Kresser Institute

Tools, Training & Community for Functional Health Professionals

  1. Home
  2. Knowledge Base
  3. Autoimmune Disorders
  4. Have you noticed a decrease in general immune system function during and immediately after SIBO treatment? I had a patient who’s typically resistant to most viral illnesses contract viral GI bug during treatment and then pneumonia about two weeks after treatment during the gut rebuilding protocol. It seems intuitively that during a prolonged antimicrobial treatment would have to impair the immune system somewhat until the microbiome has been restored.

Have you noticed a decrease in general immune system function during and immediately after SIBO treatment? I had a patient who’s typically resistant to most viral illnesses contract viral GI bug during treatment and then pneumonia about two weeks after treatment during the gut rebuilding protocol. It seems intuitively that during a prolonged antimicrobial treatment would have to impair the immune system somewhat until the microbiome has been restored.

Chris Kresser: Yeah, I think that’s possible. I don’t know that I’ve necessarily seen a lot of—I haven’t seen a lot of this kind of situation, but I have seen immune disturbances where people will have skin breakouts or other kinds of immune disturbance symptoms. I haven’t seen as notable of a depletion of immune function here because the GI protocol also includes probiotics, as you know, especially those that are really supportive of immune function, such as ​Megasporebiotic​, some of the soil-based bacteria, and actually some of the herbs that are in the antimicrobial protocol probably have some antiviral activity.

My guess is that this was just sort of a fluke, or there was at least, like the die off that was happening from the protocol just kind of stirred things up and made him more susceptible to the GI bug, and then the GI bug maybe depleted him further, and that’s what led to the pneumonia, but I definitely don’t see things like that happening very often. If I did, I would want to reevaluate the protocol because that’s not an acceptable outcome for more than a handful of cases.

Was this article helpful?

Related Articles

0 Comments

Leave Comment

Leave a Reply

Need Support?

Can't find the answer you're looking for?
Contact Support
Kresser Institute Icon ADAPT Health Coach Training Program Icon ADAPT Practitioner Training Program Icon ADAPT Courses Icon