A Curious Case of SIBO

FS is a Beekeeper in her free-time. FS has a high stress job. Who doesn't tho?

In writing the Beautiful Voyager, I dig into how stress affects our bodies, sharing the hard-won discoveries about my own lifelong migraines and nausea.

I've wondered how people in my life are struggling with confusing physical symptoms at any time. The journey to diagnosis can be an uphill and silent battle. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting lucky and reading a blog post at the right time.

To that end, I'm sharing a little Q&A with a friend of mine, who I'll call FS. After years of trying to figure out what was wrong with her, FS was diagnosed last year with SIBO.

SIBO's a confusing condition that mimics Irritable Bowel Syndrome in many cases. It's actually a result of a bacterial overgrowth in the lower intestine. When she first told me about it, it was the first time I had heard of SIBO. I immediately had a feeling it wouldn't be the last. Indeed, just last week another friend was diagnosed with it.

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MA: How long did you know something was wrong before you were diagnosed?

FS: A little over 3 years.

MA: What do you tell people when they ask what SIBO is?  

FS: I always tell them it's "digestive issues."

MA: Were you ever misdiagnosed?

FS: Yes, I was misdiagnosed with IBS. I don’t have IBS.

MA: Does anyone else you know have it?

FS: No, not by formal diagnosis. (Except the friend of yours you connected me to).

MA: It feels to me like SIBO is one of those things that a lot of people suddenly are finding out about. Has your doctor mentioned an uptick in cases?

FS: You can find articles and knowledge of SIBO only 6 or so years back on the internet.  It's something that doctors have started paying attention too the past couple years, and only GI specialists really know about it.  You’ll find that primary care docs and nurses don’t know about it, and as a result they misdiagnose it. You can be given medications that will actually make it worse.

MA: What do you have to do differently?

FS: I've had a full revamp of my diet and how I think about meals. It's helped.

MA: How are you feeling now?

FS: Still having symptoms but better, emotionally more so than physically, because I at least know it’s not just “stress." It’s a thing that I have and I'm dealing with it.

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I'd love to hear more from others who have successfully dealt with confusing physical issues and who are starting to make progress. What steps did you take? What got you feeling better?

Feeling better, in dance form

How to Catapult Yourself Out of Caveman Brain

My brain, as played by Buster Keaton in Joseph M. Schenck’s The Three Ages.

I have a hard time recognizing brain spin as it happens. 

Even now, though I’ve been aware of my own overthinky tendancies for years, I still find myself randomly carried away by my negative thoughts. It’s understandable. Getting abducted by thinking is the way my life has always been. My brain is habituated by years of caveman practice.

Evolution = standing up to the brain.

To get away from a possible clubbing, it’s clear what I need to do:

Evolve quickly.

I need to recognize when the caveman brain gets overly active. Then I need simple, useful tools to get set free.

There’s another word way to describe the technique I'm about to share: redirection.

Redirection comes down to realizing when you need to change course, then knowing how to do that.

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The dismount

Every person goes about this differently. For me, Tight sentences, short phrases — even cliches — help greatly. They pop me off the caveman’s back, like a tiny but powerful redirection catapult.

Mass = me

Here are some of my favorite catapult redirections:

• What someone else thinks of me is not my business.
• You gotta be gawky to get to graceful.
• Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
• Small stakes, cupcakes.

To that I add today’s tip. It's very simple. One new 5-word catapult redirection.

• When in doubt, get out.

Try to get to the nearest place with the biggest sky.

Feel free to give my catapult redirection a try the next time you feel your shoulders start to constrict and your head start to throb.

When in doubt, get out. Where is the place nearest to you with a lot of sky? Go to that place.

The caveman feels very uncomfortable in vast, open spaces. He’ll usually be gone before you reach your destination.

The Overthinker's Emoji

I've thought about this so you don't have to.

Snapchat

For when you need to tell someone, "I've been overthinking my way into insomnia."

The easy way to say, "I'd rather stick my head into a sandy pit than think about this for one more minute."

The official emoji of The Beautiful Voyager.

When you want to tell someone that yes, you're an overthinker, but you're soft, fluffy, and pretty chill, too.

Facebook

Finally! The emoji that allows us to express, "These 3 thought bubbles could be hanging here for a long, long time."

