When I finally cured my SIBO after 12 long, very long years and multiple misdiagnoses, I wasn’t ready for what was about to happen. I wasn’t ready for what came next. I had spent years dreaming of eating without bloating or cramps. Also, I had been looking forward to doing anything with friends and family that involved food.

Any social activity involves food and I’ve always felt very much excluded, even though most friends & family have tried to include me by making Low-FODMAP foods or trying to help me pick something I could eat. I felt so bad, becoming bloated after trying so hard or having to go home early after it got too much too bear. 

Oof.

Luckily, after countless doctor visits and one late-night video that changed my entire life, I was on track to fix my gut health for good finally! 

I had no clue what was going to happen. My SIBO doctor or rather, a functional doctor that I call my SIBO doctor, warned me that it would take at least a year before I’d feel much better.

Mainly because the SIBO had taken such a hold in my body that it would take a long time for everything to be back on track. 

Here are seven unexpected changes I experienced during my SIBO recovery journey:

1. My hair started growing

As far as surprising things, this is probably one that I could have seen coming. 

In the years leading up to my diagnosis, my blonde hair started falling out more and more. My once wavy hair had become lifeless. It had always been thin, but at least it was shiny and healthy—until SIBO took its toll. Not the dull, thin hairs I was left with. Every single day, I found hair everywhere it shouldn’t be. Showers got awkward as I tried to figure out why on earth my hair was so dry and thin. I tried shampoos, moisturizing conditioners, expensive hairmasks, oils & serums and nothing seemed to work. 

My hair only fell out more.

It got so bad that friends and family started commenting on it. Not to tease me, but because of genuine concern. If I’d be out in the sun, tall people could see through my hair. I got insecure about it and tied it up more. Unfortunately, no hairdresser was able to help.

I hated hairdressers, they were the bane of my existence

I tried to avoid going to the hairdresser as long as possible, but when my hair started forming clumps in the back from being so ready for a cut, I couldn’t postpone it any longer. Since I lived, studied and worked in multiple different places, I never had the same hairdresser. Most of them used to mention it:

Some were nice, they looked concerned as they asked me if I wanted a dry-hair mask and others were a little less nice as they noted I had bald spots on my head. And one, walked away and came back with a booklet, saying I had to eat more vitamins and showed me which ones. I felt incredibly awkward of course and thanked him before leaving as fast as possible. 

Turns out, he was right! Not in the way he thought though. While treating my SIBO, I discovered I had severe vitamin deficiencies caused by bacteria consuming the nutrients in my small intestine before my body could absorb them. It took 6 months, partly because I had some non-SIBO related surgeries in between, but I started to notice baby hairs. A lot of them!

The first time my osteopath commented my hair felt fuller, even though I hadn’t told her about it, I had to hold back tears. I had changed nothing in my routine. Except for all vitamin supplements, of course! My body was finally getting better. I was sure of it.

2. I grew muscles

All my life I have been petite in posture. This has suited me well enough. I have never really enjoyed sports, but I do move a lot to get around: biking & a lot of walking to and from work and I’ve always worked out in some way (swimming or pilates). 

Over the years, my friends and I would go get some ice cream regularly, cycling for 40 minutes to the best shop in the province. I’d feel knackered after a simple bike ride! It felt like my body was screaming at me for this simple movement.

I wondered if it was because I was lacking movement and I just didn’t workout enough. But whoever I compared myself with, I could never see that I did so little to warrant how I felt. Sure, some friends are into working out or bodybuilding a lot more than I am, but being out of breath after a few flights of stairs? That should not be the case for me. 

After six months of my post-SIBO regimen—taking supplements, eating more, and experiencing less pain—I noticed my legs getting stronger.

Stronger.

Not bigger, or smaller or anything else. They felt stronger. I could feel it when I started to cycle, my legs finally listened to my head. I started seeing the fun again in doing a quick walk. 

It was also how I finally noticed that I had accidentally made my forms of movement easier over the years. My body had warned me that I just didn’t have the energy or reserves anymore to do proper sports. As a result, I would walk to most places. Now, I practically feel like I’m flying. 

3. My posture changed, a lot.

In the last year of the 12 I’ve been struggling with undiagnosed SIBO, I dealt with an enormous amount of fatigue. After a short trip to the grocery store, I’d have to lie down because I was so tired. I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve tried to take a new hobby or sport, where I’d have to quit because it was too tiring. 

I never called it that, of course. Never did I realise I was actually exhausted: instead, I was angry at myself for being so lazy.

Why did other people do things and did I never do any of it? Laziness was my only defense.

So when I finally started feeling a little bit better, it opened my eyes to how my body was feeling. How hunched over I’d been sitting, because I didn’t even have energy for that. My osteopath explained that my bowels were so inflamed and painful that they had gotten stiff and that was pulling my entire body closer. 

