main antibiotics used for SIBO that have been shown to be successful in the treatment are rifaximin, neomycin, and metronidazole.

And rifaximin is the leading antibiotic for hydrogen.

Methane, or intestinal methanogen overgrowth, is notoriously harder to treat, so we need to double up on antibiotics for effectiveness with that.

So we use rifaximin plus either metronidazole or neomycin.

And then for hydrogen sulfide, it's typically rifaximin plus bismuth.