The Mysterious Stomach Issue that Kept Gordon Ryan From Competing for a Year

How many more years do you think that you can maintain this level of dedication? Have you thought about this? Yeah So it's all number one pending my health particularly my stomach, which is like maybe 70% better now. That's amazing like The last podcast I told you like I literally have no idea what we talked about at all besides me telling you that I was nauseous I was you're trying out. I was so nauseous. I was just like come on fucking tell everybody what happens Well, what happened was you got staph infection that note hensos in New York City was notorious for giving people staff That basement because it got no sunlight It was down there and you got a bunch of savages out there strangling each other sweating in this puddle and it just got funky Right and so you got bad staph. So I had recurring staph infections in 2018 and then I was taking oral antibiotics and it just wiped out everything in my stomach like all the good bacteria everything and then I had what ended up being a fungal overgrowth a massive fungal overgrowth in my small intestine and A huge bacterial imbalance in my stomach and then H. Pylori which I had But it was misdiagnosis gastroparesis because I did a stomach emptying test Where you eat like radioactive eggs and they scan your stomach every X amount of like every half hour to see how it moves through the stomach and I was emptying slow and So they misdiagnosed as gastroparesis I still have people message me every single day who like are catching up on the podcast like man I just saw Joe come what you did for your gastroparesis. I'm like, I don't fucking have gastroparesis But uh, they misdiagnosed it after like four years. I went to like all the best doctors in the country and They're just useless like they just oh we'll do an endoscopy. I had one guy do a colonoscopy and Like yeah, you look fine And I was like, okay. Well if I can't get these doctors to To figure it out. I guess I'm just gonna deal with it Hopefully it'll get better and then it just got worse as time went on because the fungal overgrowth just started getting worse and worse and then it was like affecting my kidney function and it was like awful and then I had a like partially I took a leave of absence I guess I like retired from grappling from a year because I couldn't even like function as a human being never mind like I Couldn't even like hold the conversation. I was so nauseous all the time and Then we're doing the podcast and I was like traveling I was like looking at houses in Austin because he convinced me to move to Austin and I was here like eating restaurant food Like three days before and we went to the podcast and I was like fuck I came and talk right now But uh, cuz you used to have to eat very bland food Yeah, but even even even I would just wake up like 24-7 nauseous like the best way I can describe it is The worst hangover you ever had like where you want to throw up to feel better, but you can't that's like my baseline and then it gets worse from there and then like imagine you go to training and Like now picture you have the worst hangover you've ever had and you have to run a marathon 30 minutes later Like the more tired you get the worse it gets So then I was like, yeah, I just I can't do this anymore And then somehow like the stars aligned and actually his doctor in California because he had some bad stomach problems He's like you got to go to dr. Rabar and in in California And I saw him and he's like, yeah, I don't think you have gastroparesis. I think you just have Something in your small intestines, which is backing up into your stomach and causing like a bile and food backup And that's why you're emptying slowly and it's mimicking get gastroparesis So he did a bunch of tests that no one's ever done and like my levels are like way off Like one of the things was like normal was between like zero and five and then high was like Like over five or over ten and my level is like 555. It was just like like 50 times of what I was supposed to be so he uh, so I've been on this treatment now for a year a year in October and I'm like 70 75% better now. I can actually hold the conversation. I can eat food. I can like do shit And now I'm competing again But uh, so are there cases in like medical literature that talk about people taking high levels of antibiotics? Over because you took it over a 12 month period right you constantly on antibiotics Yeah, because so basically you take the antibiotics and it wipes out the the good bacteria in your stomach and Then your immune system is trying to fix that so then your immune system is low It's not as strong as it usually is and you're training on training all the time so I'm always just run down and then you get staph again and then you take more antibiotics and Then it wipes out your stomach even worse So then your immune system on overdrive trying to fix it and then you get staph again So you just it's like a cycle where you just keep getting staph and keep fucking up your immune system in your stomach So there was probably like a year period from like 2018 to 2019 Where I think I was on antibiotics more than I wasn't I would like get staph and be like on 10 days two weeks of of medicine and then Three days later I'd have staph again and I go back on antibiotics like