Intermittent fecal/sulfur breath odor

Posted by pbleonar @pbleonar, Jun 8, 2017

After scouring the web, I'm certain I'm not the only person with this problem, and not the only person who's been told they were imagining it. Anyway, the issue is I have intermittent odors when I talk (yes, I've been to the dentist 10+ times-- all say my oral hygiene is on point and xrays and inspections showed nothing). The only time it's practically non-existent is when I eat an unhealthily low-carb diet. Like others online, I've had CT scans, Barium swallows, endosocopy/colonoscopy, screening for parasites (getting one more from an IDS before crossing that off my list). All showed up negative. I tested positive for SIBO, but after researching that for the past 3 years, I'm certain SIBO is more of a symptom than a primary causal problem. Furthermore, even when I treated SIBO with heavy antibiotics, it did absolutely nothing for my breath-- and yes I was cleared of SIBO after a couple rounds of work. yet, the moment I eat carbs, I still get a "did someone just s*it themselves?" comment.

I guess what I'm getting at is I'm tired of doctors just saying it's IBS and SIBO and then proceeding to do zero investigating afterwards. I want to get down to the root cause of this, but most doctors are either too apathetic or too incompetent to do anything. Are there any researchers who specialize in studying and diagnosing hard to find problems in the GI tract? Between the 3 GI docs, 2 ENTs, 2 NDs and 1 IDS, I just can't take normal doctors anymore. I want my life back and I want a specific root cause so I can work on progressing from there.

Further notes: Diarrhea actually cleared up when I ate junk food and I had zero bloating, albeit the odor remained.

Xifaxan and neomycin did nothing for the odor, nor did the elemental diet. I actually think the elemental diet made the smell as bad or
worse than before.

*******Nitazoxanide********** worked wonders for the month I was on it. Solid stools even with foods that normally cause my ibs to flare up.
It's exactly the reason I felt there was more going on to everything than just SIBO and IBS.

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Digestive Health Support Group.

Profile picture for ucs91 @ucs91

I feel like I could have written this all myself — the embarrassment of intermittent fart breath has caused me to dread social interactions.

I have diagnosed celiac for 10 years, but don’t have any symptoms if I eat gluten. I suspect I might have h2s sibo but my GI doesn’t think it’s a clinically valid diagnosis, so have been doing my own testing.

I have a few things that have definitely helped me (partnering with ChatGPT for ideas)

1) Pepto Bismol / Devrom (key ingredient is bismuth). This doesn’t solve the root cause but bismuth binds with hydrogen sulfide and neutralizes the bad smell. I don’t take it always since it’s bad on kidneys but for social events I typically take every few hours (up to max recommended daily dose). Important to start a day or 2 before you need it. Most recently was at a 4 day wedding trip, eating and drinking and nobody pulled back from talking to me (usually it would happen with 1 alcoholic drink).

2) Molybdenum supplements — this also binds with hydrogen sulfide, generally safe to use. This isn’t perfect but my breath feels less harsh (hard to explain) and definitely reduces frequency of smell but still have it. Added benefit of significantly reduced hangovers and for me lower heart rate while drinking (not sure if related symptom but my heart rate typically elevates when drinking)

3) Metamucil tablets (5x 3x / day). Not sure why this helps, but psyllium husk apparently combines with water and can help turn into a gel which can prevent leaky gut I suppose. This is recent for me in past week but have not had anyone complain so far since I’ve been on it so fingers crossed.

No idea what will work for you but haven’t seen these mentioned recently in this thread (besides someone mentioning metamucil also helped them).

Wishing everyone the best with their symptoms, it’s an awful disease

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Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect, @ucs91. I'm sorry you've had to deal with this breath issue. Thanks for all the suggestions you offered that may help others here in this discussion.

You mentioned you have diagnosed celiac for 10 years, but you don’t have any symptoms if you eat gluten. I'm sure you are not the only one. I'd highly encourage you to start a new discussion on this topic in the Mayo Clinic Connect Digestive Health support group, https://connect.mayoclinic.org/group/digestive-gastrointestinal-problems/.

You will note "Start a new discussion" in a blue font a little down from the top of the page.

Are there any foods or other environmental factor you've noticed that make the "fart breath" worse?

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