A favorite of the overthinker. Who doesn't want to hide in the pages of a great book? Beware tho, recipients of this emoji. Too much research can cause adverse effects for your overthinking  loved one.  

An easy way to answer the question, "Whatcha doing?" without having to actually say the words out loud.

The emoji for people who feel like no one gets them exactly. An overthinker's emoji if ever there was one.

iPhone 

This is grinning???? Either way, a safe emoji for overthinkers. We use, and others think we mean grinning, but we know it's actually teeth-clenching while trying to smile cause not think 10 steps ahead of the conversation at hand.

How else are you going to say overthinking detective?

We would never use this. Way too literal.

Use Color to Stop the Spin

It's today's tip!

My friend Molly and I were discussing our internal spinning loops of repetitive thought.

Have you ever experienced these loops? They’re the ones that keep us from reaching our goals. Instead of solid ground, we pace in place, or even worse, slip around, like contestants in a log-rolling competition.

I asked Molly about her loop cutting tricks, since anyone who experiences the spin has them. She said:

Years ago, someone shared this trick for stopping brain chatter. It’s very simple. You look around and name the colors you see out loud. That’s all.

Black. Red. Purple. Pink. Fuschia. Taupe. Grey.

Your goal is to get out of the loop and into the present.

This simple exercise does it. And I’ve found it works especially well when you’re traveling.

As she said that, we began to name the colors surrounding us.

Soon enough we found ourselves noticing the birds overhead.

We smelled the evening breeze as it arrived.

We felt the moment as it rushed around us.

Don't Go Spelunking Without a Flashlight

I’ve had this nauseated black hole feeling in the pit of my stomach.

It’s coincided with looking down at my belly and saying “Oh hey, you again. I really wish you didn’t look like that.”

Tonight I decided to turn it around. And I don’t mean panic-embarking on 2:55 AM workout session. I realize that for the last couple of months, I’ve been fixating on the middle third of my body, ramping up the internal fight. No more. It’s time for a truce.

Making friends…with a part of your body.

How do you make friends with a body part? It starts with sending mental love beams down into the black hole. You follow behind, wading into the darkest fear, peering around. Your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you realize, “Fuck it, this isn’t so bad. Is that a moonbeam I see over there?”

There are answers in there. This is where the fear lives. There's a reason it's as dark and hidden as it is. The only way to get to the answers is to use the love beam flashlight in my pocket.

If you're reading this, and you have no clue what I'm talking about, let me say this in a different way. Have you ever gone swimming and allowed yourself to zone out? Did you find that something new popped into your mind that surprised you? Or have you ever meditated and had new piece of information bubble up? Spelunking comes in lots of different forms.

Remembering that I can conjure up a flashlight whenever I need it is one way I stop fighting and start getting ready to find answers.

The Bevoya Two Sentence Solution

In this new series on the Beautiful Voyager, I put a metaphoric hand into this cheesy Grab Bag to share a fast tactic or tip to help with stress management and problem-solving.

It's today's tip!

I started getting headaches as a really little kid. Before I could talk, my mom tells me that I would hold my fist to my forehead and cry. In 2014 and 2015, the headaches were worse than they had ever been: I was getting a headache nearly every day. On preventative medication, I had researched every latest finding so closely that when I visited the UCSF Headache Clinic they told me that there was nothing more they could do for me. As I was leaving, the head physician told me to say hello to the experts I was in touch with for him. At that moment, I knew I had done as much as I could.

I was worn out and confused about how to proceed. My husband stepped in. He said, “OK, now you know that there’s nothing more you can do. So why don’t you figure out something to say to yourself to feel better when the headache comes?”

He was right. I needed something solid and clear. Something that would help ground me. With him, I came up with two sentences that I could repeat to myself whenever I felt migraine pain,

I’m seeking out better treatment for my migraines than I have in my whole life. In the future, there may be new developments in the world of migraine treatment and I look forward to learning about them.

It sounds so simple, but this two-sentence approach worked wonders. It stopped me from spinning out with fears about the future when I got a headache. It was a definitive statement, and I needed that. And I knew that the statement was true.

In the time since then,  I’ve indeed found new ways to treat my migraines that have significantly improved the headache situation, but this two-sentence approach is my grab bag tip for today. It works for lots of thorny issues. It’s a matter of asking yourself: What is true about this situation right now? And what are the limits of what I can do?