it was just miserable And for anybody who's never taken antibiotics and tried to work out. It's it just drains you it just kills you You've no cardio you have nothing So then I started using Hibic cleanse In the shower when I would train it's like the soap that they use to wash their hands before surgery It's like a super strong soap and that that helped a lot and then I met his doctor Dr. Abar and Now that I'm getting better I hardly ever get staph I get like maybe like once every six months Do you use defense hope I don't know John was skeptical of that But it's because he hasn't seen the research on it like defense. Hope is fucking legit Yeah, and the good thing about it is it doesn't kill any of the bad bacteria or the good bacteria Yeah, that's the thing with Hibic cleanse that works out everything. That's not good But uh, I'll try defense So because like there was like a point where if I didn't use if I was like on the mats and I didn't use Hibic Cleanse I was guaranteed to get staph. I will have them send it to you. Okay, but My friend guy Sacco who runs a company He created it because wrestlers like they were working with wrestlers and they were all getting staph And so he did all this research into various essential oils and things that are good for healthy bacteria But kill off bad bacteria. So it's got like eucalyptus oil and tea tree oil and it also smells good It's only soap I use I'm gonna try use it every day, but it just it stopped for me It stopped all staph ringworm. I was getting all the time I got what not not all the time, but I got to I got staph twice and I got ringworm probably three or four times So it was annoying as fuck. I don't get it at all and I wasn't getting it at all when I was using it on a daily Basis, it's just it also it's just like it smells good. It's it's just bad like regular soap But yeah, and they have wipes They have all kinds of shit that you like they have stuff that like even if you can't get to a shower immediately They have these wipes that look like those butt wipes. Yeah, and just fucking clean yourself off with them But yeah, I definitely have to try that but to your original point of how long I'm gonna compete for right So but we keep going on with that so what did they do to how did he what it was the medication so to fix that so I just got he just got like got to my house to do this show and He's like what are all these fucking pills? I literally have like 30 pill bottles that I have to take twice a day and it's just a combination of like over-the-counter stuff To help me. There's like nothing that's in there. That's a that's prescription, but he gave me I'm on a strong oral antifungal I first I did a first I treated the H. Pylori And then I'm on a strong antifungal and then all just like immune and like gut supporting medicines that just take time to rebuild the gut bacteria and flush out the Fungus and the and the bad the bad bacteria So I know we talked about this before in the last time But what is you have you ever said, you know? I'm gonna take like a month and just do some serious hardcore fasting and see if that helps So I did do the fasting. It wasn't my choice. I just literally couldn't eat But I did I did try to do probably about three weeks of fasting and It just it didn't help. I think that I I needed the medicine The first success I had was when you introduced me to Brigham with the ways to well So they gave me you know a bunch of stuff which increased my appetite a lot and was helping I was able to because my main thing is keeping weight on and gaining size I'm like a very big but I'm a small heavyweight So I'm I Depending on my stomach. I'd be 205 You know one day and then I have a good month and then I'm 225 230 then I'm back to 210 I might wait would fluctuate based on how much I could eat. So they they put me on this regimen and They gave me you know a bunch of stuff that increased my appetite So I got super big but I was still getting nauseous so it didn't like fix the problem I could eat more but then I would just be nauseous after So then I was using a combination of the ways to well stuff with his doctor and now Their stuff makes me more hungry and I can actually eat food now So my everything's getting a little better I feel like I used to just eat like two eggs and I would just feel like sitting in my stomach It just wouldn't filter down. Hmm So I would just be carrying food all day long and then I'm trying to force feed myself to keep the weight on and They actually did a test and they're like, yeah, you're you're not only can you not eat But your body's only absorbing like 60% of the food that you actually do eat So I was eating like 10 times less than I was supposed to and then just not absorbing half of it So it's just like a total disaster. How much longer do you have to be on all this medication? Well, I have a I have to do I have to do a retest like this week I have to take a like a pee test and some blood work and then I'm gonna do a meeting with him on September 20th right after ADCC and then he's gonna tell me where to go from there we have to see what my levels are but uh I'm sure he's gonna keep me on a lot of the stuff It's just like overall stuff to like help promote digestion and an overall stomach function But I'm just listening to what he says because everything you said so far has been accurate