After spending a few months working with a nutritional therapist and trying some different methods – including the introduction of supplements, digestive enzymes, vegetable juices and anti-inflammatory foods – we decided we needed a new approach. My gut wasn’t yet equipped to deal with this method; trying to introduce probiotics and raw juices seemed to making things worse, not better.
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be following the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), according to the fellas over at SCD Lifestyle.* It’s designed to kill off bad bacteria living in the small intestine – the cause of SIBO and other digestive-related issues.
As it states on the website: ‘The diet is an all natural way to break this cycle of bacteria and yeast overgrowth by eliminating the food sources they feed on. By working to restore gut flora to normal levels the intestinal tract is allowed to start repairing any damage by itself.’
What exactly are those food sources? Grains, sugar, starches and processed foods. I’ll follow the strict introduction diet for 2-5 days before slowly testing my tolerance to new foods in the order laid out on SCD Lifestyle*.
I’ve got my bone broth on the stove, my gelatine setting in the fridge and my carrots slow-boiling away. And I’m pretty intrigued to see how this goes . . .
*Since posting this, I’ve learned more about the SCD and am following the protocol from Breaking the Vicious Cycle, a book by Elaine Gottschall. It turns out some of the information on SCD Lifestyle isn’t SCD-compliant, so I’m no longer using it as a strict source. I also didn’t follow the stages as there’s much debate about whether they’re beneficial and I found them too restricting. I’m now following SCD + low-FODMAP as I felt I still may have issues with them. I’ll be testing FODMAPs individually over the coming months instead.