“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”—Sharon Begley.

So back to the medical library. Here I discovered a little known paper from 1976 by one Michael D. Levitt where he wrote about a very flatulent man. He theorized that something happened to this guy’s gut flora such that they became overzealous gas producers (a condition that today would be called an intestinal dysbiosis). It now seemed that it somehow happened to me, too.

Anyway, it seemed that a potential therapy might be to suppress the bacteria with an antibiotic. So I tried a course of metronidazole. Within a few days, I noticed my tongue was covered in white fuzz. It was initially diagnosed as thrush, and I was put on Nystatin. Now you are about to see how logic can be thrown off by emotion in a big way. Concerned about the confluence of all these symptoms, I posted a query on the Internet. One “doctor” had responded and proposed AIDS. Despite the obvious impossibility of such a diagnosis, I proceeded to having an AIDS test done.

A second look at my tongue revealed the correct diagnosis: hairy tongue. For once, I have something in a medical textbook. It was obviously a side effect of the metronidazole and quickly dissipated once I stopped it.

But did it help with the gas? No, it had not.

At this point, I had done a prolonged breath hydrogen study done, and it showed my peak level at 160 ppm, which is way beyond normal. Thus, it seemingly confirmed the hypothesis that I had the same condition as Dr. Levitt’s patient.