Your goal is to give yourself a frame for containment on a topic that likely, for you, feels anything but contained.

The two sentences really work! Give them a try.

How One Designer Gave Herself Superhero Strength

When I first came across Lan Pham’s profile image, it immediately grabbed my attention. Striking and specific, the illustration had me asking the question: Where did this superhero fly in from?

I found out by asking Lan directly on a voice-only app called Anchor. When we talked about her profile image, and I learned that Lan designed it herself in order to feel stronger in a time of need, I wanted to learn more. I sent her the following questions which she answered from her home in Poland.

Me: What was going on in your life when you created your superhero profile image? What made you think of doing it?

Lan: It was sometime at the end of my studies (in art/graphic faculty) a couple of years ago. I had a lot of work ahead of me: finals, projects and my thesis. I’m a total procrastinator so I had so much to do at the end. I was exhausted to the bone, sleep-deprived and kind of hopeless. You could call it an artist’s block.

Like any good procrastinator, instead of working I was browsing the web. In my reading I stumbled upon the studies that analyze how standing like a superhero lowers your level of cortisol, the stress hormone, and increases testosterone which boosts your confidence. Your body language can actually affects you, your brain, your biology, and thus — life.

My work usually is sitting behind a computer. That’s why I express myself with drawings. That’s how I ended up doing a 10 minute sketch of myself late one Sunday night.

Initially I didn’t have the specific idea of boosting my confidence. It basically was just another doodle to help me face another crappy Monday.

Lan notes, ""Poniedzialek" means Monday in Polish :)"

This was a quick drawing I did at first around at 4am at night.

Me: Did the drawing work? Did it make you feel more powerful? Does it continue to?

Lan: It was really just a doodle. But it’d say it worked! Not exactly the way I imagined it would have. But I put that picture up as my Facebook profile picture the same night. In the morning I received some really flattering, reassuring, and motivational comments.

This little silly sketch of myself made me laugh at myself. It cheered me up! Also it was the first thing in weeks that I created out of some non-commital inspiration. It wasn’t an obligation and that’s what made me feel less cranky and more like myself. It somehow lifted my artist block and boosted my confidence too.

After that I finished some of my projects without as much suffering as before. Then I redrew the sketch into the clean, flat-styled version I’ve been using as my profile image (as pictured under the title of this post). It somehow became my branding. Strangers started to recognize me from it :)

It’s always a great pleasure to put up my superhero pose.

It gives me a boost. It works every time! I think: “You go down, but then you go up again. It’s the best feeling.”

I have a couple of ideas for my Super-Alter-Ego-Hero shots that mirror my life. In those, I’d essentially create a series of illustrations. Kind of like a story or Adventure of SuperLan.

This illustration makes me more creative, reminds me to face things head on rather than hide from them, therefore, yes, it makes me powerful. It’s like a butterfly effect I think!

Me: Would you recommend that other people use this approach if they are feeling like they need to channel a feeling of power in their lives? Do you ever do illustrations for people?

Lan: Yes, I do illustrations for people! I’ve yet to start doing illustrations fully commercially but for a long time I’ve been illustrating my friends and family as a birthday gifts etc. Too bad I haven’t gotten around to collecting all of the works and finally updating my portfolio!

Anyway, I think the best approach is “just” this: draw/write/record/create everything and anything that comes to your mind. Don’t keep it in your head, get it out anyway you can. Not only it is cathartic and therapeutic but it’s our great power to create things.

When I create, I feel as confident and powerful as I can ever be.

I feel like conquering the world.

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Designer and illustrator Lan Pham lives in Poland. To follow her on your social platform of choice, select from the array found here on her site. To contact her about getting your own superhero, email her at lan [at] cloudsmaker.com.

Do You Feel Weird on Social Media Holidays?

Social media holidays can be strange. Today, for example, everyone’s talking about being or having a mother.

Everything gets a little flattened out, especially for people who aren’t sure how to represent complex relationships online.

There are those who have lost a mother recently.

Women trying to become mothers.

Or men who grew up without a mom.

How can everyone feel seen within the constraints of the online space?

I think it’s a matter of going back to compassion and gratitude.

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Here’s a hug for everyone from the mother we all share.

“Try not to compare because you’re exactly as you should be” — Mother Nature.