RobinReese,

I am currently on week 2 of the elemental diet (L-Emental from Hormel labs) and am taking 3 packets (900 calories) a day. So far I only had one bowel movement which was slightly watery D. On the elementel diet, you get low residue so there's almost no elimination.

I have a bunch of questions regarding your experience. I tried to PM you but the administration says I don't have access. Anyone know how I can contact the admin?

Hi. I got an email alert that you'd written to this forum. I've heard from a lot of people that the product you're taking is far superior to what I took -- Vivonex...

Anyway, I found colon hydrotherapy to be quite valuable during that entire period. I had so much strange colored stuff -- bile I think -- that was coming out throughout the time of my bacterial infection and the colonics really kept me alive. I feel the "poison" wasn't be reabsorbed. I always felt immediate relief! I had one every week or two for several months. It was expensive -- abut $70 each time but I felt I had little choice and in retrospect fell it contributed strongly to my recovery. Probably at least do an enema once a day. It will really help eliminate toxins while you do the elemental thing... I personally think we really have to help our bodies flush the dead bacteria out ...

Two weeks! I'm so impressed! I'll bet you are bored out of your mind!!! There is so much time in the day when you're not eating...................

Also, please be very careful getting back onto food. Maybe read about breaking a Fast. You should consider phasing in now, this final week, with some chicken or vegetable broth (I make a broth out of every kind of root vegetable I can find...).

Also, please avoid any starches or sugars! I didn't know about Candida back then and got a nice overgrowth as a result of my launching back into starchy foods. Homemade Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies to be exact. I needed to put on weight so I figured anything goes!

So I'd stay on the low-carb diet or the Candida Restricted diet or best yet for bacteria, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet. You can find out everything you need to know at the following site: http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/index.htm

I'd switch over to eating homemade yogurt as soon as you can. Maybe work up to two cups a day. The almond breads they have on the SCD site I just mentioned is quite good for putting weight back on...

The SCD diet is specifically designed to stop bacterial overgrowth and, fortunately for us, is quite well spelled out on the site...
Good luck!!!
~Robin

Robin, glad you wrote back. I am on day 8 of the elemental diet. The L-Emental tastes like watered down kefir - it's not that bad. I don't use flavor packets. Occasionally I use some diet Arizona lemonade that uses aspartame as a sweetner. Yes this is boring diet, but I'm not craving anything so that's great. The only symptom I have is rumbling guts -

It seems like you are well read on these issues. I couldn't find any reports about L-Emental so I'm curious where did you go looking for information regarding bacterial overgrowth?

Also I would like to know how you took the Cipro and elemental diet. Did you take probiotics the whole time?

I'm skeptical about candida overgrowth, but it sounds probable if you nuke all the bacteria in the intestines. You said that you had no bowel symptoms until near the end of the elemental diet where you woke up depressed and exhausted. How did you know you had the candida overgrowth and what were the symptoms?

OK, I'll write more later, but check out this thread at the IBSgroup. http://www.ibsgroup.org/cgi-local/u...ic&f=1&t=038488

One of the best things for killing yeast is organic oregano oil.

Read at http://www.nutricounter.com/articles/browning.htm and http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=167955

I'm trying to learn more about the Vivonex Protocol - anyone else have success with it? Do you do antibiotics with it at the same time? Can you use other (better tasting) elemental diets? I know Peptinex is one and Modulen is another - but I think Modulen is not truly an elemental diet. I've heard Vivonex tastes horrible and 14 days is an incredibly long time to drink only something that tastes horrible. But if it helps my system, I'm willin to try it. Who else has tried it? Give us the scoop!

So how did the L-emental diet go? Did it work? Do tell!!!

Let's see... I took the antibiotics (Cipro) for the first two weeks of my Vivonex Fast. I'm pretty sure the cause of my sudden exhaustion was Candida overgrowth only because when I eliminated sugar and starches I started feeling much better. I think the Aspartame might have been the cuprit as well.

Anyway, after 3 months of sticking to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet http://www.breakingtheviciouscycle.info/ I feel great. I had to take another round of an antibiotics a couple weeks ago -- the nasty triple therapy PrevPac -- for a relapse of the H. Pylori bacteria I had a year ago that perforated my stomach and put me in the hospital where I started this sorry-ass tale almost a year ago :-)

Anyway, I'm feeling great and my digestion is better now than it ever was -- even before I was hospitalized. I take a lot of probiotics and eat a lot of yogurt. I think that's helping me a lot too..

The article on SIBO is here: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.ed...idelArticle.pdf

Take care. I;ll post on that other site. I can't believe that one person was going to eat the Vivinex without the flavorpacs -- just blows my mind and I gotta know if they really did it. I can eat/drink anything and that was The Most Vile Stuff I have ever tasted!!!!

~Robin