Bad Diet and Antibiotics? ME/CFS like symptoms

Back Story

  • 38yr Old now, Issues started around the age of 24-27 i think [gradual onset]
  • From the age of 17-35 my diet has been really bad ( Coca cola, pizza, burger, fries, candy and sweets etc)
  • From 23-25 I started getting really tired everyday followed by pains in various locations
  • Later, started loosing weight in the face, eyes started to sink deeper and deeper, my face become really gaunt. All my life i have been thin and could never gain weight nomatter how much i ate.
  • I also startet getting extremly fatigue after eating.
  • definitive stomach issues started around the age of 30-33, may have been before.
  • Since I turned 34, i have been trying to figure out what is wrong with me.
    • Allof the standard checks at the docs Office(ultrasound of organs and stomach area, CT/MRI of stomach area, Colonscophy and gastroscophy)
    • Nothing found

So everything points towards gut dysbiosis or something like that

I started to change around with my diet July 2022. Details of various attempted changes (Gluten free, no dairy, no sugar, carnivore diet) — currently on Keto with resistant carbs.

But many symptoms are still there.

I have been taken multiple rounds of antibiotics from november 2022 until Jan. 2023 (80 days) because i had a sinus and deviated septum surgery. I have also taken 7 days of metrodinazole  and amoxicilin 12 weeks ago because of the H Pylori infection i had. Retest was negative for H. Pylori
Got diagnosed with methane SIBO via breath test in september 2023

I have been diagnosed by a GI Map test in May 2023 with:

  • candida
  • E coli overgrowth
  • Streptococcus overgrowth
    by a gimap test in May 2023

I feel like my body is destroying itself.
A long list of symptoms was given

Analysis

Potential Medical Conditions Detected

Nothing stood out. By this I mean that the Percentile ranking is well into the Prevalence. The closest was SIBO where the borderline would be 100-52= 58%ile. He was reasonably over that. He wrote “Got diagnosed with methane SIBO via breath test in September 2023”, so this was a definite matching forecast from PubMed literature.

Bacteria deemed Unhealthy

The one item of interest was Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, which was 19% of his microbiome and associated with increased Candida risk (which he has had).

Dr. Jason Hawrelak Recommendations

Percentages of Percentiles

This is my quick way to statistically determine if there is statistically significant dysfunction. The significance is 0.99999.. etc, so yes.

Forecast Symptoms

In the top ones we had the following agreements with reality:

  • cold extremities
  • Rapid muscular fatigability
  • Joint pain
  • Sinus issues with headaches 
  • Onset: Gradual 
  • Sinus issue
  • Onset: 2010-2020 
  • Gender: Male
  • General: Headaches
  • Post-exertional malaise

The ones that did not match were connected to cognitive issues.

Pattern appear to match a subset of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Many MDs will suspect it, but will not give a diagnosis if the person is not totally disabled. The reason is simple, no treatment plan and likely a negative psychological impact.

Going Forward

This looks likes a good candidate for a two stage building a consensis:

  • “Just Give Me Suggestions”
  • THEN using special studies (everything at once – skipping Gender) to add a fifth set of suggestions

The suggestions are short and tight. Barley porridge with Walnuts for breakfast for most days.

I would suggest taking Danish product Biogaia Lactobacillus Reuteri just before bed each night for two weeks, then switch to clostridium butyricum for two weeks. The other probiotics – do 1 at a time for 1-2 weeks, take them 1-2 hours after breakfast.

Akkermansia Muciniphila probiotics and Swedish Filmjölk (on your porridge?) are two probiotics with no known negative impact and some positive impact. The list above are the highest predicted impact.

What to avoid

Keep up the no alcohol but reduce/drop beef in your carnivore diet. Go for herring, eels and other fish product. It is interesting that the two E.Coli probiotics are listed as avoid (the logic does not look at E.Coli levels, but other bacteria levels to make that suggestion)

Prescription Items (if you have a willing MD)

Doing antibiotics is usually consider if the above do not cause sufficiently improvement over time. I mentioned that the history looks quasi-ME/CFS. I was not surprise to see many ME/CFS antibiotics on the list, including:

  • AMOXICILLIN (ANTIBIOTIC)S[CFS]
  • AMPICILLIN (ANTIBIOTIC)S[CFS]
  • CIPROFLOXACIN (ANTIBIOTIC)S[CFS]

If you and your MD decide to try antibiotics, I would suggest on of those (using Dr. Jadin approach of pulsing).

Browsing the Details

High value was 701, low as -391. Usually these two numbers are about the same magnituded. Items spotted of note:

Note that inulin (prebiotic), jerusalem artichoke (prebiotic) etc are of low (but positive) value.

Questions

Q: Regarding your sugestion of all the probiotics. Usually the probiotic comes in bottles where there is like 4-10 different strains. Should i avoid that and only buy single strains in each bottle of all the ones you mentioned?

A: Each strain impacts things in different ways. My preference is always single strains, ideally ones that have been researched with the ideal being ones researched for your condition or symptoms and found effective. See https://microbiomeprescription.com/library/ProbioticSearch , There are reports of some probiotics making people worse. A major issue is that probiotics are not well regulated Many “retail mixtures” have over 60% of their contents misidentified. See Deceptive Probiotic Labels or Assessment of commercial probiotic bacterial contents and label accuracy, When the bottle gives an explicit strain (not species), then the owner of that strain has motivation to insure quality control.

Looking at the challenges of getting probiotics in Denmark. What may be an acceptable compromise is to find a probiotic mixture that does not contain any probiotics with an estimated adverse risk. In your case these are:

  • symbioflor 2 e.coli probiotics
  • colinfant e.coli probiotics
  • bacillus subtilis natto (probiotics)
  • bifidobacterium longum,lactobacillus helveticus (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus paracasei,lactobacillus acidophilus,bifidobacterium animalis (probiotics)
  • General Biotics Equilibrium
  • bifidobacterium (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus rhamnosus gg,lactobacillus,rhamnosus,propionibacterium
  • reudenreichii,bifidobacterium breve (probiotics)
  • bifidobacterium bifidum (probiotics)
  • bacillus licheniformis,(probiotics)
    Prescript Assist (2018 Formula)
  • lactobacillus bulgaricus (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus gasseri (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus rhamnosus (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus casei shirota (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus fermentum (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus sakei (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus,bifidobacterium bifidum,enterococcus faecium,candida pintolopesii,aspergillus oryzae (probiotics)
  • lactobacillus brevis (probiotics)
  • bifidobacterium adolescentis,(probiotics)
  • bifidobacterium lactis,streptococcus thermophilus probiotic

Example:  lactobacillus rhamnosus gg (probiotics) is an explicit strain (“GG”) is the second highest positive, while generic  lactobacillus rhamnosus is # 54 and negative.

Postscript – and Reminder

I am not a licensed medical professional and there are strict laws where I live about “appearing to practice medicine”.  I am safe when it is “academic models” and I keep to the language of science, especially statistics. I am not safe when the explanations have possible overtones of advising a patient instead of presenting data to be evaluated by a medical professional before implementing.

I can compute items to take, those computations do not provide information on rotations etc.

I cannot tell people what they should take or not take. I can inform people items that have better odds of improving their microbiome as a results on numeric calculations. I am a trained experienced statistician with appropriate degrees and professional memberships. All suggestions should be reviewed by your medical professional before starting.

The answers above describe my logic and thinking and is not intended to give advice to this person or any one. Always review with your knowledgeable medical professional.