breath test
04/27/06 09:00 PM
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renee21
Reged: 06/02/05
Posts: 486
Loc: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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My understanding of the breath test is that you drink a liquid containing lactulose or sometimes glucose. As it leaves your stomach and enters your small intestine, the bacteria in your small intestine will act on it, producing hydrogen. So the test involves breathing into some device that measures the amount of hydrogen in your breath - and hence the amount of bacteria in your small intestine. I think that you have to give several breath samples over the course of a few hours as the liquid passes from your stomach to intestines. And yes, since this test is measuring the amount of bacteria in your gut, it is a way to determine wether you have a Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, a.k.a. SIBO. We all have some bacteria in our small intestines, but I think it's the AMOUNT that's the crucial thing in determining SIBO. Please someone correct me if any of this is wrong.
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IBS-C, lots of spasm and trapped gas.
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