For about as long as she could remember, Shivan Sarna had contended with digestive issues.

At age five, food poisoning on a trip to India left her very ill. And not long after that, a school field trip triggered food poisoning again — this time from joining classmates in drinking milk from a bucket at a New York farm.

Following these incidents, she often had bloating and alternating constipation and diarrhea that continued into adulthood.

It wasn’t until she encountered a coworker, also struggling with digestive issues, that Shivan picked up some clues to what might be causing hers. What she ultimately found changed her health — and her life.

SIBO: A Culprit of IBS

Shivan was working as a journalist and TV host when her new symptoms piled onto her digestive struggles, including abnormal vitamin levels, rosacea, and restless leg syndrome.

“I went through life and it was just something that I dealt with,” she says. “Then I worked in a moldy building and got really sick and uncomfortable, and was struggling to get through the day.”

Around that time, a coworker and friend mentioned she was taking an antibiotic for her digestive symptoms. Shivan soon learned her friend’s condition was called SIBO, or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

SIBO happens when bacteria — particularly E. coli and Klebsiella — become overgrown in the small intestine. Shivan explains that most people have some of these bacteria, but they’re supposed to stay in check.

When the small intestine’s natural cleaning wave — the migrating motor complex — isn’t working properly (often after food poisoning), it allows an overgrowth of bacteria or methanogens. These microbes then rob the body of nutrients and release gases like hydrogen, methane, or hydrogen sulfide, which cause bloating and other digestive issues.

With a lead for a possible cause, Shivan sought out testing for SIBO. A breath test assesses the levels and types of gases, determining a diagnosis.

However, Shivan was surprised by her results.

“When I got my breath test back, someone had written ‘negative’ on it. But it was actually positive. I didn’t know for 18 months,” she says.

The SIBO Treatments She Tried

Shivan found a doctor who correctly interpreted her earlier test results and ordered a retest. As expected, it came back positive.

With a clear diagnosis, she moved forward with treatment, trying conventional and natural approaches. She started with Rifaximin, an antibiotic commonly prescribed for SIBO that only affects the small intestine.

Shivan also tried herbal antimicrobials and the elemental diet, a liquid diet that is recommended to starve the bad bacteria.

She changed her diet to include low fermentation foods — those less likely to feed the bad bacteria.

In time, she felt increasingly better and her digestion improved.

But it wasn’t until she added prokinetics, or motility agents, that she felt true progress. Because her migrating motor complex was damaged by food poisoning, prokinetics in the form of supplements or ginger helped that mechanism function as it should.

Shivan suspected that food poisoning had led to developing SIBO, and in fact, confirmed it with the IBS Smart test. The test looks for the presence of antibodies that develop after food poisoning.

“Antibodies from food poisoning confuse the small intestine through molecular mimicry,” she says. “And that’s where you get a lot of the dysfunction of the motility and of the sweeping motion.”

These antibodies, in some people, mistakenly attack the body’s own nerve cells — specifically the cells involved in the migrating motor complex.

She added that food poisoning can make you more likely to get it again because it disrupts the microbiome. That’s why only one person in a group may be impacted when everyone ate the same thing.

“Food poisoning is the number one underlying cause of irritable bowel syndrome and SIBO. And I really think that that is like the big secret to reveal,” she says.

Maintenance Regimen for SIBO

To keep SIBO at bay, these days Shivan continues a low-maintenance regimen, including a low fermentation diet and nightly prokinetics.

Her experience with transforming her health led the TV host to pivot her career. These days, she sheds light on solutions for SIBO and many other chronic conditions through SIBO SOS, an online platform and community she started. She offers online resources, summits, courses, and eye-opening interviews to help others navigate their way back to health.

She’s also the author of Healing SIBO: Fix the Real Cause of IBS, Bloating, and Weight Issues in 21 Days.

For others struggling with IBS or known SIBO, she suggests a few do-it-yourself tactics to help with symptoms as you move toward treatments for a longer-term fix. Those include a low fermentation diet or the elemental diet, at-home breath testing (e.g., Trio-Smart, Gemelli Labs), natural prokinetics (like ginger or MotilPro), and tracking food triggers and watching portion sizes.

For the latter, Shivan says that some foods are absolute triggers for her, like garlic, but that she can eat others in small quantities.

If you have digestive issues, or suspect SIBO, Shivan encourages you to seek out someone with experience in this area.

“Chances are, there are people that know a lot more than you may think they know about these conditions,” she says.

“It does take some diligence, but that’s what I really wanted to do — was make it easier for people. So that’s why I created these platforms,” she adds.

You can find and follow Shivan Sarna at @SIBOSOS on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, or visit SIBOSOS.com for more resources, interviews, and support.

The Steps That Helped

  • Targeted treatment — Shivan used multiple approaches, including the antibiotic Rifaximin, herbal antimicrobials, and the elemental diet to reduce bacterial overgrowth.
  • Supporting motility — Adding prokinetics like ginger and supplements helped promote motility in the small intestine and prevent relapse.
  • Following a low fermentation diet — She adjusted her meals to avoid feeding bacterial overgrowth, sticking with foods that produce less fermentation in the gut.
  • Tracking triggers and portions — By paying close attention to foods that caused symptoms, she was able to personalize her diet. Garlic, for example, is a no-go for her, while small amounts of other foods are tolerable.