As we started working on it, I realised within days (!) that I could stand up straight. That it wasn’t normal for somebody to be so tired that your head feels like it’s dead weight on your body, which you can’t even hold up. 

I’ve even started working on postural exercises and general workouts to get stronger and feel better in my body. Because I’ve finally realised it wasn’t laziness.

4. Phone calls got more fun.

Some people are highly attuned to others’ emotions—sometimes due to past trauma—but it can also be a valuable skill.

Well, during my period of illness, people had started reading mine. I could be strained or snappy on the phone. Annoyed at the smallest, little thing. 

The happy person I was in high school: the one who got the nickname ‘Smiley‘ from my teachers, I hadn’t been in a long time. Looking back, I’d lost it quite quickly after high school, but coincidentally that was the same time I became ill. So I attributed it to growing up. Apparently you laugh less when you’re older. It fit my perception of old people, so I didn’t question that.

Now that the pain is gone, the fatigue is less, I can finally eat and all other wonderful changes, the strain on my voice is gone too. My friends tell me all the time that I sound different, more relaxed and in control. hmm, I wonder why.. 😉

5. Doing groceries doesn’t take me 3 hours anymore.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. Nobody should tell chronically ill people they don’t try hard enough. Every week I spent hours upon hours gathering the courage to do groceries, knowing I’d be so tired to cook afterwards that it wasn’t a fun experience. 

Not just that, I’d unconsciously know that any food I made, would hurt me so bad that I couldn’t even finish the plate before having swollen up like a balloon. 

Every Saturday, which was the only day of the week I had a sliver of energy because I could sleep out, I’d gather my courage and walk the fifteen minutes to the nearest grocery store. Since I didn’t have a car, I’d usually walk and try to go a couple times a week.

But the store itself was overwhelming: kids are screaming, ads and pricing stickers are visible in every direction you look, you need to make a thousand small decisions on what to buy and what not to buy and I didn’t have any self control: I knew I’d end up with two chocolate bars and the ingredients for a dinner. But by the time I got home, I’d be so tired: I’d have no energy to cook, so I’d fight against the chocolate bars and lose. Eating them in one go, getting sick and bloated anyway. 

Painful grocery store walks

That was the paradox, whatever I’d eat, I’d get ill, I’d be bloated within minutes, so I couldn’t finish any meal or plate. After years of that, I didn’t even try anymore: I filled all plates with just a couple of bites and tried that. None of it gave me any energy anyway, except for sugary things. They would bruteforce me some energy and a semblance of progress. 

So I’d do that instead. The walk back from the grocery store, I was filled with dark and self-destructive thoughts. I was stupid and wrong for not eating properly, not exercising properly, not feeling properly. I know better now.

It wasn’t me.

It’s easy to think that it’s all self-control, especially as somebody looking in. Don’t we all pass a little judgement when we see plus-size people eating any food at all. But it’s wrong. I can go to the grocery store on my way home from work now. Getting some nice ingredients and making a meal at home, before doing a hobby.

Don’t get me wrong: I am still knackered after work. But I’m no longer so tired I feel like I’m dying. Another plus is that if I eat a full plate of food and chill a bit, my energy actually starts to replenish. Instead of only sleep doing that at night.

6. Life is no longer black and white.

This realization hits me in two ways:

Life is finally full of color again—I feel gratitude, positivity, and energy I never thought I’d regain. I can do things that once felt impossible, like eating well and working out.

But more than that, I can be at ease. I’m no longer trapped in relentless self-loathing, drowning in so much mental and physical pain that I can’t even face my own reflection.

Simple things, like meeting up with friends, used to drain me completely. Even grabbing a quick coffee would wipe out my energy for the rest of the weekend. I had to choose between socializing or something as simple as reading a book—I couldn’t do both.

Now, I have the clarity to make decisions that serve me. I can choose to see a friend or decide I need time for myself, without guilt.

I finally see reason.

It was never my personality holding me back—it was a body starved of the nutrients and rest it desperately needed.

7. I am no longer frozen.

For years, I never understood “fight or flight” because I only ever froze. Stressful situations would leave me panicked, overwhelmed, and crying uncontrollably.

That still happens sometimes, but now I can also take a deep breath, steady myself, and work through challenges instead of shutting down completely.

Conclusion on my SIBO recovery journey

If you recognize yourself in the before stages of these changes, yearning for some change, I am here to tell you that it’s possible. Change is possible and some of these things are truly outside of your control. I’ll be the first to admit that I was too hard on myself: craving self-validation and restricting what little happiness I had. 

I see now that the 100% I gave, would never be the same as somebody else’s 100%, because my body was so fatigued and in pain. Even now, I tell my friends & family often that it feels like I didn’t change, my personality that is. I still give the same 100%, but now all of a sudden it takes me much further. 

I emphatise with anyone with a chronic condition and while I always thought it was a load of crap, you are enough. The effort you make, it’s enough!!! Your body is telling you not to do more, please be nice to it. It’s the only one you have.