H. pylori is one of the most common root causes of IBS that I see in my health coaching practice.
What makes it so challenging is that it’s hard to find through standard testing and is becoming more difficult to clear because of antibiotics resistance.
If you’re struggling to eradicate h. pylori or SIBO or candida overgrowth, this success story will inspire and teach about the importance of the subconscious mind in tackling hard to budge infections.
When Lizaida was at her lowest with symptoms that disrupted her life and confidence daily, she would read SIBO success stories to keep that flame of hope alive.
Now she’s the flame of hope for others. During my last consult with Lizaida she was glowing and full of joy.
“You changed my life,” she exclaimed.
“You changed your life!” I responded.
While I guided her, she trusted me and herself so she never gave up despite hitting obstacles during our work together.
Long ago, I was also in her spot and it was also persistence in the face of disappointment that brought me back to health. Healing is a mind game. And this is how Lizaida won.
Lizaida’s story
Expectations are important. If you expect an unrealistic outcome (to heal right away, to have a smooth or comfortable ride, or always avoid failure) it’s going to be a rough ride. You’ll may jump off before it’s finished.
Through someone else’s experience you see that “failure” is part of the process. Its purpose is to teach you something.
Lizaida came to me with a SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) diagnosis she had to fight to get. Finding the right doctor to give her the lactulose test was hard. Doctors told her she couldn’t have SIBO because she wasn’t old and didn’t have a bad immune system.
When her test came back positive for both methane and hydrogen her doctor offered her antibiotics. But they didn’t work.
She went to a functional doctor that addressed her SIBO with herbs, which didn’t work either.
This doctor didn’t give her any additional tests to identify the root cause reason why Lizaida had SIBO. I take about the importance of finding your root cause in my SIBO Rescue Guide.
I ran the GI Map for her and we found a parasite to clear. We cleared it, did another SIBO protocol and she did not feel any better.
Because of the biome pattern of the GI Map and her symptoms (upper GI stuff and constant diarrhea) I suspected she had h. pylori but it never showed up on the GI Map. This is because H. pylori is hard to test for due to biofilm and uneven shedding in the stool. That is why most tests miss it. I talk about this in my H. Pylori Rescue Guide along with strategies to beat h. pylori naturally.
We decided to do the h. pylori protocol because it was easily tolerated and did not have a negative effect on the biome. So it would not hurt her. And the upside is that it could help tremendously as it had with many of my other clients.
After completing her 2 month h. pylori protocol the GI Map retest finally showed a high level of h. pylori. It had been there all along and as we were addressing it and breaking down biofilm, it finally showed up and it was a very high level of infection.
Our hunch was right and it was h. pylori that was causing her SIBO and making it difficult to eradicate.
The problem was that we could not budge this bacterial infection of the stomach with multiple attempts to eradicate it. We tried everything but antibiotics.
How hypnosis helped
H. pylori flares with stress and Lizaida was stressed about her gut condition. The stress fed the h. pylori and vice versa. We decided to address this vicious cycle of stress and anxiety through hypnosis.
Hypnosis works with the subconscious mind to find the root cause of the stress and rewire the body’s response to it.
During our session we discovered the reason she got sick in the first place. As she was getting ready to move out of her parent’s house she did not feel ready on a subconscious level. The subconscious wants to keep us safe so it made her sick so she would have to stay home.
Lizaida discovered that subconsciously she felt like she did not have the right to do what she wanted to do. She needed to mold to other people’s ideas of how to live her life.
She also recognized some trauma caused by her illness that was also keeping her stuck.
IBS was keeping her safe yet miserable as her confidence shrank and her food choices dwindled. By creating this subconscious wall of protection around herself, her life became limited and small, but protected from perceived dangers and insecurity.
She recognized that the “protection” of having IBS was too much of a sacrifice and she was willing to let it go.
Hypnosis connects you to your subconscious mind and helps you see what you can’t see with your conscious mind.
When we recognize what is really driving our behavior we finally have the opportunity to change it. You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken. And hypnosis shines a light onto what’s broken.
These insights about themselves often surprise people because that information is repressed or unavailable in day to day life.
When Lizaida saw what she was doing and why she was able to stop it. Sometimes to stop a harmful pattern or habit you need to know where it came from and what purpose it serves.
Success and the missing piece
After our hypnotherapy session Lizaida did one more h. pylori protocol.
This time she took a different approach. The last two times she was concerned about doing it right and forced herself to take the herbs at full dose, even when this didn’t work for her body.
This time I told her to slow down, listen to her body and take it at the pace that felt right and didn’t cause too much die off. Even if that was at half the normal dose.
She could go low and slow and do a longer protocol.
Through hypnosis she went from fearing her body to trusting it. And that made all the difference.
Not only is she feeling back to her old self, but the GI Map retest finally showed h. pylori was gone.
But she knew it was gone because she was feeling really good. Her symptoms had disappeared and so had her fear. She was eating out with friends and enjoying her life without worrying about her gut.
She even indulged in some gluten, which she is sensitive to. While the test showed a reaction she did not experience symptoms from it.
I told her she should avoid gluten but the reason she wasn’t having obvious symptoms was because her immune system and digestion had improved dramatically. And the markers on the GI Map confirmed it.
She said she didn’t have anything to worry about anymore. She was IBS free.
The weird part
Here is the part of her story that is a bit unusual.
Lizaida still has SIBO. The SIBO test confirmed this. But she had no digestive symptoms.
This meant that her gut symptoms came mostly from h. pylori, which compromised her digestion and immune system.
I’ve had the similar experience with other clients with SIBO and h. pylori. As soon as h. pylori was gone, their SIBO symptoms vanished without dealing with SIBO.
H. pylori can cause SIBO by lowering stomach acid and enzyme production. This compromises digestion and feeds SIBO. When digestion is optimized SIBO does not get fed by undigested food. And this seems to calm symptoms down for some people.
H. pylori can cause the same symptoms as SIBO (bloating, diarrhea, food intolerance, anxiety, depression, skin issues and fatigue). So sometime symptoms that come from h. pylori are thought to be from SIBO.
I have not read about this, I just witnessed it over and over again.
If if h. pylori stays hidden on tests, it can still cause downstream infections like SIBO, candida/yeast and parasites. It also often lowers digestive enzyme production and causes overgrowth of certain bacteria in the large intestine (particularly staph and strep).
I have worked with H. pylori for years and sometimes the best protocols don’t get rid of it. The hidden piece to eradicating it can be addressing stress and the emotions. Hypnosis is a great way to do that.
Most people do more of the same thing, but even harder when battling stubborn infections. This case study shows there is another way.
For a hard to clear infection, look for the root cause first. And could the stress of being sick be getting in the way of healing?
Her lowered stress levels were apparent on the GI Map retest. Her immune system is measured by the SiGA marker and all her past test always showed very low levels. This is the physical manifestation of emotional stress. In the retest it shot up to an ideal range, a difference of 1000 points.
Because I don’t treat the test, but rather the person. Lizaida and I decided to ignore the SIBO as she was clearly a shining picture of health.
During our last session, we celebrated her health successes and lessons learned. She now prioritize her needs over pleasing everyone else. She also preemptively addresses stress with tools like CBD, not sweating the small stuff and not expecting perfection from herself.
What she wants everyone to know that healing is possible, even when you don’t seem to be getting there after a few tried. Be open to trying new things and never give up.