VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Hello everyone Dr. Derek here with a follow-up video. This video is called: “What Did your Endoscopy Miss?” If you didn't catch our last video it was called “What Did your Colonoscopy Miss?” and I want you guys to go check that out.
So today we're talking about: what did your endoscopy miss, and unlike colonoscopies, endoscopies are only done if a patient is feeling symptoms—they're not done for screening purposes. So, if you’re having an endoscopy, usually [that means] something's going wrong. Those symptoms often include:
Reflux
Abdominal pain
Gas
Bloating
Endoscopies are good for evaluating things like gastritis, (which is inflammation of the stomach lining) gastroenteritis (or inflammation of the intestinal lining). It's good for looking at ulcers, as well as endoscopies allow us to do biopsies—A biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosing celiac disease, and it […] can be useful for diagnosing a bacterial infection called H pylori. We'll talk more about that later; however, one thing endoscopies miss is they don't tell us too much about the microbial ecosystem in the small intestine. One common condition that can present with the similar symptoms of abdominal pain, gas/bloating, and sometimes irritable bowel syndrome, is a condition called: SIBO. [SIBO] stands for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. What this is, is a condition where there is too much bacteria in the small intestine. While we talked about there being a lot of beneficial bacteria in the gut—most of that is found in a large intestine. It actually becomes a problem when we see increased levels in the small intestine because these bacteria ferment products that we eat, particularly certain carbohydrates, and they produce a lot of gas and can produce a lot of inflammation. This is what creates the symptoms, and so endoscopies miss Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). This is usually diagnosed with what's called a “breath test,” and that can be done, generally speaking, by most functional medical doctors—we do it relatively routinely at our office.
One of the other components that it can miss is: other microbial infections. We talked about h pylori, and that's one, but there are other infections that can be present in a small intestine that can be presenting with the same set of symptoms. So a combination of a breath test and a stool panel can be helpful in patching the holes that an endoscopy can miss.
So, if you're getting an endoscopy, usually you have symptoms. If nothing comes back on that, it's definitely an opportunity to take that next step and do a breath test, do a stool test, and find out what's actually going. and growing, in the GI tract. [That way] you can make some actionable steps treat it and get some relief.
If you liked this video:
We're going to talk more about gut health. We're going to talk more about how it can influence our mental health, our cardiovascular health, and we're going to have all these videos on YouTube you can watch. Also follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and if you're local to Southern California: our clinic is Revive Naturopathic Medicine—come check us out, and have a great day!