SIBO Treatment in Huntington Beach, CA

The small intestine is built to absorb, not to host a heavy ferment. When bacteria there break down carbohydrates, gas can build under the ribs within an hour or two of eating. You may look pregnant by evening, belch, or swing between diarrhea and constipation.

That pattern is the concept behind SIBO. It is not a verdict you can make from bloating alone. Dr. Sani Kohen, D.C. and Dr. Tara Kohen, D.C. ask what you ate, how soon symptoms started, and whether an antibiotic, a stomach bug, or abdominal surgery came first.

SIBO breath testing measures gases in your breath after a sugar drink. Lactulose is not absorbed early, so it travels farther down the intestine. A rise can reflect the small bowel, and it can also reflect fermentation once the drink reaches the colon, which is why timing is part of the reading.

Glucose is absorbed higher up, so it mainly challenges the upper small intestine and can miss a problem farther down. Neither sugar is a better test for every person. FRI chooses with you, then reads the graph next to symptoms. A number without a story is not a plan.

A positive breath test in someone who bloats after meals is a different situation from a positive test in someone who feels well. FRI does not treat the printout as the patient. Constipation, diarrhea, and upper abdominal swelling point the plan in different directions.

Stool testing answers a colon question, not this one. The gut health overview explains when GI-MAP is the better first step. If food reactions dominate the history, that is yet another page. Stacking tests without a reason is how people end up confused.

In Functional Medicine, some people feel better when fermentable carbohydrates are reduced for a while. Others get worse if the diet becomes so narrow that they under-eat. Nutrition and supplementation is built around what you tolerate and what the test showed. There is no herbal antibiotic dose on this page, and no brand protocol.

Functional medicine at FRI does not replace a primary physician, endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, or mental health clinician. Weight loss you did not intend, bleeding, or vomiting needs medical care. A breath test does not rule those out.

You can start with a complimentary 20-minute consultation. The office is out of network, accepts HSA and FSA payment, and provides a superbill. Visits run Monday–Thursday, 9–6.

If a breath test is ordered, you follow a prep diet and a collection schedule. Results are reviewed with your symptom timing. Any food change is revisited, not handed down as a permanent menu.

Board sports and volleyball show up as shoulder pain and knee pain. Walking the soft sand and standing in a retail or clinic shift show up as plantar fasciitis and hip pain. Neck symptoms after the drive are worth separating from a shoulder problem, which is why a visit for an arm complaint still includes the neck. Neurodynamic testing is how we check whether a nerve is mechanosensitive rather than guessing from the ZIP code.

Not every Huntington Beach patient is an athlete. Sleep, reflux, and cycle symptoms come in from the same households. Those visits use Functional Medicine tools such as a thyroid panel or GI-MAP when the history supports the test. We do not order a kitchen-sink panel to look thorough. You can read the city overview on the Huntington Beach chiropractor page.

FRI is out of network. Huntington Beach patients commonly use HSA or FSA cards and submit a superbill. Ask your plan what it does with out-of-network chiropractic and lab work before you assume a number. Lab tests, when they are ordered, are a separate cost from the visit. We will tell you what we want to order and why before you are committed to it.

The evaluation is the product. You should leave knowing what we think is going on, what we are not worried about, and what you are supposed to do before the next visit. If the honest answer is that another clinician is the better next step, that is the plan. Drs. Sani and Tara Kohen both see patients here. Their training is described on the about page, and the building is shown on the office page.

Huntington Beach lives on the water in a different way than the harbor cities. Downtown and the pier, Bolsa Chica, Seacliff, and Huntington Harbour each produce a different week. Surfing, beach volleyball, and long walks on the sand load the feet, knees, and low back. A desk job inland, or a shift that ends with PCH traffic, loads the neck. We ask about that sequence because a shoulder that hurts after a dawn patrol is not examined the same way as a shoulder that hurts after a day at a laptop. The sand itself matters: barefoot time on an unstable surface changes what we look at in a gait exam.

The drive is the other half of the week. Getting from Main Street or from the harbour to south county is a real trip, about 22 miles, often 30 to 45 minutes on the 405 south to the 73. People who make it have usually decided they want an exam that lasts longer than a lunch break. If you are closer to a high-volume office on Beach Boulevard and you still drive inland, say so. It helps us understand what you already tried.