It sounds like a motility thing to me. Her gut is not moving the food through consistently, so the pressure builds up causing the gas pain. The car pain thing could be food moving through the upper gut, and not moving in specific areas like the cecum causing pressure to build up. If getting out of the car and walking around for a minute or two relieves the pain, it is probably coming from a motility issue. Being on drugs for a long time might reconstruct the gut microbiome - certainly antibiotics will. My wife took antibiotics for a long time because she got a cough which only went away with them. That certainly was not my idea, but long story short it seemed to give her lots of gut issues she is having to deal with now.
I think she should consider getting her stool cultured. My guess is she will have some bad guys in there. One of the things I did, and my wife did was to take a probiotic with bacteriophages in it. The most practical one I found is here:
https://www.lifeextension.com/search#q=bacteriophages&t=coveo4A2453FD
and it is on sale now. I found it gave me an unusual amount of gas for about 2 days, but my wife was more and longer, which I interpreted as the biofilms of bad guys breaking down and causing some gas… It is difficult to rebuild a microbiome as most probiotics are really very limited in scope, and a healthy microbiome should have hundreds of species. Bacteriophages are specific to a few bad guys.
Also don’t be scared of a little soluble fiber… It is not going to cause weight gain, and can assist in gut motility because a healthy gut converts soluble fiber into short chain fatty acids the colonocytes use to power themselves - including motlity. In other words they move things along better, and prevent gas buildup.
Soluble fiber is especially high in fruits. I use organic berries every morning in my goat yogurt. Cruciferous vegees like broccoli are also a good source.
My wife also developed histamine intolerance, and for awhile avoided certain foods high in histamines like avocados and sauerkraut. EBT is right that quercitin is a good histamine blocker, but it has several health benefits, and would certainly be worth trying. My wife did the GAP diet for a bit, and over the long haul I think the occassional bone broth has helped her - but it took awhile. Another good way to help rebuild the mucus layer in the gut is to eat lecithin. Lecithin is high in phosphatidylcholine, which can help rebuild the gut lining. The choline is also very good for brain health.
Severe gut issues
I’ve heard a lot of people who really think choline is great. Every time I hear that, I want to eat more eggs, as they are high in choline. Will have to do that one day.
I have 2 different Quercetins here:
Doublewood Quercetin 1200 mg (I take 1)
Swanson Quercetin and Bromelain 500 mg (I take 2)
They are both good. I don’t know which one is better. Also, I don’t like swallowing things so I usually chew them regardless of the taste and the Quercetins always taste pretty good.
I believe this fits with histamine intolerance. I mentioned back in April the histamine trouble I had doing carnivore over time, particularly with beef. I could handle chicken, lamb, and veal. None of those meats are aged/hung. Interestingly, grass fed beef was the worst. My theory is that it is hung longer than conventional beef because it is tougher, but I don’t have any proof of that.
It is good to hear you figured out something and how much better your wife is feeling.
I saw a substack article about the fats in beef versus lamb also. The fats in lamb tend to be more odd-chain saturated fats, while the fats in beef tend to be more even-chain fats. This could - theoretically - mean lower inflammation, as the odd-chain saturated fats tend to lower inflammation better than the even-chain ones do.
This is a ridiculously hard calculation, though, because it’s really tough to tell what you’re actually eating and how that affects you.
@VirginiaEdie How did you know that you were having issues with histamine intolerance?
I discovered I had some histamine trouble when I first started keto. I was eating a lot of histamine containing foods. My eyes would water, I would get air hunger, I would get itchy, and I would get heart palpitations. Taking an antihistamine would help all those symptoms. Once I cut back on histamine containing foods, those symptoms pretty much went away.
About five months into carnivore, is when my histamine intolerance really started getting worse. When I started reacting to beef, I would get all those same symptoms, plus I also got the cramping and explosive diarrhea. According to the research I did on histamine intolerance, digestive troubles can also be symptoms.
As a result of the research, I added vitamin C containing foods back to my diet and low and behold, within a week or two, I was able to tolerate beef again. I haven’t had any problems since, except with grass fed beef. Grass fed beef makes me itchy.
I still get histamine trouble on occasion, especially if meat has been in the fridge a little too long. However it is nothing like when I was at the tail end of my carnivore trial. I don’t believe it was food poisoning or a virus because the problem only occurred with beef (but not veal, veal is not aged.) I did wonder if the problem had been caused by being bitten by a tick, but again, once I added vitamin C back in, the problem went away. That would not have been the case if it was alpha-gal.
Interesting, it seems like you did well to figure out what it was.
I’ve been testing taking Vitamin C, mainly because I have very high Lp(a), and there’s some evidence that Vitamin C helps drop that level. (Though I should note no evidence that dropping that level is beneficial.)
@VirginiaEdie Thx for relating your experience with beef vs other meats. This was most helpful. It fits in with my wife’s experience so far with lamb vs beef.
And just an addendum, I can eat the same beef and experience no issues. My wife however, will have the same symptoms you mentioned from the beef. On lamb she is doing so much better. Thankyou.