Gordon Ryan had to take a leave of absence from competition – effectively retiring from BJJ for a short period of time – due to an unknown stomach issue. But, what was the actual problem?
How did Gordon become sick and why did it take so long for him to get back on track? He explained it all on the recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show.
Namely, he contracted a staph infection back in 2018, which has been an ongoing problem ever since. And the way he battled staph was through antibiotics… Which he used to take almost non-stop for over a year.
That amount of antibiotics wiped out everything in his stomach. Both the bad and the good bacteria:
And it ended up being a massive fungal growth in my small intestine, a huge bacterial imbalance in my stomach… It was misdiagnosed as a gastroparesis.
Gordon’s been going to all the best doctors in the USA for 4 years, but was unable to find a solution to his stomach issue:
And I was like, okay… If I can’t use these doctors to figure it out, I’ll just deal with it and hope that it’ll become better.
But it just got worse over time, because the fungal growth kept getting worse and worse. And it was affecting my kidney function, it was just awful.
That’s the reason why he briefly retired from grappling. For, in his own words, Gordon was unable to even hold a conversation:
I was 24/7 nauseous. The best way that I can describe is – the worst hangover you ever had. Like, you want to throw up to feel better, but you can’t… That was my baseline.
And imagine you go to training, with the worse hangover you’ve ever had. And then you have to run a marathon, 30 minutes later. So, the more tired you get – the worse it gets.
Luckily enough, Mo Jassim recommended Gordon to visit his doctor, who was able to understand that he didn’t have gastroparesis.
Today, Gordon feels 75% better than he used to be:
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